Continued…

I don't see the situation as a defeat. I went through many iterations of testing: different formats, different software, different structures. It's not easy to create children's picture books which contain re-flowable text, meet accessibility requirements, contain metadata fields for compliance and address the challenges required for text and illustration layout.

Throughout this exercise, I discovered not all e-pub files are created equal. An e-book viewed on Apple Books does not look the same as a preview on the Kobo online store, which also does not look the same if you view it via the Kobo desktop, as a "side-loaded" ebook.

A number of years ago, when I initially released my books in e-book form, I was exclusively using Amazon KDP. A couple of years ago I de-listed all of them when I took time away from anything to do with my writing.

Since then, I have become more involved with my writing once again and decided to go all in with Kobo. It's been eye-opening to learn about the changes in the industry. Trying to find e-pub generating software which included the ability to set up the mandatory metadata information and alternate text for images was time-consuming.

Originally, I created my e-books with Scrivener. To my knowledge, the software is not able to record metadata information regarding accessibility compliance levels. It is also lacking in the alternate text feature for images.

I tested the free version of Vellum, but without being able to test the actual e-pub file generated, I was not comfortable with purchasing it.

I tested with Apple Pages, but from what I saw on the Kobo preview, the e-pub output was not Kobo friendly.

As I moved along in my testing and research, I discovered that after creating your e-pub file with whatever software you chose, it was advisable to "tweak" the contents using either Sigil or Calibre.

Why aren't these software programs up to the challenge?

Then I realized, each of the e-book readers will have their own proprietary way of doing things and therefore process an e-pub file in different ways.

So, after that lightbulb moment, I searched specifically for software which created accessible e-pub files AND were compliant with Kobo requirements. That's when I found references to Jutoh software. It's the first desktop software I've been able to find that has the accessibility metadata fields built into it AND you have the capability to add alternate text to images.

I no longer have to create the e-pub, then manually add the metadata field information, delete object tags, change the background colour of the cover, make another reference to language and whatever else that could not be done using Scrivener and Pages.

True, I haven't been able to create a workflow to build a picture-book to my satisfaction, but I was able to source Jutoh software, which will make publishing my chapter books and adult fiction so much easier.