We are a Partner Member of the Alliance of Independent Authors, which uniquely represents the interests of self-publishing authors and requires best business practices from those who provide them with services.

The XHTML and CSS
code that we implement in
creating each of our
clients' ebooks is
independently checked
and verified by the W3C as being fully compliant





We guarantee that our conversions are 100% compatible with the major operating systems used
by desktop and laptop
computers and mobile
devices

Cascading style sheets: key to technically compliant ebooks

Glossary
Your guide to the terms of art
that you may encounter in ebook production
and publishing. Clicking on a dart
will take you to the referenced headword.

ADEPT Adobe Digital Experience Technology; copy protection system by the Adobe Digital Editions ereader app.

ASIN Amazon Stock Identification Number; a 10-digit unique product identifier applied by the Amazon Kindle Store to ebook editions, even those without an ISBN; the ASIN for any given title may differ from one Amazon national site to another.

.azw Amazon legacy ebook format.

British Library founded in 1753, the library serves as a physical repository of more than 14 million printed books; its brief was recently extended to include ebooks, to allow the application of British Library Catalogue Numbers.

capacitive screen a screen technology used for some tablet devices, such as the iPad, allowing the display to respond to finger gestures by the reader rather than any physical contact. resistive screen.

.cbr file type in the form of a compressed RAR package used for comics and graphic novel ebooks; See also Comics page.

.cbz file type in the form of a compressed Zip package used for comics and graphic novel ebooks; See also Comics page.

CSS cascading style sheet; an advanced, typically single-file method of globally applying, for example, font types, styles and attributes across an HTML-based production such as an ebook; CSS-formatted ebooks (of the kind we produce) use less code and memory, so they load faster on desktops, laptops and mobile devices.

DRM digital rights management: an anti-piracy system operated by Amazon Kindle Stores, iTunes and other ebook vendors, which prevents an ebook being copied to and read on any device not registered by the customer.

Dublin Core the form of mandatory meta data incorporated in every ebook. Core items include the name of the author, publisher, ISBN, date of publication and content category.

HTML hypertext markup language; the original lingua franca for creating Web pages; later versions HTML5, used for creating epub-format ebooks.

HTML5 extensible hypertext markup language; an advanced version of the HTML code originally used to create Web pages and the weapon of choice when writing the code for epub-format ebooks that meet the IDPF criteria.

iConnect Apple online facility that allows authorized iTunes content providers such as eBook Versions to manage the ebooks available in iTunes Bookstore.

iTunes Producer Apple deskstop/laptop program available to authorized content providers that allows them to upload ebooks and supporting metadata to the 51 territory-specific iTunes stores. It can only run on Mac computers using recent versions of the MAC operating system and is not available for Windows or Linux.

ISBN International Standard Book Number; globally applied 13-digit (10 digits until 2005) cataloguing system, now extended to ebooks. The Apple iBookstore, Nielsen BookData, Bowker Global and the British Library insist on ISBNs.

Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) Amazon's online ebook publishing platform; formerly Digital Text Platform (DTP).

.mobi ebook format used by Kindle ebooks.

phablet a large-screen smartphone.

PDF (portable document format) a document-creation system developed by Adobe. PDFs created in Adobe InDesign - the professional software used by most publishers and providers, including eBook Versions - are used as master files for print-on-demand paperbacks and hardbacks that comply with Amazon's and IngramSpark's strict technical requirements.

.prc a legacy ebook file format compatible with legacy devices such as Palm PDAs.

resistive screen a form of display used by smartphones and tablets that responds to physical pressure from the user's finger or a stylus.