Chainani first had the idea of The School for Good and Evil in June 2010 while finishing the development of his first feature film, Love Marriage, as director. He began working on a treatment as a screenplay but realized it had to be a novel. When Chainani was working with producer Jane Startz on an adaptation of The Pushcart War, he presented the idea of The School for Good and Evil which she dubbed books. In the United States, the book was published on May 14, 2013, while in the United Kingdom, it was published on June 6 of the same year. On The New York Times Best Seller list, the book debuted at #7 within the first week of its publication.
