How a Next Generation eBook is Made

A funny thing happened while Inkling was trying to redefine the eBook: we found that we also had to redefine publishing. If it takes a tremendous amount of energy, money, and time to produce a single next generation eBook, no one will do it. Is it possible to create tools and processes that can scale publishing these kinds of eBooks? Can we rethink eBook publishing itself?

The Inkling Habitat team, the browser-based publishing software I've been building the last three years, has explored many different avenues towards scaling next generation eBook production. We've explored everything from treating books as software to deeply building distributed collaboration into the authoring and proofing process itself. The Inkling Habitat team has explored some radical directions; some have panned out, others have not. I'm going to explore some of the things we've done in this space over a few blog posts here.

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