Candlewick Press Sets the Quality Standard for Children’s eBooks

Candlewick Press, the U.S. subsidiary of UK publisher Walker Books, is a renowned publisher of children’s books. Named “the fastest growing children’s publisher in the U.S.” by Publishers Weekly, Candlewick established itself as a leader in the children’s book market by following a credo that stresses “publishing only those books we believe in, only those books that speak to children, and only those that have both words and art of the highest quality.” Candlewick has won more than 1,500 accolades and honors publishing such modern-day children’s classics as The Tale of Despereaux.

Challenge Producing eBooks that Met Candlewick’s Reputation for Quality

As public acceptance of eBooks continued to grow, Candlewick, like other publishers, sought expedient and cost-effective methods for converting titles into digital formats.

Children’s eBooks pose unique production challenges because of their rich graphics and illustrations. So while many publishers rushed to the digital market, Candlewick took their time in selecting an eBook production partner to ensure that the digital conversion process for eBooks wouldn’t sacrifice their high quality standards.

Candlewick was also concerned that the digital end products accurately capture and reflect their signature stylistic preferences, such as putting the space on both sides of the n dash; italicizing the comma appearing after italic words, and matching the leading space appearing between the paragraphs against the PDF.

Finding a partner who could successfully convert the rich illustrative content of best sellers such as “Because of Winn Dixie” and “The Magician’s Elephant,” was as important as finding a partner who could do the job affordably.

Solution Letting Pictures Tell the Story with Experience as the Guide

Pictures and images form an integral part of the narrative in children’s books.  For example, the Tale of Despereaux, contains 272 print pages with over 85 graphic images and elaborately styled fonts and headings marking the start of each chapter.  Digital versions require the appropriate on-screen context and page flow to advance the story as effectively as the print version, while being rendered on different page sizes and display types across various eReader devices.

With its extensive experience in eBook production, and in particular working with complicated graphical content, Aptara was able to meet, and in some cases exceed, Candlewick’s stringent quality requirements.  Additionally, Candlewick looked to Aptara for help in developing their own set of eBook guidelines and digital quality thresholds which established the baseline for these and all future eBooks.

Results Best Sellers, Now Available for Download

Candlewick provided source files in Quark and InDesign, along with the supporting font files, in addition to Printer PDFs. To verify accuracy, Aptara’s production team developed an automated program to compare and QC the converted file against the original PDF.

Aptara delivered the first batch of Candlewick’s eBook titles in both the ePUB and .prc (Mobipocket) formats.  Pleased with the initial delivery of its best-selling titles, Candlewick and now its parent company Walker Press, are continually providing Aptara with additional print titles for eBook production.

The books are available for sale through Candlewick Press’ e-commerce site, from Amazon and the Kindle, via iTunes for the iPhone and for the Sony eReader.