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Apple announce iBooks 2 includes iBooks Textbooks, iBooks Author and iTunes U

Posted on January 20, 2012 by Liz Murray

Apple made a much anticipated announcement about their digital book offering yesterday. The launch of iBooks 2, involving three new key components: Textbooks, iBooks Author and  iTunes U.

The iBook Textbooks promise to be dynamic, engaging and truly interactive. McGraw-Hill and Pearson are already on board and have textbooks ready for this platform.

iBooks textbooks from Apple

iBooks Author is a free tool which will allow anyone to use various ‘drag and drop’ tools to create iBook Textbooks on a Mac platform. If this works it could quickly change the game for smaller learning institutions developing their own courses, and put pressure on the larger academic publishers not ready for this shift.

The iTunes U app gives iOS users access to the world’s largest catalog of free educational content from top universities including Cambridge, Duke, Harvard, Oxford and Stanford, and starting today any K-12 school district can offer full courses through the iTunes U app. The all-new iTunes U app lets teachers create and manage courses including essential components such as lectures, assignments, books, quizzes and syllabuses and offer them to millions of iOS users around the world.

Posted in Apple, e-book Conversion, e-publishing, e-readers, iBookstore, iPad apps | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Amazon has released the publishing tools required to create KF8 format ebooks.

Posted on January 12, 2012 by David Stephens

Amazon has finally released the publishing tools required to create KF8 format ebooks. KF8 is Amazon’s new ebook format which offers a wider rage of formatting options which will enable publishers of illustrated non-fiction and reference titles to create well designed ebooks. The KF8 format will be supported on all new Kindle devices including the Kindle Fire when it is launched in the UK.

The publishing tools Amazon has released are KindleGen V2, Kindle Previewer and an upgrade to the InDesign ebook export plugin.

KindleGen
KindleGen is a command line tool which enables publishers to work in an automated environment with a variety of source content including HTML, XHTML or EPUB. KindleGen converts this source content to a single file which supports both KF8 and Mobi formats enabling publishers to create great-looking books that work on all Kindle devices and apps.

Kindle Previewer
Kindle Previewer is a graphical user interface tool that emulates how books display across Kindle devices and apps. Kindle Previewer makes it easy for publishers to preview the layout of a book and make sure its text displays properly for any orientation or font size to ensure publishers produce and submit the highest quality Kindle books.

Posted in Amazon / Kindle, Apple, e-book Conversion, e-publishing, e-readers, eBook Sales, iBookstore, Tools | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Strategic issues to consider for digital publishing and designing your ebook/app development

Posted on January 6, 2012 by David Stephens



Posted in Amazon / Kindle, Apple, Apps, Barnes & Noble, e-book Conversion, e-publishing, e-readers, eBook Sales, Google, iBookstore, iPad apps, iPhone apps, Mapping for eBooks, Tools | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Guide to uploading your eBook to the iBookstore

Posted on December 7, 2011 by Liz Murray

Uploading titles to the iBookstore is simple. Below details the process you will need to go through to get your title on the iBookstore.

1: Formatting of titles

The format of each title needs to be ePub. We can provide with this file formatted in the best way for uploading to the iBookstore (contact us at enquiries@ljinteractive.com for a quote.)

You will need to assign an ISBN to each of your titles, this must be a different to your ISBN for your paper version if you have one. The simplest way to do this is buy a batch of ISBN’s from Nielsen – http://www.isbn.nielsenbook.co.uk/controller.php?page=123. This way you have them as you roll out your titles without having to reapply each time.

2: Apple Account Set Up

Once you have your ePub conversion and ISBN’s you will need an Apple iTunes Connect account. Visit https://itunesconnect.apple.com/WebObjects/iTunesConnect.woa/wa/apply to set up an account. To set up an iTunes Connect account you will also need an iTunes Store account if you don’t already have one. You can do this here – http://www.apple.com/itunes/affiliates/download/ .

