Congratulations to editor Shikha Dalmia and the Reason writers!

Four versions, you say?

Yes, four versions! This great collection of essays is available not only in a paperback edition but also as an eBook, a multimedia eBook (with videos of the author), and an audiobook narrated by Steven Ng.

And all four versions are in the top-five LFB bestsellers!

Invisible Order worked on all three text versions (eBook, paper, and multimedia) and also helped produce Steven Ng’s audio version (using our “editing” ears instead of pens).

Check out “Why Rhett Butler’s Weed is So Strong.”

Prohibition has driven the development of ever-stronger drugs, where a free market would see a proliferation of lighter options.

We have a choice between raising the barricades further and ejecting people already here or moving toward a more open system that allows people to move about freely. This collection from Reason features the work of journalists, policy experts, and academics. It advances an informed discussion about realistic and workable reforms appropriate to America’s self-understanding as a Land of Immigrants.

Humane and Pro-Growth is available for Kindle, iPad, and Nook.

In general, style guides are stuck in the print era. We have to adapt them for the realities of digital text in general and ebooks in particular. This need to adapt is most obvious in how Chicago treats two commonly overlooked characters: the ellipsis (…) and the em dash (—).

The Ellipsis

An ellipsis is used to show that something is omitted from the text. Chicago recommends printing it as three spaced periods ( . . . ). Unfortunately, this practice can cause some unpleasant issues with what we call “wrap,” which is the way that text breaks onto a new line when it runs out of space on your screen.

For instance, take a look at the ellipses in Chicago’s excerpt from Percy Bysshe Shelley’s preface to “Adonai”:

As to Endymion, was it a poem . . . to be treated contemptuously by those who had celebrated, with various degrees of complacency and panegyric, Paris, and Woman, and A Syrian Tale . . . ? Are these the men who . . . presumed to draw a parallel between the Rev. Mr. Milman and Lord Byron?

Now, if you’re reading this on your desktop browser, try grabbing the bottom-right corner of your browser window and narrowing the window’s width.

At some widths, you’ll see, the dots in one ellipsis or another will end up broken across two different lines. The same problem can happen if you do ellipses the Chicago way in your ebooks, depending on the size of the screen and the user’s settings.

That’s why we always use the ellipsis character (…) in our digital text. That special character keeps all three “dots” together, with no spaces between them. (Chicago, take heed.) For reasons that will become clear in a moment, however, we keep the spaces that separate the ellipsis from the words around it when the ellipsis appears midsentence. (See our tip sheet for a little more detail on ellipses.)

The Em Dash

The em dash — which marks an interruption or break in thought — is normally printed immediately adjacent to the words on either side of it, with no separating spaces.

For instance, Chicago gives this example:

The chancellor—he had been awake half the night—came down in an angry mood.

This practice works fine in printed publications. But when we close up em dashes that way in a digital document, it can cause some very ugly wrapping for browsers and ereaders that refuse to wrap on an em dash. They treat that em dash as just another character in a word, which turns things like “chancellor—he” into a single word as far as the ereader is concerned. 

Even worse: In a Kindle, when you try to highlight a section of text, the ereader will not let you select just “chancellor” or “he”: it will insist on treating the em dash as part of the highlight. 

That’s why we put spaces on either side of each em dash in all our electronic text.

These typographic issues of digital vs. print may seem tiny. But for good or ill, they can pile up in your ebook — making it look either sleek or stilted. Knowing how old style guides and new media come together can save you many hassles in production and give you a much better ebook in the end.

If a modern Dante — someone with the same religious and political beliefs, but with an updated knowledge of history — were to write the Inferno today, he would replace Cassius in satanic mouth #3 with John Wilkes Booth, the man who shot Abraham Lincoln 148 years ago today, April 14, 1865.

