Nova accepts the following files.
- Cover
- XML
- EPUB
- Assets (various multimedia files)
Cover Image
The cover image is mandatory for books. The cover must be in this specification exactly.
The preferred format for the cover is a PNG. image of 600 x 800 pixels.
File naming convention: cover.png
The Nova platform supports GIF, BMP, JPEG, PNG images in your content. so you should usually provide your images with the maximum resolution.
The ZIP file can contain an “assets” folder (optional) that contains all other associated files such as images and supplemental data files.
Nova Structure
The nova package must contain a ZIP file and the Manifest.xml. Both should be in the same name.

Manifest Structure
The manifest.xml file should follow the below format. You will need to capture the additional informations as exactly mentioned in the sample below. And this has key information about the content, please ensure before upload the information in the manifest.xml. Here, we have mentioned Price information for reference.
The access types: FREE (or) OA (or) ACQUIREDCONTENTS (or) COMPLIMENTARY (or) PAID.
Pre-Publication Marketing (Free Book Samples / Flyer)
The concept of book samples as a promotional for book sales and its providing a free chapter , offering buyers to better evaluate purchasing decisions.
To do this, we need to copy the samples chapter along with the package.
The sample chapter PDF name should be “sample.pdf“
The flyer chapter PDF name should be “flyer.pdf“
Package Type : full-book (without full text)
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE nova PUBLIC "nova" "nova.dtd">
<nova isbn="9781785271694" content-type="full-book" scheduled ="2021-02-05 18:06:28" full-text="no">
<chapter type="front-matter" id="prelims" access-type="OA"/>
<book type="zip" file="Brown" access-type="PAID">
<price isbn="9781785271694" GBP="70.00" USD="115.00" type="hardback"/>
<price isbn="9781785271700" GBP="70.00" USD="115.00" type="paperback"/>
<price isbn="9781785271687" GBP="70.00" USD="115.00" type="webpdf"/>
<price isbn="9781785271688" GBP="70.00" USD="115.00" type="epub"/>
</book>
</nova>
Package Type : full-book (with full text)
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE nova PUBLIC "nova" "nova.dtd">
<nova isbn="9781785271694" content-type="full-book" full-text="yes">
<chapter type="front-matter" id="prelims" access-type="FREE"/>
<book type="zip" file="Hogue170918_Anthem" access-type="PAID">
<price isbn="9781785271694" GBP="70.00" USD="115.00" type="hardback"/>
<price isbn="9781785271700" GBP="70.00" USD="115.00" type="paperback"/>
<price isbn="9781785271687" GBP="70.00" USD="115.00" type="webpdf"/>
<price isbn="9781785271688" GBP="70.00" USD="115.00" type="epub"/>
</book>
</nova>
Package Type : chunk-book (without full text)
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE nova PUBLIC "nova" "nova.dtd">
<nova isbn="9876543211123" content-type="chunk-book" full-text="no">
<book type="zip" file="Zahoor011119" access-type="PAID">
<price isbn="9781785274596" GBP="25.00" USD="40.00" type="hardback"/>
<price isbn="9781785274602" GBP="25.00" USD="40.00" type="webpdf"/>
<price isbn="9781785274619" GBP="25.00" USD="40.00" type="epub"/>
</book>
<chapter type="front-matter" id="prelims" access-type="OA"/>
<chapter id="ch01">
<price GBP="10" USD="30"/>
</chapter>
<chapter id="ch02">
<price GBP="10" USD="30"/>
</chapter>
</nova>
Package Type : chunk-book (with full text)
<?xml version="1.0" encoding= "UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE nova PUBLIC "nova" "nova.dtd">
<nova isbn="9781785274596" content-type="chunk-book" full-text="yes">
<book type="zip" file="Conley200719_Anthem.zip" access-type="PAID">
<price isbn="9781785274596" GBP="25.00" USD="40.00" type="hardback"/>
<price isbn="9781785274602" GBP="25.00" USD="40.00" type="webpdf"/>
<price isbn="9781785274619" GBP="25.00" USD="40.00" type="epub"/>
</book>
<chapter type="front-matter" id="toc-001" folder="toc" access-type="FREE"/>
<chapter id="book-part-001" folder="ch01" >
<price GBP="10" USD="30"/>
</chapter>
<chapter id="book-part-002" folder="ch02" >
<price GBP="10" USD="30"/>
</chapter>
</nova>
Package Type : in-press (upcoming books)
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE nova PUBLIC "nova" "nova.dtd">
<nova isbn="9789390508259" content-type="in-press" full-text="no">
<book id="Born Optimist" scheduled="2021-07-29 00:00:00" access-type="PAID">
<price isbn="9789390508259" GBP="18.36" USD="30.36" type="hardback"/>
