New York: Apple today announced a free book-authoring app — iBooks Author for Mac OS X. Available now, it lets customers to write, create and sell interactive media-rich ebooks via the Apple iBookstore. Here’s a first look.
iBooks Author is free at the Mac App Store. Once you download it, it opens on your OS X based Mac with that familiar splash screen. That screen uses the same format that Apple’s iWork suite of apps uses. Select the type of book template you want to start with.
The initial default workspace in iBooks Author is reminiscent of the apps that ship with iWorks — Keynote, Numbers and Pages. It’s likely Apple will bundle this new app with that suite at some point.
Apple gives you some guidance on basic book structuring.
iBooks Author Book Title creation page. Credit: David W. Martin
There’s a place for you to insert a bit of interactive media that’ll open your new book. The table of contents and glossary follow.
iBooks Author Multimedia introduction creation page. Credit: David W. Martin
iBooks Author Table of Contents creation. Credit: David W. Martin
iBooks Author Glossary creation tools. Credit: David W. Martin
Once you have created the basic parts of your book, it’s time to move onto content. The first thing to work on is your book’s first chapter. Just remember that every writer needs an editor.
iBooks Author Chapter creation tools. Credit: David W. Martin
Here’s what working with subsections looks like. Check out the two images below.
iBooks Author Chapter Subsection creation tools. Credit: David W. Martin
iBooks Author: Create pages of text for your book. Credit: David W. Martin
Once you’ve created your book, you’ll need to know how to publish it to the iBookstore so you can start to sell it. The integrated help features of iBooks Author will get you started.
iBooks Author: Learn about book publishing with integrated help. Credit: David W. Martin
At first glance, this is a pretty exciting announcement for self-publishers. We’ll be spending some more time with it. Watch for a full review.