Lincoln may not have shared Dante’s faith, but he knew how to use the rhetoric of the Bible to stoke the fervor of 19th-century Christian pietists; and after his assassination, the pietists returned the favor by enshrining Father Abraham in the language of Christian martyrdom.

As John Wilkes Booth shot the Union’s president, he shouted, “Sic semper tyrannis!” — thus always to tyrants, a phrase attributed to Brutus as he stabbed the dying Caesar. It’s also the state motto of Virginia, where I live.

Today’s civic religion requires us to canonize Lincoln, to see his life as a crusade for ever-greater freedom and his violent death as the American equivalent of crucifixion.

One of the many things we’ve lost track of in this sanctioned interpretation is an understanding of the tradition that produced John Wilkes Booth. We are only allowed to perceive the evil of chattel slavery at the center of the Civil War; we are censured if we ever emphasize an older historical struggle between liberty and power.

But the liberals of that era did see that there was more than one liberal principle at stake and that not all the angels aligned themselves with only one side in that bloody struggle.

We don’t have to support political violence (or any violence) to recognize that the same ideological tradition that informed Booth’s name, his most famous words, and his most infamous act is the same tradition that produced Western liberalism and the American Revolution. Sic semper…

For the real story of the tyrant himself, in his own words, check out Joseph Fallon’s ebook Lincoln Uncensored.

A reader is someone who reads through your manuscript and gives you feedback on content — where the story or argument works, where it doesn’t, what isn’t clear. A reader can also be an expert on the subject covered in the book (or article), who can help the author or the publisher find factual errors in content or refine the argument. The key word here is feedback — the reader does not fix your manuscript.

What many new authors think of as the role of the editor, in so far as it still exists today, is really divided into at least three parts (if not four or five). You might think the editor is the person who reviews and sends comments about a manuscript, but in fact these days an editor is more likely to be the person who manages a publication, deciding what pieces go in a collection, what book goes under which imprint, what articles to include in a magazine issue or a newspaper, etc.

An editor can also be the person who puts together a group of essays or stories and makes them into a cohesive collection, making sure the pieces work together, sometimes adding footnotes to clarify or put things in context. An editor can also prepare an edition of a book — a special version of the text with additional materials like a foreword or annotated bibliography.

Acquisitions editors review manuscripts and pursue books their press might want to publish.

A proofreader looks for misspellings, grammar errors, and typos, as well as formatting problems (for example: quoted material that is missing a quotation mark). In the past the proofer checked the proofs, making sure that the manuscript was ready for printing, but now proofreaders also offer a simple cleanup of a work or can be an extra pair of eyes after a copyeditor has gone through a manuscript.

A copyeditor prepares a manuscript so that it is consistent, following a style guide (like Chicago) and/or creating a project-specific style guide — and you can read BK’s post to see why I am not calling it a style sheet. He or she makes sure the writing is smooth (correct grammar, no dangling participles, etc.) and clear. Copyeditors also give suggestions for rewriting unclear or awkward sentences, as well as restructuring arguments or narratives to make them clearer or more readable or more compelling. For fiction, the copyeditor might also help to make sure that the narrative voice and the voices of the characters remain consistent.

Copyeditors can also take on the task of fact checking.

It seems these days that copyeditors are taking on more of what was traditionally considered the editor’s role — that is, helping to refine the language of a piece, as well as the argument or story.

There is also the work of the developmental editor. Although I am describing this role last, it actually comes first (maybe I needed a developmental editor for this post). This is the person you turn to to help you unwrap your ideas and analyses, the one who helps you organize (or reorganize) your manuscript, and points out the holes that need to be filled or stitched together.

And sometimes a developmental editor slips into the role of ghostwriter.

When you are looking for help with your manuscript, you need to know where you are in the writing process to decide if you need a developmental editor, a reader, a copyeditor, or a proofreader. And if you don’t know, then it’s probably time to find a someone who can look over what you’ve written and help you decide whom to turn to. And that someone would most probably be an editorial consultant.

