Kevin Callahan

What is the editor's role in the production of an ebook? How does role of a proofreader change with an ebook? Editor and ebook designer, Kevin Callahan addresses these questions in this second edition of Ebooks and Editors: What You Need to Know.The ebook designer, copyeditor, and proofreader are all on the same team making books for multitudes of readers: travelers picking up a paperback at the airport, library patrons borrowing ebooks, and blind readers using text-to-speech functions in e-reader software. The more understanding they have of each other's roles, the better work they will produce. Editors can help by ensuring the text is well structured and consistent.When working with ebooks, editors need to become familiar with technology and pay attention to unfamiliar details. But the challenges have a big payoff: More people than ever can read a book.Ebooks provide opportunities to make the text clearer and presentation useful in a unique way. The very nature of ebooks allows all readers to adjust size, font, screen orientation, and other features that make reading more accessible for everyone.We want everyone to read when they want to, where they want to, and how they want to.An ebook is a book. When a hardcover novel is reissued in paperback, no one questions if it's the same novel. When it's recorded as an audiobook, we take for granted that the narration is faithful to the print document.Well, an ebook is the same. It transfers content from one format to another. It may have some features added, but the heart of the book is as faithful to the print edition as are paperbacks. There are differences in format and device capability. This booklet will only address reflowable, EPUB-based ebooks.Like their print counterparts, ebooks contain text and images, but they have unique elements: Accessible reading features, including customizable settings via font and size adjustments, contrast enhancements, and fonts for dyslexic readers; embedded image descriptions to enhance text and caption information; several layers and types of contents listings and book navigation; inside-the-book hyperlinked cross references, indexes, footnotes, and endnotes; hyperlinks to external websites; and, audio and video. Not every ebook has all these elements.What is the editor's role in the production of an ebook? How does role of a proofreader change with an ebook? There are of number of things a good editor can do to facilitate a good ebook experience for a reader.While copyediting, an editor is marking head-level hierarchy, bold, italics, and numbered lists; querying the author on language choice; revealing the structure for the designer, typesetter, and ebook developer; and building a stylesheet for the proofreader to check against.If a manuscript you're editing will be published as an ebook (a very likely situation), an editor will be able to do a more complete and universally usable edit if they know what to expect going in. It's helpful to know how an ebook is made, and what pieces it contains.

The Chess Game takes place in the battered, and high crime rate city of Camden, New Jersey. The young mother to be is mistaken about the time of her doctor's appointment which is at 8 PM and not 8 AM. She and the father of the unborn child (named Jude, the Patron Saint of Hopeless Cases and Impossible Tasks, is the narrator of the book) decide to stay in Camden and take in the "Ways" until the evening's appointment. They meet two men on a porch playing chess, or The Chess Game. A king piece is missing. Throughout the story, the chess players, Ruby and Cliff, give them hints as to where the king or Wizard may be hidden on this bloomy day of the 16th of June. A popular expression today is, "there are a lot of Moving Parts." Well, The Chess Game has a lot of "Moving Parts" on the chess board and, more importantly, on the decayed streets of once proud, prosperous, Victor RCA Phonograph, Nipper Dog, Camden. In contrast, across the Delaware River and in view is the high rising sparkling architecture of the downtown business district of Philadelphia, separated from Camden by a few minutes ride on the Benjamin Franklin Bridge. Callahan deftly captures- using Callahanisms magical language, parables, poems, prose and yes, song - the hopelessness of the poor, unemployed, maltreated, and mentally ill of the real people of the street. The downtrodden sometimes dressing and playing acting roles, waiting for the king, I mean The Wizard to make "Ways" right again. They wander the city streets all day and night without shoes, and in their costumes, funny hats, just trying to survive in the dead city of Camden. There is a lack of food but plenty of drugs and alcohol are the bread of life. They are just trying to find their ways. "Your Father, He made the world uneven. Is it the same in Heaven?" Some brave souls, often the spiritual caring, and fearless Clergy, have moved into the bowels of the inner City to help show The Way. The Chess Game will illuminate the minds of people on both sides of our Culture Divide to better understand that no one has a monopoly on righteous thought on Social Justice in our Country. I believe, however, that most readers will agree with Mr. Callahan that much more must be done to solve the social injustice that exists for many people living side by side with prosperity.