The development of ebooks for tablet devices offers a rich space for collaboration between writers and designers. This paper examines how this emerging media affects ideas around collaboration and authorship. Specifically it considers the changing role of designers in shaping meaning and content and how this may affect existing paradigms of authorship. Using class-based projects as case studies, the paper presents and discusses examples of how designers have shifted their role from historic notions of “crystal goblet” design or expressive design to genuine collaborators and authors.