"before the publication" is a correct and usable phrase in written English.
For example, you can use it in the sentence: "The author made several revisions before the publication of her book."
Keep speaking French as before, the publication urged.
He was beheaded in 1649, four years, not five, before the publication of "The Compleat Angler".
In 2013, before the publication of my fourth novel, I met with a stylist at Nordstrom.
Still, Ripert admitted that, just before the publication of a new guide, he gets nervous.
Two weeks before the publication of "Prey," the signs are auspicious.
Before the publication of his acclaimed novel Midnight's Children, Rushdie worked as an advertising copywriter.
[This before the publication of "Lolita".] · Because she was his encyclopedia, if ever he forgot anything.
That came just 14 days before the publication of the Leveson report last November.
There needs to be a big rethink on this before the publication of the white paper.
Over a million quotations were collected before the publication of the dictionary's first installment.
Four more volumes of poetry appeared before the publication of Collected Poems (1958).
