Apple has just released a free app that lets educators and aspiring authors and poets create ebooks optimized for reading on an iPad.
The new publishing tool is called iBooks Author. On Thursday, January 19, Apple announced the release of the app during their Education Announcement event in New York City.
According to the product description in the Mac App Store, "Now anyone can create stunning iBooks textbooks, cookbooks, history books, picture books, and more for iPad. All you need is an idea and a Mac.
"Start with one of the Apple-designed templates that feature a wide variety of page layouts. Add your own text and images with drag-and-drop ease. Use Multi-Touch widgets to include interactive photo galleries, movies, Keynote presentations, 3D objects, and more. Preview your book on your iPad at any time. Then submit your finished work to the iBookstore with a few simple steps. And before you know it, you’re a published author."
The general consensus seems to be that iBooks Author is intended primarily to create textbooks with lots of graphics, pull-quotes and other things used to break text up into digestible chunks.
According to Andy Ihnatko of the Chicago Sun-Times, "iBooks Author is the simplest tool for creating attractive, feature-rich books, by far. I was able to take a short story that had been sitting on my hard drive and build a pretty nice book out of it just an hour or two after launching it for the first time.
"... This app is clearly geared specifically towards textbook creation. If you’re trying to build something that’s 100-500 pages long that’s based off an outline containing dozens of chapters with dozens of sub-sections . . . it almost seems like an easy job. The app works like a mashup between Apple’s iWork apps (Keynote and Pages...).
"The only problems I encountered came when the app attempted to format my short story as though it were a matrix calculus textbook. In fact, it would have gone faster if I’d written the whole thing within the app itself — the authoring tools are certainly easy and robust — instead of trying to re-tweak the formatting of an existing word-processing file.
"It’s a great tool for building textbooks but if you’re hoping to use it to convert your 140,000-word novel from a Microsoft Word file into an ebook with a cover and chapter headings (and from there into a source of retirement income), it’s slightly rougher sledding. None of the iBook Author’s built-in book templates are optimized for such simple books, and building a new template for such a thing will take a little time."
In a recent article, Christina Warren of Mashable described some of the app's powerful features.
"... Users can import chapter text from Word or Pages documents directly into the app. Still, from our use, the layout options really seem best designed for books that rely heavily on multimedia and less on lots and lots of text.
"The most compelling part of iBooks Author is the widgets feature. This allows users to insert dynamic elements into pages, including photo galleries, movies, full Keynote presentations, interactive images and 3D objects. Using various actions and layout options, other animations and pop-ups can also be customized in the app to offer a rich experience. Users can even code their own HTML widgets to display custom content," Warren said.
There are some software compatibility issues that people should be aware of before they try to create an ebook with iBooks Author. According to Apple, Keynote ’09 (v5.1.1 or later) is required for Keynote widgets, iBooks 2 is required for previewing and iTunes 10.5.3 is required for syncing.
There are also some issues for people who are hoping to sell copies of their ebooks. Writers can let anyone use their content for free, but if they want to sell their work it has to be through Apple's iBookstore. This means aspiring self-publishers will have to apply for iTunes Connect Paid Books Accounts and meet all of Apple's guidelines. Some authors will have to go through an approved third-party aggregator such as Lulu or Smashwords.
As more and more people join Spokane's surprisingly active literary community, iBooks Author could have benefits both for writers who are trying to get published for the first time and someone like Frank Zafiro who has released self-published work in addition to working with companies such as Spokane's Gray Dog Press.
The app may not be ideal for working on an urban fantasy story or a mystery novel, but it may be just the thing for creating a sociology textbook or a cookbook featuring lots of photographs. It is certainly worth investigating for local writers who can meet the software requirements.
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