Proofreading & Commenting woes

[Schlutek]

Here is the scenario. I work with editors and designers and copyeditors in-house. We have 3 different devices (nook, iPad, & KIndle) to view our ebooks on, as well as Adobe Digital Editions. Each ebook routes to 5+ people, each person reviewing on different devices (some only ADE, some view all 3 ereaders depending what they are reviewing for) My problem is how to best compile those comments? There are no page numbers to reference. No way to review a previous reviewers comments. Currently, we are requesting that the comments include a bit of the sentence so that a "find & replace" can be made to find the edit. We discussed using iPads' highlight/comment/bookmark feature, but since not everyone will be routed the ipad (due to time constraints), it isn't a viable option. Any ideas on how to best compile comments from different people?

[Jellby]

Page numbers should be transferable between readers using the Adobe engine (ADE and Nook in your case). Ideally, one would use chapter and paragraph number. Of course, I wouldn't expect every proofreader to count paragraphs, but maybe you can include paragraph numbers in the text in proofreading versions, and remove them for the final version of the book.

[Giggleton]

I would create one document stored in the cloud that is able to accessed by multiple people simultaneously, then request any comments anyone has to make about the book they are reading to be written into the cloud document.

This document would become a running compilation of the comments. I suppose that a template could be made and tweaked for each individual ebook, with subsections for chapters and things.

[Schlutek]

I should clarify that the books I am converting to ebooks have already been published, so they have already went through an extensive proofreading process. The routings are for the final epub & mobi files. Also, I am exporting InDesign files to epub. Most of the edits that are asked are things like adding a space between words, curl quotes, etc.

giggleton: when you say to create one document, what kind of document? And I apologize as I have a vague understanding of "clouds".

[Schlutek]

giggleton: Or perhaps you mean a central document that reviewers access during the routing? I do see the potential in that! I'm sorry that my brain is a little foggy this morning!

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by Schlutek

giggleton: Or perhaps you mean a central document that reviewers access during the routing? I do see the potential in that! I'm sorry that my brain is a little foggy this morning!

Yes, just a simple word processing document that is stored in the cloud, all the new versions of the popular office suites have the capability for simultaneous network access.

One slowdown in this central document process is the transferring of those bits of text you mention to the central document from the actual epub that the commenter is reading on their device. I'm aware of a Kindle emulator that could be used along with an epub editor to allow for the easy transfer of text to the central document but it can get a bit complicated, especially for the non-technical user.

Although if all your commenters have indesign, I imagine leaving the document open while they read on the device would work, if indesign supports multiple users simultaneously to work on the same document.

I suspect in the near future MS Word and others will begin to support the creation of the epub format and your commenting problems should theoretically be solved, as long as all hardware providers implement the epub standard in precisely the same way.

[Schlutek]

Thanks so much for the idea. Yes, one of the biggest hurdles I have is exactly as you've mentioned - the non-technical user. It's already been a huge hurdle to gain understandings of how to navigate the different ereaders!

[Worldwalker]

As strange as it may be to see Giggleton with a serious and sensible suggestion, he's got a good handle on it. You don't want to try to do the commenting on any of the readers in question -- it should be in one central document, possibly created with Google Docs, that can be accessed by any of the people as necessary from their computers. They'll have a much easier time doing the commenting, and whoever is assembling the final file will have it right there to work from.

[Penforhire]

This might be another good use for Microsoft's OneNote. In theory, the original text and everyone's comments can be maintained in a shared notebook (on your server or on a cloud). I am at risk for sounding evangelical about OneNote these days...

[5thWiggle]

The Nook and the Kindle as well as the Kobo app for iPad allow users to share highlights and notes via Facebook. You could have each user post the corrections on a Facebook page along with enough of a passage to find it again.

[Schlutek]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. I think my dream app right now is to have ADE enable and manage comments like shared review pdfs.

[GeoffC]

Schlutek Welcome to Mobileread ....

[James_Wilde]

Originally Posted by Schlutek

I should clarify that the books I am converting to ebooks have already been published, so they have already went through an extensive proofreading process. The routings are for the final epub & mobi files. Also, I am exporting InDesign files to epub. Most of the edits that are asked are things like adding a space between words, curl quotes, etc.

I'm a bit baffled here. Seems like the hard work has all been done for the paper version. Why are so many people reading this on so many different devices? Is it so that the product looks good as mobi on Kindle, epub on everything else?

This doesn't hang together with "things like adding a space between words, curl quotes, etc." Why would you want an extra space between words in the ebook that's not in the paper book? Or different kinds of quotes? I would have thought that page layout, new page between chapters, style of chapter titles, etc. would be what you're looking at and these are universal, not something you want to change on page 17.

Another thing. Not everybody can use the same copy, as you will need a separate copy each for mobi, epub and possible other formats. Some things you can do in epub you can't in mobi, for example, and might need a workaround. So why collect everybody's comments in one document?

One thought: can everybody use, say, calibre for looking at the books? I suggest this since as far as I know calibre is the only program that can show all normal types of ebook. Then you can have everyone read it on their pc's and make their notes in a common word-processor document. Although the fact that calibre can read all formats doesn't mean that it displays them as the relevant ereader would, of course.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by James_Wilde

This doesn't hang together with "things like adding a space between words, curl quotes, etc." Why would you want an extra space between words in the ebook that's not in the paper book? Or different kinds of quotes? I would have thought that page layout, new page between chapters, style of chapter titles, etc. would be what you're looking at and these are universal, not something you want to change on page 17.

Different formats add their own quirks, as does changing the size or style of the font used on each device. On the Kindle, for example, you sometimes get the odd line that won't justify. You could fix that with a soft hyphen, and it shouldn't affect other versions. You also get a lot of variation in extra line spacing (like between scenes), some readers strip out extra space if you use (P) instead of (BR). These are all things that publishers should check, but most don't.

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

As strange as it may be to see Giggleton with a serious and sensible suggestion, he's got a good handle on it.

You might be surprised how many times I've read that exact quote.