Deconstructing the Editorial and Production Workflow Bill Kasdorf

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1 Deconstructing the Editorial and Production Workflow Bill Kasdorf Vice President, Apex Content Solutions General Editor, The Columbia Guide to Digital Publishing Metadata Subgroup Lead, EPUB 3.0 & WG Chair, BISG Content Structure Committee

2 We all know what the stages of the editorial and production workflow are. Design. Copyediting. Typesetting. Artwork. Indexing. Quality Control. Ebook Creation. Ummm....

3 They re usually done in silos. Which are hard to see into, and are starting to break down.

4 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?

5 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.

6 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.

7 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.

8 Let s deconstruct two key workflow stages to see what options there are for optimizing them.

9 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?

10 Copyediting Editing in Word? Who cleans up the author s messy MS files? Who normalizes the styling? Who designs The those copyeditor? styles in the first place? Who The project checks or all production the links to editor? figures, tables, cross references, notes? Dedicated in-house file prep team? Who actually does the intellectual work? Outsourced to vendor? How do the files get trafficked? Normalizing? What about version What s control? that?

11 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 They all need the links to beto figures, tables, aligned cross with references, your XML markup notes? Who and actually easy to does use the by the intellectual copyeditor. work? How do the files get trafficked? What about version control?

12 Copyediting The copyeditor? An Editing editorial in assistant? Word? Who cleans The up the editorial author s vendor? messy MS files? Who normalizes The typesetter? the styling? Who designs those Software? 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?

13 Copyediting Editing in Word? Who cleans up the author s messy MS files? In-house copyeditor? Who normalizes the styling? Freelance copyeditor? Who designs those styles in the first place? An editorial service? Who checks all the links to figures, tables, Full-service cross references, comp vendor? notes? Who actually does the intellectual work? Copyediting How do the files... yeah, get trafficked? I remember What when about we used version to do control? that.

14 Copyediting Editing in Word? Who cleans up the author s messy MS files? Who normalizes the styling? files, named whatever.... Who designs those styles in the first place? Consistent file naming, FTP, transmittals. Who checks all the links to figures, Digital tables, Asset cross Management references, System notes? (DAM). Who Content actually Management does the intellectual System (CMS). work? How do the files get trafficked? What about version control?

15 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?

16 Typesetting Who determines the tags or style names? How do Freelance the editing designer, styles translate ad hoc? to comp? Compositor s Who does the own artwork? system? How are Publisher s figures, tables, system? etc. placed? Are links preserved XML? or implemented? How do the files get trafficked? What about version control?

17 Typesetting Who determines the tags or style names? How do the editing styles translate to comp? Who They does the don t. artwork? How are The figures, typesetter tables, does etc. it, placed? Are we links don t preserved know what or implemented? they do. Word How styles do the imported files get into trafficked? InDesign. Programmatic What about version transforms control? to XML.

18 Typesetting Who determines the tags or style names? How do the editing The author. styles Sorta. translate to comp? Who does the artwork? How are figures, tables, etc. placed? Then we fix it in-house. Are links preserved or implemented? We send it to an art studio. How do the files get trafficked? The typesetter fixes it. What about version control? We make the author fix it. It depends....

19 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 Manually preserved based or on implemented? callouts How marked do the files by copyeditor. get trafficked? What Automatically about version from control? XML in Typefi, 3B2.

20 Typesetting Who determines Nope. the tags or style names? How do the The editing typesetter styles adds translate them. to comp? We put them Who in does when the we artwork? make the ebook. How are Yes, figures, they re tables, in the etc. XML. placed? Are links preserved or implemented? How do the files get trafficked? What about version control?

21 Typesetting Who determines the tags or style names? files, named whatever.... How do the editing styles translate to comp? Consistent file naming, FTP, transmittals. Who does the artwork? Digital Asset Management System (DAM). How are figures, tables, etc. placed? Content Management System (CMS). Are links preserved or implemented? How do the files get trafficked? What about version control? Sound familiar?

22 DECONSTRUCTING CONTENT MANAGEMENT Document Management Digital Asset Management (DAM) Workflow Management Web Content Management XML Content Management XML Repository Management Enterprise Content Management All of the Above

23 COMPONENT MANAGEMENT The more granular, the better?

24 Don t get carried away. There s work required to manage all the bits.

25 THOUGHTFUL GRANULARITY What are the pieces you need to: SELL? RE-ARRANGE? REUSE? RENDER? FIND?

26 THOUGHTFUL GRANULARITY What are the pieces you need to: SELL? RE-ARRANGE? REUSE? RENDER? FIND? Typically maintained as separate components.

27 THOUGHTFUL GRANULARITY What are the pieces you need to: Best managed via metadata and markup. SELL? RE-ARRANGE? REUSE? RENDER? FIND? Typically maintained as separate components.

28 Thanks! Bill Kasdorf

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