* My Publishing Internship at LPB

This week I completed a five-day internship at Little People Books (LPB) as part of my stay at the HoBB (Home of BookBod). My main goal for the week was to help LPB publish their first ebook. We did this using the platform Lulu.com – a self-publishing site that allows users to publish books with their own ISBN and cover art. Our plan was to publish a digital version of an existing book originally designed at LPB, On Robin Hill. After some discussion we chose to publish the book as a PDF without ISBN, available only to LPB’s Lulu.com account, so we could test the process without incurring the cost associated with using an ISBN.

My first task was to consolidate the cover, title page and body files of the print version of On Robin Hill and prepare the layout for digital publication. I did this using QuarkExpress and Photoshop. Republishing this book as an ebook allowed me to add in a more recent back cover page advertising more recent sequels to the book and directing potential buyers to the Little People Books website.

In an editorial meeting, we discussed the concern that publishing the book online might devalue the print edition. The print edition includes two versions of the same story, one using only lower case, and one using only upper case. I suggested that publishing the digital version using conventional capitalisation, as a kind of ‘model’ for early readers, might solve the problem of devaluing the print edition and also add motivation to buy the ebook to complement the print edition. This suggestion was approved. We then uploaded the completed pages and an accompanying marketing image to Lulu.com.

Overall, we were very happy with the result, despite some colour change between the original pages and the pages seen on Lulu.com.

LPB will look further into a pricing model for their digital books and look into whether ePub format would be appropriate in the early education market. The next step will be for LPB to discuss digital publication with their other authors and assess whether Lulu.com’s reach is wide enough and captures the right audience for LPB.

I look forward to checking in with Little People Books to see their ebook publishing and vid. storytelling strategy in full swing.

Lucy Mackay-Sim
Intern. LPB.

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On completing her internship we happily gave Lucy’s the following reference:

To Whom It May Concern,

Between September 8th and September 12th, 2014, Lucy Mackay-Sim completed a one-week internship at Little People Books. During her internship, Lucy assisted Little People Books in publishing their first ebook. Lucy’s experience copy-editing online material was invaluable, as was her experience in adapting the layout of print books for digital publication. Lucy took active part in editorial meetings and was able to talk through the implications of a variety of editorial and production choices. She helped us reach a decision that resulted in the new ebook being published within budget and without devaluing the print edition of the book.

Throughout the week she spent with us, Lucy showed that she is happy copy-editing in a variety of media. She is conversant in many aspects of epublishing and helped us with our social media strategy.

Lucy also worked through a number of submissions, both illustration and text, and she has a good eye for what will and will not work in the current market.

She is confident, articulate and was quick to grasp our enterprise as a whole, which allowed to her to liase straight away with a number of our authors, illustrators and other stakeholders.

Lucy works comfortably on her own, but is also a valuable team member. When she is given a task she always finishes it to a high standard. She shows initiative and can be relied upon to carefully think through a project and make intelligent suggestions that contribute substantially to group discussions. I would not hesitate to recommend Lucy as an editor of either online or print products. She is hardworking, easygoing and a pleasure to work alongside.

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