<price isbn="9781783086375" GBP="18.36" USD="145.00" type="webpdf"/>
<price isbn="9781783086382" GBP="18.36" USD="30.36" type="epub"/>
</book>
</nova>
Package Type : audio-only
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE nova PUBLIC "nova" "nova.dtd">
<nova isbn="9876543211123" content-type="audio-only">
<chapter id="ch01">
<price GBP="10" USD="30"/>
</chapter>
</chapter>
</nova>
Package Type : assessment sample
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE nova PUBLIC "nova" "nova.dtd">
<nova isbn="9781785274596" content-type="assessment" full-text="no">
<book type="zip" file="Banking Theory Law and Practice" access-type="PAID">
<price isbn="9781785274596" GBP="25.00" USD="40.00" type="widget"/>
</book>
</nova>
Package Type : media
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE nova PUBLIC "nova" "nova.dtd">
<nova media-type="file">
</nova>
Note: assessments should have a file with name index.html
Table 1: Element description
Element | Attribute | Definition | Value | Necessity |
---|---|---|---|---|
nova | content-type | Formal reference identification of the content | full-book, chunk-book, chapter, in-press, audio-only, assessment | mandatory |
full-text | Formal reference identification of the content type | YES / NO | mandatory | |
lang | The lang attribute specifies the language of the element's content. | Common examples are "en" for English, "es" for Spanish, "fr" for French, and so on. | mandatory | |
work-flow | Formal reference identification of the work flow | book | mandatory | |
scheduled | Formal reference identification for publication date. The attribute value must be in UTC time format. | yyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss | mandatory | |
isbn | ISBN stands for 'International Standard Book Number'. It's basically a 13 digit identification number that book sellers and libraries use to identify books. | 9876543211123 | mandatory | |
description | Details of your current version | version 1.0 | mandatory | |
stock | Quantity of physical copies that are available for purchase. (All print products) | |||
chapter | type | Formal reference identification of the sub division | sample, prelims, Ch01, etc | mandatory |
folder | Name of the folder | Zahoor011119 | mandatory | |
access-type | Digital Price / Open Access | Free, OA, AcquiredContents, Complimentary, Paid | mandatory | |
price | GBP | Price type | 10 | mandatory |
USD | Price type | 30 | mandatory | |
INR | Price type | 2187 | mandatory | |
Type | ISBN Type [hardback, paperback, webpdf, epub] | 978178527607 | mandatory | |
original-price | Actual price for the book | 30.00 | optional | |
save | Discount amount | 11.02 | optional | |
gms | weight of the books (paperback and hardback) | 2.5 | mandatory | |
subscription | type | Silver | 1 | optional |
Gold | 2 | optional | ||
Platinum | 3 | optional |
TOC Preparation
TOC is an important element for eBooks. Nova preserves the TOC given as is. Because Nova takes the different format of input and choices, TOC is retained as per the following order.
- Retain the TOC from the given BITS XML.
- If not, then take it from the ePUB file.
- If not, then take it from the ePDF file
If none of these files has TOC, then the TOC will be shown as to “No TOC is given by the publisher” on the TOC page.
Zip File Structure (full-text= no)
The Zip file can contain Assets, EPub, XML, PDF files, and cover image.

Supplementary data, as characterized by the DTD documentation, are extra “information files that contain data straightforwardly supportive of the document, for instance, an audio clip, movie, database, spreadsheet, applet, or other external file.” When given, these should be described in the XML document and tagged with the <supplementary-material> tag.
Guidelines for book reviewers
After the ingestion, please make sure to review the content and publish it.
If you are sure to not review online, you can add <nova scheduled=”timestamp” > to automatically publish immediately after the FTP ingestion.
Despite you QA the content online or not, you can schedule the publication time. Based on the time you configured, the content will be published to the public. Be cautious the time you configure.
If you neither set <nova schedule=”timestamp” > attribute nor click to publish in the ingestion interface, the content will stay in the staging site forever. There may be some email notification in case of long-pending unpublished content.
Transmission
Transmissions can be scheduled at any time.