Bill Kasdorf
Vice President, Apex Content Solutions
General Editor, The Columbia Guide to Digital Publishing Metadata Subgroup Lead, EPUB 3.0 & 3.0.1 WG
Chair, BISG Content Structure Committee
Deconstructing
the Editorial and
We all know what the stages of the editorial and production workflow are.
Design. Copyediting. Typesetting. Artwork. Indexing. Quality Control. Ebook Creation. Ummm. . . .
They’re usually done in silos. Which are hard to see into, and are starting to break down.
Thinking of these stages in the traditional way leads to suboptimization. In today’s digital ecosystem we need to deconstruct them
in order to optimize: Who does what?
At what stage(s) of the workflow? How to best manage the process?
Who Does What? Do it in-house?
Outsource it? Automate it?
You can’t answer these questions properly without deconstructing the categories.
And the answers differ from publisher to publisher.
At What Stage(s) of the Workflow? How do these aspects intersect?
How do you avoid duplication and rework? How do you get out of “loopy QC”?
Getting the right things right upstream eliminates a lot of headaches downstream.
How Best to Manage the Process?
Balancing predictability and creativity: where to be strict, and where to be flexible?
How can systems and standards help? Buy vs. build vs. wing it?
Your systems, partners, and processes
should make it easy for you to do the right work and keep you from doing the wrong work.
Let’s deconstruct
two key workflow stages to see what options there are
Copyediting Editing in Word?
Who cleans up the author’s messy MS files? Who “normalizes” the styling?
Who designs those styles in the first place? Who checks all the links to figures,
tables, cross references, notes?
Who actually does the intellectual work? How do the files get trafficked?
Copyediting Editing in Word?
Who cleans up the author’s messy MS files? Who “normalizes” the styling?
Who designs those styles in the first place? Who checks all the links to figures,
tables, cross references, notes?
Who actually does the intellectual work? How do the files get trafficked?
What about version control?
The copyeditor?
The project or production editor? Dedicated in-house file prep team?
Outsourced to vendor? “Normalizing? What’s that?”
Copyediting Editing in Word?
Who cleans up the author’s messy MS files? Who “normalizes” the styling?
Who designs those styles in the first place? Who checks all the links to figures,
tables, cross references, notes?
Who actually does the intellectual work? How do the files get trafficked?
What about version control? They need to be
aligned with your XML markup and easy to use by the copyeditor.
Copyediting Editing in Word?
Who cleans up the author’s messy MS files? Who “normalizes” the styling?
Who designs those styles in the first place? Who checks all the links to figures,
tables, cross references, notes?
Who actually does the intellectual work? How do the files get trafficked?
What about version control?
The copyeditor? An editorial assistant?
The editorial vendor? The typesetter?
Copyediting Editing in Word?
Who cleans up the author’s messy MS files? Who “normalizes” the styling?
Who designs those styles in the first place? Who checks all the links to figures,
tables, cross references, notes?
Who actually does the intellectual work? How do the files get trafficked?
What about version control?
In-house copyeditor? Freelance copyeditor?
An editorial service?
Full-service comp vendor?
“Copyediting . . . yeah, I remember when we used to do that.”
Copyediting Editing in Word?
Who cleans up the author’s messy MS files? Who “normalizes” the styling?
Who designs those styles in the first place? Who checks all the links to figures,
tables, cross references, notes?
Who actually does the intellectual work? How do the files get trafficked?
What about version control?
Email files, named whatever. . . .
Consistent file naming, FTP, transmittals.
Digital Asset Management System (DAM). Content Management System (CMS).
Typesetting
Who determines the tags or style names? How do the editing styles translate to comp?
Who does the artwork?
How are figures, tables, etc. placed? Are links preserved or implemented?
How do the files get trafficked? What about version control?
Typesetting
Who determines the tags or style names? How do the editing styles translate to comp?
Who does the artwork?
How are figures, tables, etc. placed? Are links preserved or implemented?
How do the files get trafficked? What about version control?
Freelance designer, ad hoc? Compositor’s own system?
Publisher’s system? XML?
Typesetting
Who determines the tags or style names? How do the editing styles translate to comp?
Who does the artwork?
How are figures, tables, etc. placed? Are links preserved or implemented?
How do the files get trafficked? What about version control?
“They don’t.”
“The typesetter does it, we don’t know what they do.”
Word styles imported into InDesign.
Typesetting
Who determines the tags or style names? How do the editing styles translate to comp?
Who does the artwork?
How are figures, tables, etc. placed? Are links preserved or implemented?
How do the files get trafficked? What about version control?
“Then we fix it in-house.”
“We send it to an art studio.”
“The typesetter fixes it.” “We make the author fix it.”
“It depends. . . .” “The author. Sorta.”
Typesetting
Who determines the tags or style names? How do the editing styles translate to comp?
Who does the artwork?
How are figures, tables, etc. placed? Are links preserved or implemented?
How do the files get trafficked? What about version control?
Manually based on callouts marked by copyeditor.
Automatically from XML in
Typesetting
Who determines the tags or style names? How do the editing styles translate to comp?
Who does the artwork?
How are figures, tables, etc. placed? Are links preserved or implemented?
How do the files get trafficked? What about version control?
“Nope.”
“The typesetter adds them.”
“We put them in when we make the ebook.” “Yes, they’re in the XML.”
Typesetting
Who determines the tags or style names? How do the editing styles translate to comp?
Who does the artwork?
How are figures, tables, etc. placed? Are links preserved or implemented?
How do the files get trafficked? What about version control?
Email files, named whatever. . . .
Consistent file naming, FTP, transmittals.
Digital Asset Management System (DAM). Content Management System (CMS).
DECONSTRUCTING
CONTENT MANAGEMENT Document Management
Digital Asset Management (DAM) Workflow Management
Web Content Management XML Content Management XML Repository Management Enterprise Content Management
COMPONENT MANAGEMENT The more granular, the better?
Don’t get carried away. There’s work required to manage all the bits.
THOUGHTFUL GRANULARITY What are the pieces you need to:
SELL?
RE-ARRANGE? REUSE?
RENDER? FIND?
THOUGHTFUL GRANULARITY What are the pieces you need to:
SELL? RE-ARRANGE? REUSE? RENDER? FIND? Typically maintained as separate components.
THOUGHTFUL GRANULARITY What are the pieces you need to:
SELL? RE-ARRANGE? REUSE? RENDER? FIND? Typically maintained as separate components. Best managed via metadata and markup.
