Let's Manage an eBook Project!

My students have been doing a kind of group editorial exercise, sketching prospective tables of contents to bring our ebook about literary study using the Kindle / Amazon / Goodreads platforms into focus. I like what I am reading. But I also know that we must bring our combined attention to bear on production.

How is it that literary study changes when students are engaged in publishing about literature to real audiences? We'll find out.

And by the way, as I've been working with our department and college leadership on how we will revise our academic programs to address and integrate specific competencies that will be of great practical benefit to our Humanities and English undergrads, we've identified communication (with different audiences and via different media) as one such competency, as well as project management and networking. We are so on track.

Project management consists of identifying the scope of tasks, the stakeholders, the nature of the work to be done, and working within specific roles to meet a timeline. I've sketched out the roles that we must now divide up among ourselves to get this done:

• CONTRIBUTOR (all)
  Each chapter author takes responsibility to complete his or her chapters according to the chapter parameters we set. Each contributor will also be partly responsible for researching and reaching out to stakeholders, evaluators, and audiences.
• MANAGING EDITOR
  This person coordinates the work among the others and keeps everyone on track with the production calendar and deadlines. With the content editor, this person helps to oversee that the content is taking shape according to the parameters we set for ourselves (length, title, tweethis, sections, presence of literary work, researched sources) 
• CONTENT EDITOR
  This person combines and organizes the separate chapters/parts of the ebook within the ebook creation software (possibly Scrivener or Calibre--see guide) and drafts or arranges for the front matter.
• COPY EDITOR
  This editor does a surface edit of the final pieces, applies a consistent style across the book, and readies the table of contents and works cited.
• RESEARCHER
  This person helps the copy and content editors by fact checking references as well as contributors' claims about Kindle, Amazon, and Goodreads. Are we accurate in how we represent these services and those that use them? This person also assists the  
• DESIGNER
  This person works closely with the content editor and is responsible for the layout and arrangement of the individual chapters and the entire book, including the book cover (image, title) and author photos.
• PUBLISHER
  This person is responsible for getting the completed ebook actually submitted, uploaded, and available on Amazon (and via other outlets such as the BYU ScholarsArchive, the Internet Archive, Feedbooks, Archive.org, etc.). He or she works through the details of exactly how an ebook must be formatted for and submitted to Amazon for the Kindle platform, and communicates this to the designer and other editors as needed. 
• SOCIAL MEDIA PUBLICIST
  This person focuses on using social media to promote the book both before and upon publication. He/she figures out best practices for using social tools to target and reach audiences. If appropriate, he/she will set up pages on social media sites for the book, etc.
• IMPACT EDITOR
  This person in part identifies specific people, organizations, publications, or venues to target for publicity and gathers this information from individual contributors, too. He or she also helps to define impact measurements to assess the success of the publication and to report to stakeholders. He or she will also help the contributors represent their work in a resume or a LinkedIn profile.