Producing an ebook for Standard Ebooks

Our tools and processes are all open source, so anyone with the right technical and editorial knowledge can produce a new Standard Ebooks ebook!

Here’s what the process of getting an ebook on Standard Ebooks looks like.

1. Review the kinds of ebooks we do and don’t accept.

2. Find a good first production in our Wanted Ebooks list, or if there’s nothing there that interests you, find a straightforward prose work of no longer than about 100,000 words, without much complex formatting like poetry, letters, tables, diagrams, or illustrations.

   We ask this of first producers because our production process is complex and detail-oriented. Producers who start on longer work often abandon the attempt, and even if they succeed, first productions are very error-prone; long works thus become a burden on the reviewer.

   After your first production is complete, you can move on to working on longer or more complex works.

3. Contact the Standard Ebooks mailing list to pitch the ebook you’ve selected, before you begin production.

4. Carefully review the entirety of the Standard Ebooks Manual of Style.

5. Once we’ve OK’d your selection and you’ve read the style manuals, you can get started! Follow the steps in our step-by-step guide to producing an ebook to take your ebook from start to finish.

6. Once you’ve finished your ebook and completed a complete cover-to-cover proofread, contact the Standard Ebooks mailing list and we’ll assign a reviewer to review your work.

7. Most first productions have a significant amount of errors. Not to worry! Once you’ve fixed them, contact the mailing list again.

8. Your ebook will be released! Congratulations, and now it’s time for others to enjoy the fruits of your hard work!