How To Write Your First Book In iBooks Author

If you have ever wanted to write a book and get it published, Apple’s latest— and possibly game changing software–iBooks Author might very well be the easiest and fastest way to get it done.

Apple recently introduced iBooks Author in a live presentation at the Guggenheim in New York. The software is aimed at textbook writers and publishers, but it can just as well be used for producing cookbooks, picture books, interactive fiction novels, how-to books, and the like.

iBooks Author looks to be the first consumer-based e-Pub software designed for multimedia books.

Feature Overview

E-books designed with iBooks Author are basically geared to be read on the iPad platform using the recently updated iBooks 2 reader app. iBooks Author books can however be exported to PDF format, and to plain text format—excluding the embedded images and other media.

If you’re familiar with Apple’s desktop publishing application, Pages, you’ll feel at home with iBooks Author. Both programs share a similar interface, including text editor formatting tools and page layouts, and the familiar drop and add multimedia features.

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Write your own textbook with these iBook author guides

We are clearly at a massive turning point in traditional textbook publishing with Microsoft, Apple and Amazon all making huge investments into digital textbook creation and delivery.

This means a lot to teachers who have always aspired to put together a textbook of their own as they do not have to go down the traditional path of publishing houses and possible financial ruin if it is not a commercial success.

I almost view this as a similar period of time to the late 90's to when savvy musicians began using the web to release their own music independently with huge success much to the disgust of major record labels.

It will not surprise me if a number of teachers have a similar success by releasing digital content of their own.

iBooks is Apple's method of delivering textbooks which at the moment is the clear front runner in digital textbook delivery.

Here are a few guides you can use if you want to get started developing your first iBook using Apples free iBook author app.

iBook Author Guides

Adding Class Widgets

Apple's Guide

Cnet: Why iPad's and iBooks are not a viable solution for schools.

I am big fan of the iPad and can see a lot of potential for it in education even if it is a little hard to define still after nearly three years on the market. 

In the past I have identified some of the short fallings in using iPad's as a mainstream educational computer but today Cnet published an intersting article about why Apple's latest innovation and reworking of the textbook may be just too much for schools to adopt in a financial and logistical sense. 

The article is here and I'd love to hear your thoughts on it as I know many schools have had mixed reviews of iPad's thus far.