Absolutely! Creating epub ebooks is basically creating web pages. Epubs are just zipped up XHTML files, with exactly the same semantic structure and CSS styling you'd find on a well-made web page. That makes web devs with English majors our ideal type of volunteer!

Check out our step by step guide to creating an ebook[1] and then our Wanted Ebook list[2] for some good first-time productions. Then send a note to our mailing list and we'll help you through it.

Creating an ebook is a very satisfying endeavor - I always say it's like building your own lightsaber.

[1] https://standardebooks.org/contribute/producing-an-ebook-ste...

[2] https://standardebooks.org/contribute/wanted-ebooks

The list for accepting ebooks makes a lot of sense, but I noted that public domain books are excluded. What is the reason for that?

I’m neither associated with the project nor a lawyer, but I can speculate: afaik U.S. copyright law doesn’t explicitly allow someone to declare a text to be in the public domain.