If you already have an iTunes account and iTunes Connect account to sell other content (i.e. apps) unfortunately you will need to start again and set up another set of accounts to sell your eBooks through.

You will also need a US tax number. Call 001 267 941 1099 to apply for an EIN number, they will issue one over the phone and send the paper work within 4 weeks.

3: Uploading your eBooks

Once you have the above accounts set up please login to your iTunes Connect account (https://itunesconnect.apple.com/WebObjects/iTunesConnect.woa) where the process for uploading will take place.

Apple’s process for uploading eBooks is very user friendly, and the uploading system for eBooks – called the iTunes Producer (accessed through your iTunes Connect account) – is a very simple system.  You need a MAC to upload your eBooks.

iTunes Producer creates one file with all the information about your titles.  The prefix of your file name will be your ISBN number and suffix will be .itmsp for example 9781935570025.itmsp

Continue through the screen completing the information required such as date, series name, title, price etc. Also you will need to upload the ePub file and cover file. When we complete the ePub conversion we will also supply a cover file for it that you will need when adding the guide to the iBookstore.

(Note the details that are filled out for the title information will help any users find the product, and potentially offer you a reach to users that haven’t considered your brand as yet. Therefore consider these terms well.)

Once that process has been completed you can exit the iTunes Producer Software and return to iTunes connect to see your book waiting in the queue to be published.

Apple approves all book uploads, a yellow dot next to the title name means it is pending approval. We usually expect times of between 5 – 14 days for approval (though it can sometimes be faster.)

4: Using the iBookstore

Once your titles have been approved your users will be able to view them in the iBookstore and download them at your chosen price. You can link users through to the relevant information for each title by URL to Apple.

5: Further distribution of your eBook

Of course now you have your ePub version of your book you are free to distribute that file direct. Any number of mobile devices are able to read ePub files direct without using the iBookstore (although this will have no digital rights management). This means that you could allow users to download direct from your website etc.

Additionally, a Kindle (.mobi)  version could also be created for adding to the Kindle Store within Amazon. Kindle is currently the UK’s most popular ereader. For this we would need to provide another Kindle optimised version of the file to ensure that best use was made of the hardware.

Glossary:

iTunesConnect – an internet website to upload your content

iBookstore – where your customers will find and be able to download your eBooks

iBooks – the software your customers will use to read the eBooks

iTunes Producer – the software used to package and upload your eBooks to the iBookstore

Contact the LJ Interactive team on 01993 880 929 or enquiries@ljinteractive.com for information on eBook conversions.

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What news on Amazon Kindle KF8 format?

Posted on December 1, 2011 by David Stephens

It’s obvious how important the publishing industry are viewing the Kindle Fire for potential illustrated non fiction and reference titles as there is a growing swell of discontentment from the industry regarding the lack of information around the KF8 format.

I guess one of the main gripes is why Amazon have made KindleGen 2 and other information available to a select number of publishers, launched the Fire weeks ago and still haven’t made this information available to other publishers?

Amazon’s response for the last month has been “the information is coming soon”.

I’m unclear why the publishing tools, namely Kindlegen 2 and Kindle Previewer 2 haven’t been released, even in beta version? Surely it’s in Amazons interest for publishers to be developing content for the Kindle Fire even if Amazon aren’t ready to sell it yet?

We can only guess…

- Perhaps they are trying to fine tune the software so publishers will use it rather than publishers using other tools such as Calibre instead of KindleGen.
- Maybe Amazon are having problems generating KF8 files which can be read by the other Kindle devices?
- It could be that Amazon has a problem with handling and selling two versions of the same ebook i.e. .mobi and KF8

I’m sure Amazon will sort it out but in the mean time I wonder how much the lack of interesting or enhanced ebooks is affecting Amazon Fire sales?

Posted in Amazon / Kindle, Digital Marketing, e-book Conversion, e-publishing, e-readers, eBook Sales | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment