diff --git a/RELEASING.md b/RELEASING.md
index 419f723fe328..e9b2d3c2a0f8 100644
--- a/RELEASING.md
+++ b/RELEASING.md
@@ -10,13 +10,15 @@ This script takes an optional argument denoting the new version.  By default, if
 2. Create a PR to update the pom.xml version.
 The PR should look something like [#225](https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/gcloud-java/pull/225).  After this PR is merged into GoogleCloudPlatform/gcloud-java, Travis CI will push a new website to GoogleCloudPlatform/gh-pages, push a new artifact to the Maven Central Repository, and update versions in the README files.
 
-3. Create a release on Github manually.
+3. Before moving on, verify that the artifacts have successfully been pushed to the Maven Central Repository.  To do this, we need to check the Travis CI logs since the artifacts take a couple hours to appear on the Maven Central Repository's website.  Open Travis CI, click the ["Build History" tab](https://travis-ci.org/GoogleCloudPlatform/gcloud-java/builds), and open the second build's logs for Step 2's PR.  Be sure that you are not opening the "Pull Request" build logs; you should not be under the "Pull Requests" tab.  When the build finishes, scroll to the end of the log and verify that the artifacts were successfully staged and deployed.  If the deployment didn't succeed because of a flaky test, the artifact may still have been pushed by the next Travis build, "Updating READMEs."  If both builds failed to deploy the artifacts, rerun the build.
+
+4. Create a release on Github manually.
 Go to the [releases page](https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/gcloud-java/releases) and click "Draft a new release."  Use `vX.Y.Z` as the "Tag Version" and `X.Y.Z` as the "Release Title", where `X.Y.Z` is the release version as listed in the `pom.xml` files.
 
-4. Run `utilities/update_pom_version.sh` again (to include "-SNAPSHOT" in the project version).
+5. Run `utilities/update_pom_version.sh` again (to include "-SNAPSHOT" in the project version).
 As mentioned before, there is an optional version argument.  By default, the script will update the version from "X.Y.Z" to "X.Y.Z+1-SNAPSHOT".  Suppose a different version is desired, for example X+1.0.0-SNAPSHOT.  Then the appropriate command to run would be `utilities/update_pom_version.sh X+1.0.0-SNAPSHOT`.
 
-5. Create and merge in another PR to reflect the updated project version.  For an example of what this PR should look like, see [#227](https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/gcloud-java/pull/227).
+6. Create and merge in another PR to reflect the updated project version.  For an example of what this PR should look like, see [#227](https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/gcloud-java/pull/227).
 
 ### To push a snapshot version