in Production
An ebook that follows the reader's settings
Every piece of artwork in the Dreamscape Code ebook is drawn in the text colour, so night mode doesn't leave white boxes on the page.
Anyone who reads ebooks at night knows the moment: the page turns dark, the text turns pale, and a chapter heading or an ornament stays stubbornly white, a bright rectangle in the middle of the screen. It happens because the artwork was supplied as a picture, and pictures do not change colour.
Artwork drawn in the text colour
In the Dreamscape Code ebook every piece of artwork is vector and drawn in the text colour: the eye lockup on the title page, the Tingle Press mark, the chapter numerals, the forty-eight signs of the Code and the social icons in About the Author. When the reader switches to sepia or night mode, all of it switches with the text.
One file for every store
The ebook is a single EPUB 3 file, used for Kindle, Kobo, Apple Books, Nook and Google Play. Before release it was run through EPUBCheck, the standard validator for EPUB files, and passed with no errors and no warnings. Stores differ in how strictly they enforce the specification, and a file that passes the validator behaves predictably in all of them.
Print habits that don't travel
Some print conventions have to be rebuilt rather than copied. QR codes make sense on a printed page and none in an ebook, so the print edition's About the Author page carries QR codes and the ebook has tappable icons instead. Drop caps are sized to the reader's chosen font where the reading system allows it.
None of this is visible when it works. That is how it should be.