Comic Writer Tries Out iBooks Author

MacRumors · Jan 23, 2012

Apple's new iBooks Author application enables users to make interactive iBooks on their Mac. Apple says the software allows authors to make "stunning iBooks textbooks, cookbooks, history books, picture books, and more for iPad." Richard Stevens, author of the Diesel Sweeties webcomic, has expanded that list of possibilities to include comic strips.

Diesel Sweeties author Robert Stevens writes of the project:

I had a few insomniac hours this weekend and did a little experiment:

Waking Up With the Diesel Sweeties is a tiny little free ebook for the iPad. It contains all my comics from last month with a few tweaks, formatted in iBooks Author. This version only works on the iPad. It's not in the iBookstore, so you'll need to download the file and sync it to your iPad.

Stevens is offering the iBook free via download from his website, not via the iBookstore, but it is fairly simple to acquire the book:

- Click the book link while using Mobile Safari on your iPad.
- Download to your desktop machine and email it to yourself to open in iBooks.
- Toss it in your Dropbox and open it in iBooks from there.
- Add it to your iTunes library and sync the book to your iPad

The author says he is considering how to combine his twelve years of comics into one huge collection, and appears to be interested in iBooks Author as a potential production device for his ongoing comic collections as well.

The Waking Up With the Diesel Sweeties iBook is available from the Diesel Sweeties website. [Direct Link]

iBooks Author is available free in the Mac App Store. [App Store]

Article Link: Comic Writer Tries Out iBooks Author

coder12 · Jan 23, 2012

This is a nice idea, I've actually been working on something similar...

Macopotamus · Jan 23, 2012

Isn't it free to offer books on the iBookstore? I wonder why he didn't have it listed?

marv08 · Jan 23, 2012

Macopotamus said:
Isn't it free to offer books on the iBookstore? I wonder why he didn't have it listed?

Yes, but you need to buy an ISBN from somewhere, as Apple will only accept titles with one. Single ISBNs are only around $100, but still too much for offering something for free. (They are much cheaper in bulk, but if you don't need them)

charlituna · Jan 23, 2012

Macopotamus said:
Isn't it free to offer books on the iBookstore? I wonder why he didn't have it listed?

Yes (with the ISBN caveat) but you don't have to use the store. Those that have no intentions, at least at the moment, of involving Amazon etc are likely to want to bother with the ISBN. If he decides to later charge or he's going to go to other stores that also have that requirement then he might. but at the moment the free book could be a way to draw folks to his site which is likely monetized via adsense etc. so it's a win (but not for Apple)

Mary Banillow · Jan 23, 2012

No need to sync and stuff.

No need to sync and stuff. Just download the iBook from mobile Safari to your iPad. You will be asked to open it in iBooks (v2) right away.

jesuscandle · Jan 23, 2012

grey linen screen of death

Completely kills iBooks on my iPad 1 - just get a grey linen screen with no tap targets. Force closing the app doesn't seem to help.

Not saying this is widespread at all, but anyone with ideas?

thewitt · Jan 23, 2012

Apple would never have allowed this in the store, even for free. Apologies to the author, but I would have been embarrassed to have this link posted...

britboyj · Jan 23, 2012

thewitt said:
Apple would never have allowed this in the store, even for free. Apologies to the author, but I would have been embarrassed to have this link posted...

And you say that why?

ghall · Jan 23, 2012

Like the comic, but I don't really see much that convinces me this couldn't have been done with a PDF.

iGeek · Jan 23, 2012

Link has 509'd his dropbox URL (heavy traffic has temporarily disabled public links). Anyone have a mirror?

Dr Kevorkian94 · Jan 23, 2012

I was curios how publishing worked now i have the answer, but one question will the book auto update even if it is not published in the iBook store? like if i want to make a book just to distribute to my piers can i somehow give it to them for free and say i add some things will it update on their books as well?

kainjow · Jan 23, 2012

charlituna said:
Yes (with the ISBN caveat) but you don't have to use the store. Those that have no intentions, at least at the moment, of involving Amazon etc are likely to want to bother with the ISBN. If he decides to later charge or he's going to go to other stores that also have that requirement then he might. but at the moment the free book could be a way to draw folks to his site which is likely monetized via adsense etc. so it's a win (but not for Apple)

marv08 said:
Yes, but you need to buy an ISBN from somewhere, as Apple will only accept titles with one. Single ISBNs are only around $100, but still too much for offering something for free. (They are much cheaper in bulk, but if you don't need them)

From http://www.apple.com/itunes/content-providers/book-faq.html

An ISBN is not required if you have a free book agreement and choose to offer your book free on the iBookstore.

csjcsj · Jan 23, 2012

ghall said:
Like the comic, but I don't really see much that convinces me this couldn't have been done with a PDF.

