Tag Archives: iBooks Author

Making my Euclid eBook

I thought you might like to see how my Euclid eBook is going, so I made a short video to show how I’m putting it together in iBooks Author, which is a program that comes free from Apple to allow you to make books for the iBooks store easily.

These are essentially ePub 3 books, which can contain video and audio and other multimedia features.

I’m loathe to use all the features as it distracts from the hard work of learning to read. (This eBook is a stealth learning to read book! don’t tell the boys, though!) iBooks Author is quite simple, if you are used to working with layout programs. It has it’s idiosyncrasies, however. I hopping later iterations will get to make things easier.

See what you think.

Millie and Bombassa iBooks go live on iTunes!

I’ve been waiting weeks for Millie and Bombassa Dizzy DIY to be approved on the iTunes iBook Store and today it has gone live. And then, after just a few days, the second Millie and Bombassa book, Air Scare, has gone live to. My cup runneth over and I feel joy abounding!! Click the pictures to go to the iBooks store.

Bombassa is a lazy but loveable rhino. Millie is a sensible but sweet bird. Together they make a great pair!

These stories have consistently been at the top of my Library borrowing statistics as they are read again and again. I know they are much loved. I love Bombassa – He’s kind of my grumpy, don’t want to get out of bed side of me, while Millie is the side of me that sees me still working at quarter to 11 on a Friday night!

You Can see me reading the Dizzy DIY here.

Each story contains a drawing video and a quiz, and Dizzy DIY has a video showing you how to make an origami box.

If you like these books, please leave a comment on iTunes. It really does help.

Censorship – why iBooks will fail

iBooks will fail because Apple are censoring content. When you upload a book to the iBook store it sits there for days and weeks waiting to be reviewed so it can go live.

I understand Apple want to keep the technical side of iOs clean and tight – that’s why we love it and trust it, but a technical review for iOs safety standards can be done in microseconds. YouTube does it a million times a day.

What Apple are actually doing is getting a small number of people to read the books and decide if they are the sort of thing they want to have on their platform. I think that’s called censorship – and that is the reason iBooks will fail.

By all means police the viruses and sloppy programming, but don’t police the content. In a few months time the Amazon Kindle Fire will be almost as good as the iPad and their version of iBooks author will be almost as good, just the same way that pc’s were almost as good as Apples. Almost is what most people will accepts ok at the right price.

The Fire will become the tablet and reader of choice, because you will be able to read what you like, when you like and not have to wait for the Goons at apple to decide if your grown up enough to read it yet.

I feel apple are loosing their grip again and Steve’s not going to come and save them again 🙁