Over the past 30 years, book publishing has been transformed from a purely physical to a fully digital process. However, the key elements of the pipeline remain the same: An author hands off a manuscript to an editor who, after multiple exchanges back and forth, hands the corrected manuscript to a compositor who, using a template created by a graphic designer, lays out the content. Books with illustrations need an iconographer and/or graphic designer to select or create illustrations. The compositor creates proofs for authors and the editor to check and revise, and updates the content and layout accordingly. The final approved version is sent to the printer, which involves more back-and-forth exchanges to create the PDF-for-press version. Each participant uses different software––authors use text editors, designers use graphic design tools, compositors use layout tools and printers use PDF manipulation tools––and all changes must be propagated throughout the pipeline.
Digital publishing generates additional output formats, such as ePub and HTML, which introduce new constraints, such as accommodating variable-size windows. Each format requires a separate production pipeline, involving additional experts and specialized tools. Recent legislation adds further complexity, such as the European Accessibility Act's mandate that all textbook illustrations include full text descriptions to accommodate visually impaired readers.
The current state of digital publishing raises several key challenges:
- The constant transformation of the content's format at each stage of the pipeline impedes collaboration between authors and production staff. Producing a digital facsimile is the only way to share a state of the current work in progress. For example, an author's or editor's hand-written corrections on a PDF version must be re-entered manually by the compositor, potentially introducing errors or major layout problems.
- Some books, especially textbooks, have stringent page limits. Because authors cannot see a correction's effect on the layout until a new proof is produced, they rarely consider formatting trade-offs and may need multiple discussions to find a suitable solution.
- Creating multiple output formats is not only cumbersome and time-consuming, but also error-prone, since each new format risks generating content that is out of sync with other content.
- Publishers often rely on proprietary software and formats that need specialized tools and expertise. This locks them into restrictive workflows that cannot easily handle new output formats, such as transforming a print book's static images into videos or interactive elements for the HTML version.
