You scream, I scream, we all scream for epubs. As with all internet bounty, it’s even more exciting to produce than to consume. So after you’ve glutted yourself on all those free Jane Austen novels and children’s books, and gone into hock re-creating your library on iPad, why not give something back by doing a little writing yourself?

What to write about, how to ensure quality, and how to identify and market to an audience are beyond the scope of this little post, but we can point to some dandy resources that tell how to create and test your epub. So let’s go!

Our first two resources come from Adobe and tell how to set up an Adobe InDesign file to produce a proper epub. There are other ways of creating an epub—for instance, you can author it in valid HTML, zip it up, and convert to epub using the BookGlutton API. For many readers of this site, that’s all you need to know.

But if you are a graphic designer or book designer, or if epub is only one format you are publishing to (i.e. if you are publishing traditionally printed books that double as epubs), then the next two resources are exactly what you need:

1. Exporting epub from InDesign (PDF) – wonderfully compact and helpful
2. Producing ePub Documents from InDesign – Digital Editions – a bit dry but useful; best viewed via the Readability bookmarklet from our friends at Arc90

Once you have your pub, you want to know that it is valid. Any of the following services will help there:

• Testing your ePubs with Bookworm – Bookworm ePub reader. This is a free program for publishers from O’Reilly.
• Alternately, there is EpubCheck, which is also free for download. It comes from Adobe and is a downloadable web app.
• Alternately again, there is a free online test from Threepress.

If the tests identify errors, you’ll need to go back into InDesign, fiddle with settings, re-export, and re-test. Once your epub validates, it’s time to go to market: How to sell your eBook via Amazon and the iBookstore. Good luck, and enjoy!

Filed under: A Book Apart, Accessibility, E-Books, Platforms, Publications, Publishing

Comments off.

Today at 1:00 PM EDT, join Dan Benjamin and me live as we interview designer, developer, author, lecturer, and bon vivant Ethan Marcotte (bio | blog | Twitter) for Episode 9 of The Big Web Show.

Ethan is the author of an upcoming A Book Apart treatise on responsive web design; my co-author on Designing With Web Standards 3rd Edition; and the co-author with Dan Cederholm of Handcrafted CSS: More Bulletproof Web Design.

Join us for a lively discussion as we talk about designing and coding for the likes of the Sundance Film Festival and New York Magazine, and the joys of responsive web design, working remotely, and swearing profusely on Twitter. We may even get Ethan’s take on Microsoft’s dazzling new IE9.

As always, watch and participate in the live broadcast by tuning to live.5by5.tv at the appointed time.

A few hours after the taping, the permanent, edited video and audio podcast will be available for your bliss at 5by5.tv/bigwebshow/9 and via the iTunes Store (iTunes audio feed | iTunes video feed).

The Big Web Show is a weekly video podcast on Everything Web That Matters, co-hosted by 5×5 network founder Dan Benjamin and yours truly.

Filed under: A Book Apart, A List Apart, Accessibility, An Event Apart, Design, industry, interface, Interviews, ipad, iphone, people, tbws, The Big Web Show, User Experience, Zeldman

Comments off.

The blog of Mr Simon Collison, retooled as responsive web design. The wide version.

The blog of Mr Simon Collison, retooled as responsive web design. The narrow version.

See more versions in Mr Collison’s “Media Query Layouts” set on Flickr.

Read the article that started it all. Coming soon as a book by Mr Ethan Marcotte from A Book Apart. (The current A Book Apart book, Mr Jeremy Keith’s HTML5 For Web Designers, ships Friday. Mr Ethan Marcotte will be our guest this Thursday, June 24, on The Big Web Show. Synchronicity. It’s not just an LP by The Police. Kids, ask your parents.)

The beauty of responsive web design becomes obvious when you see your site in smart phones, tablets, and widescreen desktop browsers. It’s as if your site was redesigned to perfectly fit that specific environment. And yet there is but one actual design—a somewhat plastic design, if you will. An extensible design, if you prefer. It’s what some of us were going for with “liquid” web design back in the 1990s, only it doesn’t suck. Powered by CSS media queries, it’s the resurrection of a Dao of Web Design and a spiffy new best practice. All the kids are doing it.

Well, anyway, some of the cool ones are. See also the newly retooled-per-responsive-design Journal by Mr Hicks. Hat tip: Mr Stocks. I obviously have some work to do on this site. And you may on yours.

Seen any good responsive redesigns lately?

Filed under: A Book Apart, A List Apart, Accessibility, Best practices, Blogs and Blogging, books, Design, Ideas, The Essentials, Usability, User Experience, UX, Web Design, Web Design History, Web Standards

Comments off.

Yippee! Jeremy Keith’s HTML5 For Web Designers (A Book Apart, 2010) ships Friday.

In this brilliant and entertaining user’s guide, Jeremy Keith tells web designers what they need to know about the web’s new markup language—and the first version of HTML designed for a web of applications, not just documents.

Photo: Jason Santa Maria.

Filed under: A Book Apart, Code, Design, HTML, HTML5, Publications, Publishing, writing

Comments off.