Here’s what FFF’s Jacob Hornberger had to say:

We recently converted FFF’s book Separating School & State: How to Liberate America’s Families by Sheldon Richman into eBook format. It is available for ordering here in Kindle, iTunes, and Nook. This is a great book! It is FFF’s all-time best-seller. I can’t recommend it too highly.…

It would be difficult to find a better example of a socialistic program than public schooling. The state gets its “customers” through mandate. If parents don’t subject their children to the system, the parents are fined or jailed. If they remain recalcitrant, the state takes away their children. The curriculum is set by the state. The schoolteachers are government employees. The system is funded by taxation.

The results, as most everyone realizes, are abysmal.

At Invisible Order, we’re prouder than a whole pride of lions to be a part of FFF’s new digital releases. The epublishing revolution sets great books flying free — and makes it easier every day to break out of the state’s program of educational imprisonment.

iPad?

I know ebook enthusiasts who will only read on the iPad. Jeffrey Tucker was giving thumbs-down reviews to the most popular ebook readers back when I was already a complete convert to digital text. He said that turning the pages was too slow, that you couldn’t flip around in the book. “I can see how this might be valuable if this is the way we mostly read — the way people navigate the latest best-selling novel — but I have my doubts that this is the way most of us use books.”

Five years later, he wrote,

The iPad was a revelation to me.… That thing changed my whole life. I only needed to see my first epub on iPad to realize that I would only read paper and ink with great reluctance from then on. It’s still the same today. In fact, I’ve turned the epub into my main profession: I run the Laissez Faire Club that releases top-of-the-line epubs weekly on a subscription basis.

Kindle?

I also know people who take the opposite position: they will only read ebooks on e-paper readers such as the Kindle and never on a tablet such as the iPad. One editor I know tells me that looking at a backlit screen like the iPad’s for hours turns an otherwise pleasurable book into an assault on the eyes.

Unfortunately, there is no ideal e-reader for all of us. I’m lucky, I suppose, that my job requires me to have a variety of these devices for ebook production and quality assurance. I don’t have to choose only one. And I do find myself switching among them all the time.

Here’s my breakdown of the options and which one best fits which circumstance.

iPad!

I agree with the iPad fans. My favorite reading experience is on Apple’s iBooks app, which just gets better and better. Last night I downloaded to a newer iPad a book I’d started on an older iPad. Instead of opening to the beginning of the book, iBooks opened it to the last page I’d read and showed my bookmark. This wasn’t a book I’d purchased from Apple; it was a book I’d produced myself. And yet iBooks recognized it across devices and updated my position in the text, my notes, and my bookmarks from the iCloud.

I can’t even choose between the classic iPad and the iPad mini. When I’m in a reading chair or out of the house (but still indoors, a point I’ll come back to in a moment), I prefer the convenience of the mini’s size. When I’m in bed, I prefer the larger screen of the original iPad.

Kindle!

So why don’t I insist on reading only on the iPad? Because I do a lot of reading outside: on the deck, in the back yard, in the front yard, at the park. The iPad and all other backlit, color flatscreen tablets, are awful for outdoor reading. The glare turns the screen into a mirror, and I end up looking at the sky or the underside of tree branches reflected in my text. I have to tilt the tablet constantly to find a shadow to read in. The iPhone screen is small enough that you can shade it with a free hand or by leaning over it, but anything larger makes reading feel like slow-motion acrobatics.

So when I’m headed outside, I put down my iPad and pick up a lighter, sleeker, e-paper Kindle.

You can read about e-paper here at Wikipedia, but here’s the summary:

Electronic paper, e-paper and electronic ink are display technologies which are designed to mimic the appearance of ordinary ink on paper. Unlike conventional backlit flat panel displays which emit light, electronic paper displays reflect light like ordinary paper, theoretically making it more comfortable to read, and giving the surface a wider viewing angle compared to conventional displays.

