'iBooks Author' eBook Authoring App for Mac Now Available

[Osnabrueck]

I've been fiddling around with iBooks Author for about an hour and am stuck.

When I attempt to 'Preview' my iBook I see the book appear in my iBooks library, with an empty progress bar on top. But nothing is happening... The progress bar never goes anywhere and if I quit iBooks and restart there's a 'Draft' in its place that won't open.

I've used DeTune to see if the book is actually loading onto the iPad and the data is there. It's just not being recognized by iBooks.

Is anybody else having this problem? I'm using an iPad 2 and a MBP running 10.7.2

UPDATE:
I deleted iBooks and did a reinstall. Fixed it.

This is pretty cool.

 

[shyam09]

damn i wanted an iBook app for mac... but I'll give this a go. I have always wanted to write.

 

[Aeolius]

Can someone detail the process of publishing a book created in iBooks Author? Does one still need a Tax ID, etc, to get through the process?

 

[dbales]

It's 29 bucks. Poor baby.

Nice sarcasm.

Not everyone wants to upgrade to Lion. I'm perfectly happy with Snow Leopard. I like SL and don't wish to load Lion. It's got nothing to with money.

 

[FlameofAnor]

I see that several of you are working on a novel and want to see iBooks Author have templates for novels. I'm also working on a novel, so I was hoping to see the same thing. I'm sure some more templates will be available soon, either through updates or third parties.

But I wanted to mention Scrivener, a very under-appreciated program for writing novels. It's incredibly robust and has many writing tools you're not going to find in iBooks Author. Specifically, it has tools for helping with character development and storylines. iBooks Author is geared more toward education and interactive books. It might not be the best tool to write a novel in.

Plus, Scrivener allows you to export to both iBooks and Kindle, so you get to hit both markets.

I'm not ruling iBooks Author out though. Once I finish my book, I do plan on loading it into iBooks Author and experimenting to see if there are any creative interactive elements I can add to enhance my story. But I can't imagine writing a book within the software itself.

Hope this helps the aspiring authors here.

Thanks...... I'll take advantage of their free trial and see how it does.

 

[radiogoober]

Does anybody know if there is a way to specify page dimensions in iBooks Author? Also is there a way to export a PDF without the "iBooks Author" watermark at the bottom of every page in the PDF?

Think about this for a minute. This is a tool that Apple made to put textbooks onto the iPad. Do you think that it's going to support any page size in the world? No. It will only support iPad screen sizes. Oh my god.

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Nice sarcasm.

Not everyone wants to upgrade to Lion. I'm perfectly happy with Snow Leopard. I like SL and don't wish to load Lion. It's got nothing to with money.

It's pretty ridiculous to not update to the newest software, and then complain about new software not being compatible with your outdated software.

Some people...

 

[unobtainium]

I'm not complaining about the price as I too already own Lion. I'm simply saying it's unfortunate that Apple will not support new software on past generation operating systems.

Might I add your sarcastic remark is unnecessary.

Yes, and...let's not forget that Apple was selling new models loaded with Snow Leopard less than half a year ago. To cut it out of features like iCloud and iBooks Author is very unfortunate, to say the least. And before anyone attacks me, I have already upgraded to Lion. It's the principle more than anything...it would be as if MS stopped supporting Vista more than a year ago because they suddenly expected everyone to be running the just-released Windows 7.

Hint: if even Microsoft wouldn't pull that BS, Apple should certainly not be.

 

[serveitup911]

"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."

Oh great. Now anyone can write a textbook! You don't need to be a scholar or even an authority. All you need is an opinion, time, and a Mac. I can't wait for the "textbooks" on how the world was created in seven days.

It was created in six days; the seventh day was rest. (Well deserved, I might add.)

 

[cuestakid]

what are the chances that we could use this to take existing PDFS and enhance them using iBook Author ? When I am reading a textbook, I sometimes will go online and bookmark/print to PDF certain pages and use them in conjunction with the textbook. Any way we can add PDFs to an existing iBooks author file?