The Big Web Show is a weekly video podcast on Everything Web That Matters, co-hosted by 5×5 network founder Dan Benjamin and yours truly. Here’s a roundup of recent shows:

• In Episode 2: HTML5, Dan and I talk with Jeremy Keith, designer, writer, featured An Event Apart speaker, and author of HTML5 for Web Designers. We discuss the goals and inspiration behind the book, as well as what HTML5 means for both web creators and those who consume the web, covering topics that range from structure to accessibility and implementation.
• Melissa Pierce’s new film, “Life in Perpetual Beta,” asks the question, “is the planned life worth living?” and sketches an answer via interviews with the likes of Baratunde Thuston, Irina Slutsky, and Twitter’s Biz Stone. In Episode 3: Re-invent Yourself, Dan and I interview Melissa about the unplanned life, Facebook privacy, and using the internet to re-invent yourself.
• In Episode 4: Content Strategy, Dan and I get down to cases with Kristina Halvorson, CEO, Brain Traffic and author, Content Strategy for the Web (New Riders, 2010), and Erin Kissane, content strategist with Happy Cog, and author of Incisive.nu.
• In Episode 5: Web Education, we talk with special guest Liz Danzico, author of Bobulate, and chairperson of the MFA in Interaction Design program at New York’s School of Visual Arts. They discuss web and interaction design education, user experience design, how to structure a program and teach a class, acquiring and editing content, and much more.
• In Episode 6: Mobile First, Dan and I chat with leading interaction designer Luke Wroblewski about designing for the mobile space, and learn why the mobile experience for a web application or site should be designed before the PC version.
• In Episode 7: Usability Testing, we schmooze larger-than-life user experience design guru Jared Spool about usability testing in the real world. Jared is the founder of User Interface Engineering, the largest usability research organization of its kind in the world, and has been working in the field of usability and design since 1978, before the term “usability” was ever associated with computers.
• Most recently, in Episode 8: User Experience Design, Dan and I talk with Happy Cog’s senior UX designer Whitney Hess about social networking, getting clients, and user experience design—from research to wireframes to testing and beyond.

Filed under: Interviews, State of the Web, The Big Web Show, The Essentials, The Mind

Comments off.

New York Life Tower as seen from Happy Cog

Filed under: architecture, Brands, cities, Design, Happy Cog™, New York City

Comments off.

It won’t help your next web design project, but if you’re working in print, now you can use incredible images from the CSA library free when you print on French paper.

“This vast selection of rights managed black & white images are perfect for solid-color offset, letterpress, or silkscreen printing. Free CSA High Resolution Tiff Images capture the authenticity and detail of hand-drawn illustration and the beautifully tactile look of ink printed on paper, allowing you to keep the printing simple and let French paper provide the color.”

Free Images on French Paper

Filed under: Design, Free, Gifts

Comments off.

In 2008, Derek Powazek, who knows more about community on the web than just about anyone, shared 10 Ways Newspapers Can Improve Comments. It was a great read then, and still is, distilling of 15 years of online community experience into a brief, punchy list. If comments on your site aren’t where you want them to be, give it a look.

Filed under: Community, content

Comments off.

“A half-century ago, Afghan women pursued careers in medicine; men and women mingled casually at movie theaters and university campuses in Kabul; factories in the suburbs churned out textiles and other goods.

“There was a tradition of law and order, and a government capable of undertaking large national infrastructure projects, like building hydropower stations and roads, albeit with outside help. Ordinary people had a sense of hope, a belief that education could open opportunities for all, a conviction that a bright future lay ahead. All that has been destroyed by three decades of war, but it was real.”

Once Upon a Time in Afghanistan, a photo essay by Mohammad Qayoumi

Filed under: events, experience, links, photography, war, peace, and justice

Comments off.

Update! Episode 8, featuring Whitney Hess, is now available for your listening and viewing pleasure at 5by5.tv.

This Thursday 17 June at 1:00 PM EDT, join Dan Benjamin and me live on The Big Web Show as we interview Whitney Hess (bio | blog | Twitter) on on the ins and outs of user experience design—from research to wireframes to testing and beyond. Just what goes into making stuff online easier and more pleasurable to use? What kinds of projects (and clients) enable great user experiences, and which have bad UI written all over them? If a tree falls in the forest, will Whitney tweet about it? Join us for these topics and more.

24 June: Ethan Marcotte

Then on Thursday 24 June at 1:00 PM EDT, join us live as we interview Ethan Marcotte (bio | blog | Twitter), co-author of Designing With Web Standards 3rd Edition with me and Handcrafted CSS: More Bulletproof Web Design with Dan Cederholm. We’ll talk about designing and coding for the likes of the Sundance Film Festival and New York Magazine, and the joys of responsive web design, working remotely, and swearing profusely on Twitter.

1 July: Jason Fried

And then on Thursday, 1 July, join us as we coax 37signals CEO Jason Fried (tiny bio | book | book | book | blog | Twitter) into telling us how he really feels about bells and whistles, contracts, meetings, buzzwords, software that requires training, and startups that need investors. The controversial Mr Fried is a true rebel and innovator and one of our favorite people on the internet. Tune in and find out why.

Turn on, Tune in

The Big Web Show is taped live in front of an internet audience Thursdays at live.5by5.tv and can be watched afterwards via iTunes (audio feed | video feed) and the web.

Filed under: client services, content, Design, development, events, Happy Cog™, Interviews, The Big Web Show, User Experience, UX, Zeldman

Comments off.