Maybe wait a little longer? In my experience it takes about a half to two days for a new module to show up on the CPAN index.

Anyway, I don't use META.yaml (AFAIK it gets automatically created by the cpan site). what I do is use CVS and put this in my modules:

our $VERSION = sprintf("%d.%03d", '$Name:  $' =~ /(\d+)_(\d+)/,0,0);
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And this in my Makefile.PLs:

WriteMakefile(
#    ...
    'VERSION_FROM'      => 'Module.pm' # filename to get version from
#    ...
);
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Then when I want to make a release, I tag the tree with a version number and some optional stuff:

> cvs tag v1_23-some-extra-info-that-gets-ignored
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and run my release.sh script:

#!/bin/sh

BUILDDIR=/tmp
MODULE=my-distibution-name

if [ ! -n "$1" ]; then
    echo "Use 'release.sh TAGNAME' to make a release";
    exit 1;
fi

cd $BUILDDIR && rm -rf $MODULE &&
cvs export -r $1 $MODULE &&
cd $MODULE &&
perl Makefile.PL && make distcheck && make test && make dist && echo "
+All done"
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and presto! The "$Name: $" string in Module.pm will be replaced by "$Name: v1_23-some-extra-info-that-gets-ignored $" and will I have a working release tar ball in my /tmp/ directory.

By the way: the $Name: $ substitution only works if you check out the tree with the given tag name. One of the reasons for the release.sh script is that I used to forget that.