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Smaller publishers are using Apple's iBooks Author application to bring interactive digital books to Apple's iBookstore, confounding expectations that they would be put off by Apple's restrictive terms.
The publishers have been actively encouraged by Apple to develop books using the app so as to showcase the tool and their products on the iBookstore. The free app allows publishers to embed video, images and other interactive elements in their digital books.
Children's publisher Miles Kelly is to publish its first iBooks Author produced book, Speed Machines, in mid-June. Part of its Inside series, which retails for £5.99 on the high street, the iBook will be priced at £2.99. The publisher is expecting to do three more titles in the next couple of months. Lewes-based independent Ilex Press is publishing Pring's Photographer's Miscellany this month (top left and centre), priced at £4.99, a discount on the print version's £7.99.
Nick Hawkes, e-commerce sales manager at Miles Kelly, said the company was attracted to the low-cost production offered by the application, which meant it could publish interactive books for less than the cost of making stand-alone apps. "We see the iBooks Author tool as a middle ground between the straight ePub e-book and apps. Obviously the cost implications between these two are enormous, and the iBooks Author app is being able to close that gap a little."
Adam Juniper, associate publisher at Ilex Photo, said the tool helped the publisher tackle a specific problem: how to produce design-led books using fixed layouts that also had the flexibility to be viewed horizontally and vertically. Juniper said it had taken time for Ilex's designer to get to grips with the new software. "Everyone's used to adapting, but there are some behaviours in iBooks Author that were completely unexpected. Despite being a bit of a slog, what we've created is better than we dared hope. All the texture and charm of the original print book has been brought alive through judicious insertion of interactive widgets."
Juniper said Ilex was already working on further titles, including a more practical title on digital videography.
iBooks Author was unveiled by Apple in January this year, pitched as a tool for bringing education books to the iPad, but also useful to publishers of highly illustrated titles. Dorling Kindersley, one of Apple's launch partners, has already published 20 IBA titles, including My First ABC and the Eyewitness Travel Guide to London.
The tool has also proved to be attractive to non-traditional publishers. Dean Johnson, executive creative director at the digital agency Brandwidth, said it published its own Brandwidth iBook a few days after iBooks Author was launched as a showcase, and was now working on several titles for companies such as Warner Bros and The Smithsonian.
Johnson said: "It makes even less sense for publishers to hold back from iBooks Author production than it did for AppDev."
At the time of the launch, critics said publishers would be put off by Apple's terms, which mean books produced using the proprietary format iBooks Author app cannot also be sold on other platforms. However, Johnson said: "We weren't bothered by the 'lock-in' to Apple's platform, as no one else was offering comparable features—certainly not to such a large potential audience."
"We are not worried about being restricted only to the iPad," Nick Hawkes said. "It is a very good tool and if it sells well, it won't matter."