BookRiff

The Book of MPub is a collaborative project of the students of the SFU Canadian Centre for Studies in Publishing‘s Master of Publishing Program. The book, a collection of student essays on technology and the publishing industry, launched simultaneously in three iterations at the 2010 cohort’s Publishing Technology Project final presentations on Friday: as an EPUB/PDF ebook (available as a free download here); as a POD paperback printed on the Espresso Book Machine; and finally, as a Riff available for purchase on BookRiff, here. (This final iteration was made possible just a few hours prior to the scheduled book launch, after one big gulp and a number of hiccups, as we opened our doors in public beta!)

I still haven’t decided what’s most impressive about this project. To start, it’s worth mentioning that this group of graduate students: Vanessa Chan, Cari Ferguson, Kathleen Fraser, Cynara Geissler, Ann-Marie Metten, and Suzette Smith operating as Pressplay, an imprint of the CCSP, have literally “produced a book on a magazine schedule,” as they explained during the April 16 launch. And they’ve done so by using a WordPress blog as their publishing platform. In doing this, they’ve created a collaborative online editorial space that allows them to engage with their audience of publishing industry professionals by inviting them to become a part of the project. As the group explains in their documentation of the project objectives, “The Book of MPub was, in the best sense, crowd-sourced and community-powered, raised by a village of industry experts—and it shows.”

As a second aspect of the project, they conducted in-depth research into the tools available for producing the book in the various formats they wanted to offer it in, then used the best of those tools to turn their dynamic blog into a PDF, EPUB, and print book. Just as they were able to mold the existing tool set within WordPress to speed up the editorial process by opening it up to collaboration, they’ve cut production time by incorporating cutting-edge technology like the Espresso Book Machine at Oscar’s Art Books. But it’s not just a shortcut: they’ve made their publishing platform all the more flexible by taking this approach. As publishing technology advances and new tools become available, they are ready to plug in.

Currently, the Book of MPub is available in its entirety for purchase on BookRiff, or for adding to another book or set of notes in your own personal Riff. But as planned, the chapters (individual student essays) will also be available to add to Riffs separately. As more student work becomes available, Pressplay and the CCSP have the opportunity to use BookRiff as a way to let individuals create their own anthology of student work based on individual interests and needs.. and I do hope to see this happen.