 

[arkmannj]

I'm still waiting for an iBook reader for Mac...

 

[SandynJosh]

I understand that the iPad will provide a better experience, and I applaud Apple for trying to provide cheaper textbooks to children, but it requires an iPad when poorer students/school systems already have a Mac (or PC) that would have no problems displaying the material.

I wish I could read the books on my Mac too. I suppose it's the need for a touch interface that prevents that, but I basically have that with my touchpad.

Come on Apple! Make it so.

 

[renai-spirit]

I've got two stable systems running Snow Leopard and now reason to upset the "apple cart". I don't give a flip about the $29 to upgrade the OS but I've read countless nightmare scenarios related to digicam firmware not working under Lion, etc. I've been using Apple products for over 20 years and I freakin' KNOW how these so-called "easy upgrades" REALLY go. It never goes smoothly.

I had to upgrade my mbp to Lion for iOS5 and my new 4S, but wanted to keep SL for running FCP7. Solution: new partition with Lion. When not using FCP, now I find myself booting to the Lion partition 90% of the time.

 

[Freis968]

Can someone detail the process of publishing a book created in iBooks Author? Does one still need a Tax ID, etc, to get through the process?

Not if you sign up for the FREE books account. I did that and it says you can update to the Seller account which then requires a Tax ID number, etc.

From what I understand you can just make a book of your cat let's say and upload it for FREE to the iTunes store. There is your interactive book!

Of course the whole world can get a FREE book about your cat now...meow!

 

[PC Chopath]

wow, this is FREE!!

 

[wonderspark]

If Lion "stinks", Apple should put additional resources on making Lion better, not backporting some new feature to an old OS.

Lion is on it's 3rd point release, and the fourth should be out soon-- can't come too soon for me.

I installed it on Snow Leopard as others have. Nothing to do with backporting, and everything to do with fooling people into thinking they need to upgrade when they don't.

It seems to work just fine after making a couple books already.

 

[pavinder]

I installed it on Snow Leopard as others have. Nothing to do with backporting, and everything to do with fooling people into thinking they need to upgrade when they don't.

Yep, seems to be working fine on 10.6.7 in initial tests.

 

[hayesk]

Tell that to PPC users.

And the 68K users too?

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I understand that the iPad will provide a better experience, and I applaud Apple for trying to provide cheaper textbooks to children, but it requires an iPad when poorer students/school systems already have a Mac (or PC) that would have no problems displaying the material.

iPad + 8 $15 textbooks cost less than 8 textbooks at traditional prices.

Also, the content is developed for a touch interface.

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Should, but aren't.

Phazer

10.7.3 just got seeded a few days ago. They are. Maybe you meant to say "aren't tailoring the software to exactly what I want."

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I guess you missed the part where several posters pointed out they would have to upgrade hardware as well. Including me. In my case the scanner software need Rosetta.

Now maybe you have an obscure scanner that isn't updated by the company anymore, but VueScan works fine on Lion, and supports a wide variety of scanners. I have an AGFA scanner that never got an Intel driver update at all, and was discontinued in 2002 and VueScan supports it in Lion.

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I'm still on Snow Leopard primarily because I'm not a fan of the iOSification of Mac OS X. Gimmicky.

The Launcher is completely optional. What other parts of the OS are "iOSified?"

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I've got two stable systems running Snow Leopard and now reason to upset the "apple cart". I don't give a flip about the $29 to upgrade the OS but I've read countless nightmare scenarios related to digicam firmware not working under Lion, etc. I've been using Apple products for over 20 years and I freakin' KNOW how these so-called "easy upgrades" REALLY go. It never goes smoothly.

I've been using Macs since 1988. Lion upgraded smoothly for me.

