Development of Your Products

The type of services we offer as content developers/development editors varies greatly with each client and project. Although the nature of our work, and even our job titles, change as the publishing industry moves further into the digital arena, the fundamental aspects of development remain the same: clear, concise, and engaging content that enables and supports reader comprehension and learning. Most of our work involves the full development of texts, whether the final product will be electronic or print, but we are experienced in many other editorial practices as well: creating competitive analyses, content maps, revision plans/book plans, market analyses, conducting market research, and writing alt text.

For detailed descriptions of the types of work we do on a regular basis, please see the list below. This is not a comprehensive list – if you have a project in mind that doesn't match any of these descriptions, chances are we've done it before or we've done something similar. If not, we encourage you to contact us and describe what you have in mind. We love expanding our experience and adding to our list of services. 

Full Development – This can include all (or much of) what is listed below; it offers more comprehensive attention to a text and a more hands-off experience for you. This is our preferred approach to any text because it allows us to work with clients to conceptualize and fine-tune a book's goals, target market, and organization from proposal to publication. It also allows us to work directly with your authors and get a better understanding of what you and your authors want from the text.

Reviews and Analyses – We engage in all aspects of the review process: data mining, question writing, reviewer solicitation, and synopses/analyses of the reviewers’ feedback. Reviews are an important early step in a revision or new project. We conduct reviews either as part of full-development projects or as stand-alone projects.

Surveys – Due to the large number of participants, surveys show a big-picture snapshot of the market's overall preferences while incurring minimal costs. We have experience with writing questions, soliciting participants, and analyzing and compiling the resulting data.

Market Analyses – When you are looking to publish in a new market or medium, we conduct extensive research to assess the market’s needs and the state of existing products to determine the viability of entering that market as a new competitor. Analyzing this large array of information enables us to make recommendations for the types of products/services you will need to offer in order to maximize your chances of success in the new market.

Competitive Analyses – These analyses itemize and compare various aspects of two or more products which dominate a given market. Common points of comparison include the topics covered, writing style, figures, tables, graphs, pedagogical features, interactive components in eTexts, etc. These analyses enable you and your authors to see where your product stands in relation to others—for example, if it has more or less coverage of certain topics, or if it lacks pedagogical features compared to your closest competition.

Content/Book Maps – This is a more involved version of a competitive analysis wherein we compare two or more products in every detail, including how much attention (amount of text, photos, figures, interactive components, etc.) is devoted to each subject. A map indicates exactly how your product compares to the competitors in every aspect of content coverage. This information can be used to build a revision plan or as a marketing tool to show users what your product offers that the competitors do not. The author can also use it as a checklist throughout the revision/writing process.

Revision/Book Plans – Writing a revision/book plan involves analyzing one or more sets of market research data to discern trends in the target market's preferences/needs. You and your author may use this plan as a basis for conceptualizing, writing, or revising your product. The plan serves as the project's main reference point and helps all involved parties keep track of their respective roles and responsibilities. When your author submits their final product for publication, the revision plan serves as a checklist to ensure that the final product matches all the points in the plan.

Model Chapters – A model chapter is an edited, annotated chapter showing key elements of the revision/book plan in place. This is often the easiest way to start your authors in the right direction, by showing how their plan’s goals may be manifested. Model chapters may be used to exhibit appropriate chapter organization, sentence length/structure, transitions between topics, pedagogical features, and the proper manuscript formatting required for submission. If your plan includes a brand-new element that you've conceptualized but it's something the author needs help envisioning, a model chapter (or a model of the element in question) can be an effective tool.

Line Edits – This is a much more involved, hands-on approach to development editing. Line edits can be done as part of a sample chapter or on an entire manuscript depending on the author’s writing experience. When an author is very knowledgeable and well-known in the field but needs help writing or tailoring the writing for a new audience, it is well worth the time spent. Line edits are also helpful when a book has multiple authors, or late editions that have been through the hands of multiple authors over time, in order to maintain a similar voice from beginning to end.

Review of Interactive Components/Assessments – If a digital product you plan to revise already includes interactive components and/or assessments in the current edition, we can review them to determine which ones are still relevant to the new edition of your product, what updates they need, and where they should be placed in the new edition. For a new digital product, we can review the manuscript, identify which chapter concepts may benefit from interactive components to support/enhance reader comprehension, and work with authors/subject matter experts (SMEs) to conceptualize these components. Also, if you have a library of digital assets, we can review it to identify those most relevant to the product in question.

Alternate Text Descriptions – Photos, graphs, tables, art, and videos are included in your products because they are essential to student learning. It is important that everyone who uses your products can benefit from these visual elements. Alt text descriptions allow all students the opportunity to benefit from the visual elements in your texts.

Art Manuscripts – Gathering all the photos, illustrations, graphs, diagrams, charts, and other pieces of art and keeping them organized is as important as having the art itself. We can either help authors with this task or assemble all of the pieces ourselves so that everything is properly prepared for submission to production.

Interactive/Assessment Manuscripts – Digital products have more components than ever and keeping them organized is essential. We can gather all the assessment questions, videos, activities, and other interactive multimedia for your digital product into a coordinated set of source documents. These source documents may be used to build new components or make updates/improvements to existing components for use in the next edition of your digital product.

Final Manuscript Preparation – Finalizing all the details of a finished manuscript before it enters production often involves a significant amount of organization and preparation. We can work with your authors and production team to gather and finalize the manuscript, figures, photos, interactive multimedia components, and any other pieces that need to be assembled for submission to production.

Build Interactive Activities and Assessments – Using the content in the interactive/assessment manuscripts we created earlier, we can directly build these media components in your building platform. If a separate vendor does the build, we can review their work and ensure the finished components appear and function as expected.

Review of Copyedited Manuscripts, Page Proofs, and/or Digital Products– Having worked on your product throughout the editorial process and gained familiarity with it, it helps to have the same person check your text during the production/digital intake process, to ensure that all the content has flowed into the page design and digital format correctly, and make corrections as needed. This is especially important for new, complex, or heavily revised products.