Buyer's Guide: Ebook Conversion Strategies Buoyed by Vendor Partnerships
What's different now?
Publishers are realizing that they need their vendors to be true partners. They need to collaborate. They need to figure out what parts of the process make sense to have the vendor do, and which parts they should take responsibility for. And they need to listen to the vendor!
Most of the leading vendors still have more expertise than most of the publishers, although this is changing fast as publishers realize that they need in-house staff that may not do all the work but must understand all the work. The publisher needs to take responsibility for the specs. Even when the publisher relies on the vendor to develop the specs, or advise on their development, ultimately the publisher owns the specs. If the publisher just lets the vendor do whatever they do when not given real specs—and especially if they split the work among several vendors, as many do as a matter of policy—they're going to wind up with sausage.