• Debian New Maintainers' Guide [http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/]
• Debian Policy Manual [http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/maint-guide/]
• Machine-readable debian/copyright file [http://dep.debian.net/deps/dep5/]
• DebSrc 3.0 guidelines [https://wiki.debian.org/Projects/DebSrc3.0]

$ dpkg-buildpackage -d -tc
  -d   # do not check build dependencies and conflicts.
  -tc  # clean source tree when finished.

$ date -R

One can also install devscripts package and run:

$ dch -i

$ dpkg -c *.deb
$ lintian *.deb

Make it perfect!