I spent a few hours porting a book from InDesign (previously distributed by pdf) to iBA. The book-like presentation is a bit nicer than a PDF. My book hasn't been published yet, but the thing I'll be most interested in is to see if the downloading is quicker. This heavily illustrated book is a large PDF and takes forever to download.

If someone doesn't already own one, they no longer have to spend hundreds of dollars for software like Quark or InDesign. While iBA does have a few annoying ways of doing things, it is a full featured - and free - page-layout software.

Dr Kevorkian94 · Jan 23, 2012

I went to go make an iBooks account and it tell me that i have to use a different account because mine is already developing apps. Does that mean i need 2 separate counts or is it just telling me i basically have an account already?

ferdinandcc · Jan 23, 2012

Dr Kevorkian94 said:
I went to go make an iBooks account and it tell me that i have to use a different account because mine is already developing apps. Does that mean i need 2 separate counts or is it just telling me i basically have an account already?

You need a second account.

fpnc · Jan 23, 2012

jesuscandle said:
Completely kills iBooks on my iPad 1 - just get a grey linen screen with no tap targets. Force closing the app doesn't seem to help.

Not saying this is widespread at all, but anyone with ideas?

My first generation iPad did exactly the same thing with the free "Life on Earth" iBook. However, after a forced quit of the iBook app via the task bar it opened without problems (I guess that didn't work for you).

As for the iBook experience (i.e. a Multi-Touch iBook), I found the interface a little slow on my iPad. It's usable but I'd expect that you'd need an iPad 2 to make it anything near to a fluid experience (or anything like the demo videos). In fact, I suspect that the iBook 2.0 experience is really designed for the iPad 3 given that that device will probably have a higher resolution screen which will make it a much better digital reader.

ferdinandcc · Jan 23, 2012

jesuscandle said:
Completely kills iBooks on my iPad 1 - just get a grey linen screen with no tap targets. Force closing the app doesn't seem to help.

Not saying this is widespread at all, but anyone with ideas?

You might have luck by downloading another file that can be opened in iBooks, such as a PDF or ePub, and choosing 'Open in iBooks'... If it opens, then you should be able to exit to the shelf and delete the offending file. I've occasionally had to do this in some apps that would try to automatically play a corrupted video and get stuck.

sazivad · Jan 23, 2012

You can get it to show the cover like that? I thought it took you right into the book when you opened it. Or did MR just snap a screenshot really quickly?

Night Spring · Jan 23, 2012

Problem with the way the book is currently formatted is that there's no way to really zom in to the pictures. You can zoom momentarily by spreading with two fingers, but it springs back to regular size when ou let go. I want it to work like the free Beatles Yellow Submarine iBook, where you can zoom in on the pages and they stay zoomed in.

terrywfoster · Jan 23, 2012

I put the book on my server for those that are having problems getting it.

http://www.terrywfoster.com/dieselsweeties/dieselsweeties-december2011.ibooks

TheGenerous · Jan 24, 2012

Dear Diesel Sweeties author,
please return my 30 seconds back.

(seriously, a pdf would had been much better. content is lame)

----------

thewitt said:
Apple would never have allowed this in the store, even for free. Apologies to the author, but I would have been embarrassed to have this link posted...

Not even for free, I agree.

kdarling · Jan 24, 2012

Does anyone know exactly how Apple is going to vette books?

I can easily see hundreds of thousands of free "books" being uploaded by families or kids.

Pretty much like how the App Store is full of junk; only much worse.

Heck, I and my 9 year old already create little pay-to-print books online. We'd love to post free books for our family members with iPads to look at.

--

Or is their store ONLY for text books?

If Apple is smart, they'll set up a different library "store" just for people sharing creating personal books.

StudioGuy · Jan 24, 2012

jesuscandle said:
Completely kills iBooks on my iPad 1 - just get a grey linen screen with no tap targets. Force closing the app doesn't seem to help.

Not saying this is widespread at all, but anyone with ideas?

Me too, but a reboot fixed that, and once had to quit iBooks.

DominoChance · Jan 26, 2012

iBook Author

Tech republic posted an article about IBook Author. The EULA stats that using this program you are required to sell your book only through Apple and they get a cut. Watch out!

Comic Writer Tries Out iBooks Author

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