Transition to Digital -- A Brief BIGNY Dialogue with W.W. Norton's Sue Carlson

Sue Carlson

We recently asked Sue Carlson, Vice President and Director of Production and Design at W.W. Norton, a few questions in advance of her appearance during the Book Industry Guild of New York's (BIGNY) Tuesday, March 8th panel discussion. The topic: "Publishing Technology Update: New Digital Directions."

BIGNY: Why did Norton create their own eReader?

Carlson: There were many compelling reasons to develop our own reader, chiefly though, the ability to control the student experience as well as integration with our other digital products, campus LMSs [Learning Management Systems] and e-commerce integration. 

BIGNY: Can you give some examples of re-purposing content in order to monetize it?

Carlson:  For poetry or fiction compendiums, we repurpose the individual ebook files into a larger ebook. For our college ebooks, we build the content so that both our distribution methods can take advantage of the formatting in ways that suit the particular channel. So for example, some features will work on one reading application, but have fallbacks that will not break the other device’s reading experience. 

BIGNY: How has data from your digital products affected new book or product creation?

Carlson: Sales data for both trade and college has always guided our decision-making for mining our backlist. Certain disciplines in college are highly dependent on an e-edition, others, not so much. Also, feedback on user experience from our college sales staff informs which features to focus on or develop.

BIGNY: How has the digital workflow changed people’s jobs? (For example, do designers have to code? Do teams work more closely?)

Carlson: I can’t think of a single person’s job in production that hasn’t been affected. Production managers and art directors have to think about how design will affect the ebook. Will the thumbnail be readable on a web page? Certain colors and typefaces read better. Interior designers need to think about charts and tables, double-page spreads, notes, etc. For college, interior design thinks about modifications from print to e, and that has started to drive at least some of the design decisions. Designers also keep accessibility needs in mind and steer clear of certain colors and make sure there’s enough contrast. College production managers are now not only producing the print products, but many of the digital products as well. New editorial teams have sprung up to perform quality assurance for digital products. Ebook teams, distribution staff, and ebook designers have been hired. Production has always been schedule-driven, but with so many dependencies, those schedules have to be aligned to an entire suite of products. We’ve always been a pretty tight-knit group, but I have to say that yes, there’s a good deal more collaboration now that the universe has gotten bigger.

Visit the BIGNY website for more information and tickets for the March 8th "Publishing Technology Update: New Digital Directions" event.