eBOUND Canada

Agile is an iterative approach to content development. Originating in software development in the early '90s, agile's supporters rejected the traditional "waterfall" method of development in favor of a more flexible and adaptive model that could easily react to change and integrate user feedback into the development process.

Kindle ebook format. (See also: MOBI.)

Maintains bibliographic data, sales data, and standards in Canada.

Bibliographic data aggregator and ISBN authority.

Book Industry Study Group - Maintains BISAC Codes. Another US Standards organization.

BNC CataList is an online catalogue system built for the book supply chain. Its catalogues are up-to-date, customizable, interactive, searchable and efficient. They can be used as a sales and publicity tool by publishers, retailers, wholesalers and librarians.

Content Management System - An online content storage system, such as WordPress, Drupal, or Joomla.

CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets. CSS styles define how HTML elements are displayed - is text bolded, is an image centred on a page, etc. Since styles are often not preserved during the conversion process, you can use CSS styles to style your epub, preserving or enhancing the way it looks on the printed page.

Digital Asset Management system - An archival and distribution system for ebooks and electronic files.

Standards group that maintains the ONIX specification.

Formerly the Open Electronic Book Publication Standard. An open standard based on open web languages for ebooks. EPUBs can be read on most ereaders, smartphones, and tablets, including the iPhone, iPad, Android devices, Kobo, Nook, and Sony Readers. A notable exception are Kindle devices which can only read Kindle files (MOBI or KF8).

A spec developed by Apple for better display of complex content. It's an EPUB that has jumped through some hoops. The Kobo Vox also supports this format. Fixed-layout EPUBs can also support read-aloud features.

Most Favoured Nation - A clause in a contract that states that you are beholden to offer a title to a company at the same price as you offer it elsewhere.

Kindle ebook format.

One of the sales data aggregators.

Online Information Exchange - An XML type that describes what a book is. ONIX is a prominent metadata standard for books. Learn more about ONIX from Booknet Canada.

Portable Document Format - This is actually proprietary to Adobe.

Print On Demand. POD describes print-to-order systems which support self-publishing companies like Lulu and Lightning Source, and in-store book machines, like the Espresso Book Machine.

Request for Proposal/Project, Request for Quote

A work identifier is an ONIX element that links together all the different assets associated with a single title. More information here.

XHTML (Extensible Hypertext Markup Language) is an application of XML. XHTML is different from HTML in a few respects - for example, it doesn't allow for the omission of any tags (all elements must be closed), but it does allow for shorthand notation of empty elements.

Extensible Markup Language - while HTML is about how you display things, XML is how you describe things. XML is the base for EPUB container files, and ONIX files.