Introduction to Third-party Production of Born-Accessible Ebooks

When working with a conversion house or other third-party producer of ebooks, it’s important to talk about accessibility features. This introductory guide shares some questions you should ask to help determine a producer’s current accessibility practices. The producer’s answers should give you insight into their understanding of accessibility and their capacity to implement best practices.

  • Subject(s):

    Ebook Production

  • Resource Type(s):

    Foundations and Rationale

  • Audience:

    Introduction

Suggested Prerequisite

Before reading this, you might want to review:

Understanding Third-Party Producer’s Accessibility Practices

In order to be sustainable, born-accessible publishing needs to involve the whole team: everyone — from the author to the distributor — has a crucial role to play. The ebook producer — whether a large conversion house, an independent contractors, or even a printer — is no exception. Some ebook producers are more knowledgeable about accessibility than others so discussing accessibility before they get started will help set the stage for the creation of highly accessible ebooks.

Here are some questions you can ask to help you determine a third-party producer’s current accessibility practices. Their answers should give you a better understanding of what the producer knows about accessibility and what they have the capacity to implement.

Checklist: Questions for Ebook Producers

General

Testing

Images

Metadata

Titles

Headings

Navigation

Style

Table of Contents

Semantic Structure

Tables

Page List

Notes

Title Page

Download the Checklist

Click the button below to download a PDF file of the checklist.

Next Steps

1

Preparing a Book for Conversion

Ebook Workflow Guide: In-house Production of Born-Accessible Ebooks

To prepare a book for conversion, with accessibility in mind, the steps covered in Ebook Workflow Guide: In-house Production of Born Accessible Ebooks should be followed (if you use Word and InDesign for your manuscript…

Subject(s): Ebook Production
Resource Type(s): Standards and Best Practices, Step-by-Step
Audience:
Technical
2

Final Quality Assurance (QA) Pass

Quality Assurance of Completed Ebooks

Once your ebook has been created, it is time to do a quality assurance check for accessibility. This resource contains both simplified and advanced checklists to help you review your ebooks.

Subject(s): Ebook Production
Resource Type(s): Checklist
Audience:
Introduction

External Links to More Information

Communicating with Conversion Houses & Ebook Producers

This page contains a checklist of items to help ensure a book is marked up following accessibility guidelines and best practices. It also includes a listing of questions listed by topic to help publishers assess a conversion house’s knowledge of accessibility and what they can implement.

Accessible Publishing Tips: Working with a digital production vendor

Tips from Benetech on working with a third-party vendor, certified or otherwise.

Content source acknowledgement:

AccessiblePublishing.ca: Communicating with Conversion Houses