It Was the Best of Times, It Was... Also Kind of Rough

So my Entry to English Studies class spent the majority of the semester collaborating to create an e-book about the movement of reading and literary study to platforms like Amazon, Goodreads, and the Kindle. If you are about to embark on a similar journey, here are a few tips based off my personal experience:

1. Our process was to first study these platforms through personal use, then choose a meaningful novel in our lives, and then use the novel to discuss a certain point about our e-book's subject matter. If I could do it over, I would have formed a table of contents for our book as a class before we ventured out on our own to find topics. I felt stressed not really knowing which points I should address for the good of our book, and forming the table of contents after having chapters formed is an awkward process. I also would pick your subject matter before you pick your novel (if going this route), and would match your novel of choice to the things that the book as a whole require you include in your chapter.

2. Trust your peers. I learned a lot from reading my classmate's chapters.

3. I don't know how to exactly avoid this, but try your hardest to divide the work load evenly. Also, I hate Calibre with a fiery passion, so I personally would not suggest using that platform to create the e-book. Though, I only had this assignment once, and am told that it was harder because I was using a Mac. It took 10+ hours to create a version of the e-book that we only looked at once before creating the next build. I don't think it's necessary to create a new build with each new round of chapters, so I would also suggest creating one build every two, three, or even four weeks. That being said, it could be tempting to just create an iBook because it is so easy, but I think it is really worth it to create an e-book that can be read on the Kindle.

Overall, I think collaborative learning has its benefits. The fact that we created an e-book as a class of eight and a professor that can now be published is incredible. I will continue to reference our book for many years, and am overall very grateful for the experience.