I think your problem is you read a few people having a problem and extrapolate it to everyone. Stop it. Someone will always have a problem. It will always be that way. Don't know what digicams you are talking about, but why not see if yours works in Lion or not rather than worry about issues that won't affect you? I swear, pessimists create their own problems sometimes.

 

[erz]

getting the app to work on SL

It may surprise you to learn that the leopard can indeed change his shorts...


That means you can mask your system to tell the app store it is running 10.7.2 which allows you to install the app (works for other things too), then restoring your system settings to their original state and telling the app to accept running on SL, again with just a quick edit of a file. So far everything seems to work out fine on my system, maybe an indication that Apple indeed wants to incentivize you to upgrade by means of an artificial barrier that on the other hand can easily be circumvented. Make of that what you will.

Anyway, getting around that barrier is not news on MacRumors, as I found this link here in the first place:
install ibooks author on SL

I fiddled around with the instructions and found that my system settings obviously differ (maybe they used an admin account in the link above) so that the process for me is a slight variation. But I also learned that messing up your camouflage and getting shut out by the app detecting your meddling can be remedied simply by trashing the app and starting the process anew.

Doing it my way really only took me about four minutes, download included, so if you desperately want a piece of the action you may want to give the sneakaround a try.
How to get iBooks Author working in 11 steps

 

[Tearabite]

Can someone detail the process of publishing a book created in iBooks Author? Does one still need a Tax ID, etc, to get through the process?

It's simple if you create a FREE (no selling) account.. all the steps are right there on the help-links. I went thru the process and got everything setup and published in just a few minutes.. but now i cant find my book anywhere in the store.. i guess it has to be approved

 

[johngordon]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

Sorry if this has been answered...

My background is web design, with a little experience in ePub.

One of my projects is a website for a specialist travel guide.

This looks like a great tool to maybe produce a great looking iPad version without having to go down the more technical app development route.

However, if it has to be approved, I'm now thinking Apple would only approve educational material?

And simply as a consumer rather than potential creator, I'd maybe hope for some great looking iPad versions of coffee table type reference books.

 

[jb1280]

At the very least this is going to be an excellent for teachers to develop their own study guides for their classes.

 

[2cool4games]

Apple should've first made better keyboards for book writers.

 

[smoledman]

The interesting thing is how many academic book writers will purchase an iMac or Macbook so they can use this "free" software. That will be very telling indeed.

 

[radiogoober]

The interesting thing is how many academic book writers will purchase an iMac or Macbook so they can use this "free" software. That will be very telling indeed.

Right now that number will be zero. iBooks Author is not academic friendly at all. You simply cannot write a serious textbook without references/citations, and this application does not support them. The "free" textbook that you can download is "Mickey Mouse", and is not remotely academic. iBooks Author may be appealing if you want to write neat little books for children, but right now it is not suitable for academics.

 

[jb1280]

Right now that number will be zero. iBooks Author is not academic friendly at all. You simply cannot write a serious textbook without references/citations, and this application does not support them. The "free" textbook that you can download is "Mickey Mouse", and is not remotely academic. iBooks Author may be appealing if you want to write neat little books for children, but right now it is not suitable for academics.

This is simply inaccurate. I have no fewer than 20 "serious" textbooks in my office that I have received from publishers geared towards university students and none of them have references/citations beyond a further reading section completing each chapter. I'm not sure if you are conflating a textbook with a scholarly study that or your particular discipline has a rigid scholarly apparatus associated with their textbooks, but throughout the humanities and social sciences, textbooks generally do not have excessive citations.

Furthermore, if an author wanted to insert a more rigorous scholarly apparatus into a textbook, you should set the citation within a glossary note at the end of a sentence. This feature actually would make textbooks more "scholarly" by perhaps having students actually read a citation and not just skip endnotes or footnotes entirely.

I spent a little bit of time in this app with some forthcoming material in a textbook and it is actually quite compelling for textbooks. Would I use this for a monograph? Of course not, but for the textbook audience this is a step forward.