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Apple announces free iBooks Author OS X app for publishing books to the App Store
We're here at Apple's education-themed event at the Guggenheim museum in New York City, and the company's just followed up its long-awaited textbook announcement with something unexpected: iBooks Author, a free OS X program for creating books. The intent is really for teachers and other educators to produce educational materials, but Apple says the format can apply to any genre. Aside from the free part, the real story here is ease of use, with the ability to drag and drop photos, videos and even Microsoft Word files into various templates. If you use Apple's own suite of office apps, in particular, you can drag and drop a Keynote presentation into the doc, and it'll live on as an interactive widget. (You can whip up other widgets, too, though you'll need to know Javascript or HTML.) Moving beyond the main text, authors can also arrange glossaries by highlighting and clicking words, and clicking again to add a definition. In a surprise move, Apple also said authors can publish straight to the store, though we're waiting for clarification that textbook writers and other scribes are actually exempt from Cupertino's notorious approval process. In any case, the app is available now in the App Store (for OS X Lion only, sadly) so you can cracking on that definitive Kurt Vonnegut glossary you never knew you had in you. Update: We've got our hands-on up! Update 2: Apple has confirmed some key approval and revenue-sharing details. First, authors will be subject to the same App Store approval process as developers. Writers can offer their books for free, or for as much as $14.99 -- the same price cap for textbooks sold in the store. And, like developers, authors must agree to a 70/30 revenue split, with writers pocketing 70 percent after Apple takes its share.
Making your own iPad magazine
A lot of publications are adding iPads and other portable devices to their distribution chains. As a result, we're beginning to see some solutions for small- and medium-sized companies that are starting to approach the idea of offering a self-publishing solution. You can always send people a PDF, but that's really not a magazine, and it won't show up in the App Store. One interesting product is from some former Apple employees who have started MagAppZine. You submit a PDF, and the company quickly converts it to a magazine and submits it to the App Store for you. You can see some customer examples in the App Store here. Using MagAppZine is not inexpensive, but it's far cheaper than hiring a programmer and managing an App Store submission. Costs are about US$3000 for a magazine, plus charges each time you add a new issue. You get to keep 75% of the revenue if your magazine is a paid creation, MagAppZine gets 25%. That's after the Apple's 30% cut. Naturally, MagAppZine can't guarantee that your app won't get rejected from the App Store, so customers need to understand Apple's rules on content.
Borders enlists BookBrewer for its e-publishing portal, 'Time Cube' guy asks where to sign up
We guess that Barnes & Noble can't have all the fun, huh? You'll soon have another option for self-publishing your wildly fantastical (and wonderfully fact-free) rants: Borders has announced that it'll be using the BookBrewer platform for its new eBook publishing service. Beginning October 25, $90 will get you one ePUB format book, complete with ISBN and distribution to "all major eBook stores," including Borders and Amazon. Does that mean that your pamphlet, EARTH HAS 4 CORNER SIMULTANEOUS 4-DAY TIME CUBE IN ONLY 24 HOUR ROTATION will finally be taken seriously? Nah, probably not. PR after the break.
Barnes & Noble opens 'PubIt!' self-publishing portal, details compensation model
It ain't exactly summer, but we'll take it. Launching just a few days after we'd been told to expect it, Barnes & Noble's PubIt! self-publishing portal is finally open for business. As you'd heard before, this platform is essentially designed to give independent writers a venue for hawking their masterpieces, with PubIt! converting files to ePUB for use on a wide range of e-readers (read: not only the Nook). Published titles will be available for sale within 24 to 72 hours after upload on the B&N eBookstore, and the company's pretty proud of its "no hidden fees" policy. Unfortunately, the compensation model -- which is being detailed today for the first time -- has its quirks. For PubIt! eBooks priced at or between $2.99 and $9.99, publishers will receive 65 percent of the list price for sold content; for those priced at $2.98 or less, or $10.00 or more, publishers will only receive 40 percent of the list price. In other words, there's a no man's land in that $10 to $15 range, so you'll probably be settling for a $9.99 price point or reaching for the skies at $19.99. But hey, at least all PubIt! ebooks will also be lendable for a fortnight -- surely that counts for something. Right?
Runescape's Mark Gerhard talks self-publishing success
Jagex, makers of the successful browser-based MMORPG Runescape, went through a who's who listing of game publishers before ultimately deciding to fly solo and self-publish their free-to-play fantasy title. Company CEO Mark Gerhard minced few words when speaking about the trials and tribulations of securing a publishing deal during a talk at this week's Develop Conference. "We went to publishers like Activision and EA and said we've got an awesome browser game, and they said **** off. We went back and said we've got a million users and they said bull****. The necessity forced us to become a publisher," Gerhard said. Ultimately, Jagex was able to parlay their success into an investment deal with Sony, and is also releasing multiple additional titles including War of Legends, an iPhone game called Bouncedown, and numerous casual titles via the FunOrb gaming portal. Check out the original article at Game Politics for more details.
Barnes & Noble to open 'PubIt!' self-publishing portal this summer
Self-publishing has long since been possible through Amazon, but you won't catch us kvetching about a little competition in the market place. In an attempt to do for indie writers what InstantAction has done for indie game developers, Barnes & Noble has just announced its intentions to open up a self-publishing portal this summer. We wouldn't say that the PubIt! name is the greatest of all time (for a variety of reasons, frankly), but the world's largest bookseller is hoping to expand its importance in the digital realm by giving wannabe authors the ability to upload and sell their material through B&N's website and eBookstore. Details on the compensation model (read: profit split) will be announced "in the coming weeks," but the real kicker here is this won't be limited to the Nook; pretty much any e-reader, tablet or PC will be able to tap in and make purchases, so the potential audience is quite large. Hit that source link if you want to be notified when invitations are going out, and given just how close we are to this mythical "summer" thing, we'd suggest you start putting pen to paper -- and fast. [Thanks, Victor]
