How I Built an Automated Ebook Production Toolchain (and You Can Too!) Nellie McKesson, Macmillan Publishers
Transcript
How I Built an Automated Ebook
Production Toolchain (and You Can Too!)
Nellie McKesson, Macmillan Publishers
Output fileInput file Somescripts
What is Automation?
EPUBMicrosoft Word InDesign
The Traditional Workflow:
EPUBMicrosoft Word InDesign
In-House External Vendor
The Existing Process:
Make ebooks in house, minimize overhead
💰🕖👥
What's the larger goal? What are the initial requirements? What things might change? What things will always be the same? Is there anything already built that I can use? Who is going to be running the tool?
What’s the larger goal?
Build an automated ebook production tool that can scale
The Requirements
Output fileInput file Trans-formations
EPUBInput file Trans-formations
EPUBInput file 🔓Trans-formations
EPUBMarkup
XML, HTML
🔓Trans-formations
EPUBMarkup
XML, HTML
Non-starter (too much overhead)
🔓Trans-formations
EPUBWord 🔓🔓 Trans-formations
What might change?
Design for volatility
EPUBWord
???Trans-
formations
EPUBWord
??????Trans-
formations
EPUBWord?????????
Trans-formations
🙇
Consistency and
Predictability
<title>ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND <author>Lewis Carroll
<chapter-title>CHAPTER 1. Down the Rabbit-Hole
<text-standard>Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, ‘and what is the use of a book,’ thought Alice ‘without pictures or conversations?’
Tagging, the Old Way
.docx = XML
Styles in Word
EPUBWord??????
Trans-formations
Workflow or
Automation?
EPUBWord Trans-formations
EPUBWord
These transformations always stay the same
Trans-formations
Is there anything already built that I can use?
?
Markup
HTML
HTML = XML
HTML = EPUBHTML = Web
HTML + CSS = Print
HTML = XML
HTML = EPUBHTML = Web
HTML + CSS = Print
HTML = XML
HTML = EPUBHTML = Web
HTML + CSS = Print
HTML = XML
HTML = EPUBHTML = Web
HTML + CSS = Print
HTML = XML
HTML = EPUBHTML = Web
HTML + CSS = Print
We need to standardize
A standard is a set of rules
“HTMLBook is an open, XHTML5-based standard for the authoring and production