A fantastic post about ebook publishing!

I just read an excellent post by Emma Wright called “Nine truths about e-book publishing” on the FutureBook blog. Not all of this list applies to self-publishers, but it wouldn't hurt to read every item to understand why these things matter.

Some points that really struck me were:

• An ebook isn't limited by the things that limit print, like page count and the cost per page for color pictures. This is so true and yet it's easy to forget it.
• You absolutely have to proof your ebooks! Yes, yes, yes! Converting from Word or scanning print pages can introduce errors that were not there before. This kind of workflow can result in hyphens in words that don't need it, or two or three words run together with no spaces or any number of things. And yes, it is worth it to check every major device or app.
• Metadata matters! If you don't identify the book correctly as to author, publisher, ISBN, etc., in the metadata tagging, then it won't show up on searches for those fields.
• Expect change! This is a great point.  Don't get enamored of doing things only one way because something better could come along any minute.

According to her bio, Emma Wright is a publishing production pro as well as a blogger. I can believe it!