Our look is the result of reader comments, our own experimentation, and feedback from distribution channels. Distinctive covers complement our distinctive approach to technical topics, breathing personality and life into potentially dry subjects. The image on the cover of Incident Response is a diver and shark. There are over 350 species of sharks, but only three are responsible for most attacks on swimmers and divers: the white shark (Carcharodon leucas), the tiger shark (Galeocerdo cuvier), and the bull shark (Carcharhinus leucas). Other species known to attack humans include the hammerhead, the shortfin mako, and certain reef sharks. In Florida, reports of shark attacks implicate the blacktip, spinner, and blacknose sharks. To avoid shark attacks, divers are advised to swim in groups and avoid the water at night, dawn, and dusk.

Sharks are the apex predator of the ocean, balancing the ecosystem by controlling the populations of other animals such as seals and pinnipeds. Sharks rely on sight, taste, smell, and sound to track prey in the water. They can sense electric and magnetic fields, and detect low frequency vibrations a mile or more away. Their teeth are constantly replaced, sometimes every eight days, and their bodies are a hydrodynamic torpedo shape. The smallest shark, the 6-inch cigar shark, lives 1,500 feet under the surface in the Atlantic, Indian, and western Pacific oceans. The largest shark is the 60-foot whale shark, which feeds on plankton. The average lifespan is 25 years, but some sharks live to be as much as 100 years old. Colleen Gorman was the production editor and copyeditor for Incident Response. Mary Brady was the proofreader, and Nicole Arigo provided quality control. Molly Shangraw and Edie Shapiro provided production support. Ellen Troutman-Zaig wrote the index.

Ellie Volckhausen designed the cover of this book, based on a series design by Edie Freedman. The cover image is a 19th-century engraving from Dover's Men: A Pictoral Archive from 19th Century Sources. Emma Colby produced the cover layout with QuarkXPress 4.1 using Adobe's ITC Garamond font.

David Futato designed the interior layout based on a series design by Nancy Priest. Neil Walls converted the files from Microsoft Word to FrameMaker 5.5.6 using tools created by Mike Sierra. The text and heading fonts are ITC Garamond Light and Garamond Book; the code font is Constant Willison. The illustrations that appear in the book were produced by Robert Romano and Jessamyn Read using Macromedia Free-Hand 9 and Adobe Photoshop 6. This colophon was written by Colleen Gorman.

Whenever possible, our books use a durable and flexible lay-flat binding. If the page count exceeds this binding's limit, perfect binding is used.