My favorite e-paper device is the Kindle Touch. The combination of e-paper and a touch screen is ideal, and Amazon’s cover (sold separately) has a built-in reading light. I loved the Kindle 2 and the Kindle 3, but once you’ve used a touch screen, it’s hard to go back to pressing buttons.

The Kindle Paperwhite is even better: it has side lighting built into the device itself, no special cover or reading light necessary. The only reason I still prefer my Kindle Touch is because the Paperwhite doesn’t have audio. (All other Kindles can be used for audiobooks as well as ebooks.)

Nook?

The most beautiful of the e-paper readers is the Nook Glow from Barnes & Noble. It has side lighting and a touch screen, just like the Kindle Paperwhite. It’s small and light without resorting to the tiny screen of the old Sony Reader. It has slim press buttons under a soft rubber exterior along the sides, and I like using these to page back and forth in a book, but you never need to use them: you can do everything through the touch screen if you prefer.

But there are two huge disadvantages to the e-paper line of Nook readers:

1. Amazon has many more books

   Amazon’s Kindle is designed for purchasing ebooks from Amazon. The Nook is designed to purchase ebooks from Barnes & Noble. This is going to be an issue with any e-reader you buy: it will not easily let you read all ebooks. So if you’re going to be stuck with one company’s catalog, I say go for the much bigger catalog. (And you can read Amazon’s entire catalog of ebooks even if you don’t own a Kindle device. There are Kindle apps for your computer, your tablet, your phone; you can even read Kindle books in a web browser.)

   Some would argue that the Nook has a bigger catalog because it uses the EPUB format, which is the standard ebook format for pretty much every device other than the Kindle (which uses a format called MOBI), and the vast majority of free books online are EPUBs, but if you install calibre on your computer, it will convert either format for either e-reader, so my Kindle is chockfull of books I downloaded in EPUB. Amazon even lets you mail your own documents to the Kindle, so I can download an EPUB to calibre and have it convert and send wirelessly to my Kindle. You can’t email a book to your Nook.

2. The Nook is a beautiful piece of hardware, but its software is buggy!

   At Invisible Order, when we create ebooks for our clients, we want them to look good on any e-reader. My main use for the Nook is to confirm that it will display our ebooks properly. The reason I first reach for the Nook at this testing stage is because the Nook is the lowest common denominator: it’s the reader that is most likely to mess up how a book is displayed. It wraps chapter titles awkwardly, sometimes losing the end of words altogether. It doesn’t know how to handle tables or lists properly. Indentation is unreliable. If we can make a book look good on the Nook, it will look good on the Kindle or iPad, but the reverse is not true!

   That makes the Nook invaluable to us as developers, but it’s a big problem for me as a consumer of ebooks. Not all ebook makers will have made sure their books work well on the Nook, not even for ebooks sold through Barnes & Noble. If you want the e-reader that will display the most books most completely and attractively, go for the iPad or Kindle’s tablet: the Kindle Fire. Your best bet for a reliable layout on e-paper is the Kindle Paperwhite, followed by the other e-paper Kindles. Nook really comes in last. (See “Will the Nook Gather Dust?”)

There can be only one!

And if you have to pick only one e-reader?

I still can’t give a definitive answer, but here’s a conditionally definitive answer:

• If you really just want one device for reading ebooks, and that’s all you plan to use it for, the hands-down best e-reader is the Kindle Paperwhite.
• If you want a beautiful e-reader that will allow you to do more (much more) than read a book, nothing beats the iPad mini. (But don’t expect to read it at the beach.)

You have to read the full article to find buried, and in a single line, this about her: according to Murray Rothbard, Hutchinson was America’s first individualist anarchist.

Read his article about her, excerpted from Conceived in Liberty.

(This isn’t just Rothbard’s pet theory, by the way. Eunice Minette Schuster came to the same conclusion about Hutchinson and the antinomians in general in her 1932 book Native American Anarchism.)