Set the first gate before drafting
Start with a reader promise, a scope, and a source plan. The reader promise says what the work will help a particular audience understand, feel, or do. The scope says what it will not attempt. The source plan names which claims require primary evidence, which need expert review, and what rights boundaries apply to quotations, images, data, interviews, translations, and tools.
At this stage, test a representative passage rather than trusting the outline alone. Include a fact, a quotation, a visual, a note, and a difficult term if the project will contain them. The test reveals whether the proposed recordkeeping and production approach can handle the work before every chapter depends on it.
Approve content in layers
Move from developmental questions to factual checks, then to sentence-level editing and proofing. Keep the question for each pass narrow: does the structure serve the reader; do claims match evidence; are terms consistent; does the final file contain the approved wording? A single person may perform more than one pass, but the record should still say what was checked and which version was reviewed.
Confirm contributions before the production rush. The title page, copyright page, acknowledgments, image credits, translator credit, narrator credit, and metadata should agree with the signed scope and the material actually used. A late credit correction is not merely cosmetic when it changes who is represented as responsible for the work.
Inspect the reader’s file
A correct manuscript can become a poor publication during conversion. Open the delivered EPUB, PDF, proof, and audio master in the ways readers will encounter them. Check reading order, navigation, headings, links, notes, tables, image descriptions, page breaks, cover, price-facing metadata, and sample pages. Retain the exact file name and the applications or devices used for the check.
EPUB 3.3 requires a navigation document and defines a default reading order through the spine. Those technical facts do not prove that a real reader can use a particular book. Follow the route from contents to a late chapter, a note, and back, at changed text size. Record limitations honestly and correct the largest reader-facing failures first.
Sources & limits
A quality gate is evidence of a review process, not a certification of universal accessibility, legal compliance, or error-free content.
- EPUB 3.3
W3C · Source dated 11 May 2023 · Consulted 15 Sept 2026EPUB 3.3 requires one navigation document and defines a default reading order through the publication spine.
Send a correction with the passage and supporting source.
