Ebooks: promises and pitfalls, with guest Laura Brady

Ebook production expert Laura Brady suggests ways you need to think about ebook design and creation to produce reliable and good-looking results

This podcast is for anyone who is thinking of creating ebooks or hiring an ebook designer, or who has seen the ads for “ebooks made easy!” and is thinking, well, how hard could it be? Topics include:

problems of ebook conversion (especially if you are using Word)
there are lots of cheap ebook creators out there; are they safe?
how do I plan my pbook design knowing that it will become an ebook (hint: consider avoiding drop caps!)
what kinds of fonts work with ebooks? do I need to license them?
what are the big issues that ebook creators are discussing these days: Kindle, design, and the future of the spec
why spend a lot of time “designing” an ebook when users can just change your font and typography at the push of a button?
will the ebook market continue to grow?
if ebooks win do print books lose? and vice versa
are better dedicated ebook readers on the way?

Links mentioned in the podcast

https://twitter.com/hashtag/eprdctn: a very active Twitter group where you can find professionals and experts in ebook production

https://github.com/FriendsOfEpub/Blitz: for the technically competent, ebook formatting solutions

https://fonts.google.com/: Google’s webfont repository

https://www.monotype.com/: the Monotype font foundy

https://reedsy.com/: “A full ecosystem for authors and publishing professionals”

Sorry for some of the audio quality in the early minutes of the interview!

Laura Brady is the manager of Cross-Media for the House of Anansi Press in Toronto. Until recently she ran a conversion house working with a broad range of small- and medium-sized publishers to manage their digital publishing. Laura is also on the steering committee of ebookcraft – a major conference devoted to ebook production -- and the editor-in-chief of EPUB Secrets—the world’s best resource for all things EPUB. Her Twitter handle is @LauraB7.

Peter Goodman (host) is publisher of Stone Bridge Press in Berkeley, California. He began his publishing career in Tokyo, Japan, in 1976. A longtime member of IBPA, he has served on the IBPA board and as IBPA board chair.