Withdrawing and restoring a title

Withdrawing takes a title off sale without deleting it. The title stays in your workspace. It keeps every sale and statement it earned. It drops out of the places that sell it. You can put it back at any time. Nothing you recorded about the title is lost.

Withdraw or delete

Delete removes the title and everything under it. Withdraw keeps all of it and stops only the selling.

If any royalty history names the title, Pubblish refuses to delete it. Royalty history means sales lines, statement lines, or both. The delete page explains why. It offers Withdraw title instead.

Withdraw when a book goes out of print, when the rights move, or when it has to come down. Delete only when the record itself was a mistake.

Withdrawing a title

The Withdraw button sits in three places, on any title that is not already withdrawn:

  • On the title’s page, in the header beside Edit title.
  • On the title’s edit page, in the same header row.
  • In the More actions menu on a title card, between View and Delete.

All three lead to the same Withdraw title page.

  1. Read the What happens list at the top. It says what withdrawing will and will not do.
  2. Pick a reason under Why is it being withdrawn? if you want one recorded. The choices are Out of print, Withdrawn for legal reasons, Rights transferred and Other. Leave it on Not saying to record none. The reason is optional. It shows on the title’s page afterwards.
  3. Leave the edition checkbox ticked unless you have a reason not to. The checkbox counts the title’s editions. On a title with three, it reads Also mark this title’s 3 editions as Withdrawn. It appears only when the title has at least one edition. It starts ticked. The “Editions” section below explains what it does.
  4. Click Withdraw title. Cancel takes you back to the page you started from.

The title’s page then shows a warning panel headed This title is withdrawn. The panel gives the date and the reason. Restore replaces Withdraw everywhere the button appeared.

What changes when you withdraw

Your generated websites

New website builds and deploys stop adding a page for the title. The title leaves your author, publisher and series book lists. A page you have already published stays up. Each deploy’s sync report names the page and tells you it kept it. To remove it, delete it in the page editor.

Embeds

The book card and buy-button embeds stop resolving for that title. The embed URL returns “not found”.

A smart link for an edition’s ISBN or the title’s slug stops resolving.

Books you build

The Also by this author list leaves the title out. Pubblish prints that list in the back matter (the pages after the story) of a converted book.

The title leaves two Title pickers in Mailing lists:

  • the one on a signup page
  • the one under Announce a title when you start an email

It also leaves the Titles and people results in the Ctrl+K search. A signup page that already points at the title keeps its link.

Your dashboard

The Active titles tile stops counting it.

A flow is the step-by-step publishing plan on a title. Pubblish checks each flow against its target date. A late flow on the title stops appearing in the warnings at the top of your dashboard. The flow itself is untouched. It still sits on the title’s page.

Royalty readiness

The title leaves the Titles with no royalty rate gap on the Before you calculate page. The royalty-rate check on the title’s progress card also stops asking.

The assistant

It no longer finds the title when you ask about your catalog.

What stays the same

  • The title stays in your Titles list, marked with a Withdrawn badge.
  • Sales already recorded are still paid. Statements, sales lines and the royalty calculation all still include the title.
  • It stays in the Titles Catalog report. The report has a Withdrawn column holding the date.
  • The Export page still exports it. It fills in a withdrawn column with the date. The blank import template has no such column, so nothing asks you to type it back in.
  • Editions, contributors, files, contracts, flows and history are untouched.

Editions

Withdrawing the title does not change your editions automatically. The checkbox on the Withdraw title page sets each edition’s Publishing status to Withdrawn.

You can set an edition’s status by hand at any time.

  1. On the title’s edit page, open the Editions tab.
  2. Click the pencil Edit button on the edition’s row.
  3. Set Publishing status in the panel that opens.

Restoring a title

Restore sits wherever Withdraw was: the title’s page header, the edit page header, and the title card’s More actions menu.

  1. Click Restore.
  2. Confirm in the dialog that opens.

Pubblish clears the withdrawal date and the reason. The title goes back into every list it left.

Editions are left alone. The title’s page shows a panel counting the editions still marked Withdrawn. The panel links to each one on the Editions tab. Set those back yourself.

Who can withdraw a title

Anyone who can edit titles can withdraw a title and restore it.

Deleting a title is a separate permission. Only team members who can delete titles see the Delete button.