Anyone can upload their completed book to the Apple iBookstore
The not-so-good news:
The completed title can only be viewed on an iPad
The only way to charge for it is to sell it through the iBookstore
You need a Mac running OS X Lion to author your title
The program and tools is targeted at the K-12 educational market where Apple already has a strong presence. The question is whether the schools have the money to buy iPads and whether $15 per textbook per student per year is a business model that will work. Publishers are calling it ‘pilot pricing’ while Apple says otherwise.
Right now it isn’t clear whether this is a viable publishing option for non-educational publishers of books that rely on illustrations, photographs and other media elements. You already have a small market so limiting it to iPads (even though there are millions) slices it even finer. But I think it could serve as a great low-cost proof of concept or prototyping tool. Assuming you have a Mac to author it.
One big benefit they added was the ability to upload your iBook title(s) into the iBookstore yourself. That’s not something a non-iBook author can do today, they must go through an aggregator.
Apple iBooks Author: A self-publishing tool for authors of children’s books and art books?
First the good news:
The not-so-good news:
Right now it isn’t clear whether this is a viable publishing option for non-educational publishers of books that rely on illustrations, photographs and other media elements. You already have a small market so limiting it to iPads (even though there are millions) slices it even finer. But I think it could serve as a great low-cost proof of concept or prototyping tool. Assuming you have a Mac to author it.
One big benefit they added was the ability to upload your iBook title(s) into the iBookstore yourself. That’s not something a non-iBook author can do today, they must go through an aggregator.