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Comic Writer Tries Out iBooks Author

Monday January 23, 2012 9:52 am PST by Jordan Golson
Apple's new iBooks Author application enables users to make interactive iBooks on their Mac. Apple says the software allows authors to make "stunning iBooks textbooks, cookbooks, history books, picture books, and more for iPad." Richard Stevens, author of the Diesel Sweeties webcomic, has expanded that list of possibilities to include comic strips.


Diesel Sweeties author Robert Stevens writes of the project:

I had a few insomniac hours this weekend and did a little experiment:

Waking Up With the Diesel Sweeties is a tiny little free ebook for the iPad. It contains all my comics from last month with a few tweaks, formatted in iBooks Author. This version only works on the iPad. It's not in the iBookstore, so you'll need to download the file and sync it to your iPad.

Stevens is offering the iBook free via download from his website, not via the iBookstore, but it is fairly simple to acquire the book:

- Click the book link while using Mobile Safari on your iPad.
- Download to your desktop machine and email it to yourself to open in iBooks.
- Toss it in your Dropbox and open it in iBooks from there.
- Add it to your iTunes library and sync the book to your iPad

The author says he is considering how to combine his twelve years of comics into one huge collection, and appears to be interested in iBooks Author as a potential production device for his ongoing comic collections as well.

The Waking Up With the Diesel Sweeties iBook is available from the Diesel Sweeties website. [Direct Link]

iBooks Author is available free in the Mac App Store. [App Store]
[ 27 comments ]

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kainjow
Posted: 17 weeks ago

Yes (with the ISBN caveat) but you don't have to use the store. Those that have no intentions, at least at the moment, of involving Amazon etc are likely to want to bother with the ISBN. If he decides to later charge or he's going to go to other stores that also have that requirement then he might. but at the moment the free book could be a way to draw folks to his site which is likely monetized via adsense etc. so it's a win (but not for Apple)


Yes, but you need to buy an ISBN from somewhere, as Apple will only accept titles with one. Single ISBNs are only around $100, but still too much for offering something for free. (They are much cheaper in bulk, but if you don't need them…)


From http://www.apple.com/itunes/content-providers/book-faq.html

An ISBN is not required if you have a free book agreement and choose to offer your book free on the iBookstore.

Rating: 5 Positives / 0 Negatives
Avatar
TheGenerous
Posted: 17 weeks ago
Dear Diesel Sweeties author,
please return my 30 seconds back.

(seriously, a pdf would had been much better. content is lame)

----------

Apple would never have allowed this in the store, even for free. Apologies to the author, but I would have been embarrassed to have this link posted...


Not even for free, I agree.
Rating: 3 Positives / 0 Negatives
Avatar
jesuscandle
Posted: 17 weeks ago
Completely kills iBooks on my iPad 1 - just get a grey linen screen with no tap targets. Force closing the app doesn't seem to help.

Not saying this is widespread at all, but anyone with ideas?
Rating: 3 Positives / 0 Negatives
Avatar
Mary Banillow
Posted: 17 weeks ago
No need to sync and stuff. Just download the iBook from mobile Safari to your iPad. You will be asked to open it in iBooks (v2) right away.
Rating: 3 Positives / 0 Negatives
Avatar
terrywfoster
Posted: 17 weeks ago
I put the book on my server for those that are having problems getting it.

http://www.terrywfoster.com/dieselsweeties/dieselsweeties-december2011.ibooks
Rating: 2 Positives / 0 Negatives
Avatar
iGeek
Posted: 17 weeks ago
Link has 509'd his dropbox URL (heavy traffic has temporarily disabled public links). Anyone have a mirror?
Rating: 2 Positives / 0 Negatives
Avatar
kdarling
Posted: 17 weeks ago
Does anyone know exactly how Apple is going to vette books?

I can easily see hundreds of thousands of free "books" being uploaded by families or kids.

Pretty much like how the App Store is full of junk; only much worse.

Heck, I and my 9 year old already create little pay-to-print books online. We'd love to post free books for our family members with iPads to look at.

--

Or is their store ONLY for text books?

If Apple is smart, they'll set up a different library "store" just for people sharing creating personal books.
Rating: 1 Positives / 0 Negatives
Avatar
ghall
Posted: 17 weeks ago
Like the comic, but I don't really see much that convinces me this couldn't have been done with a PDF.
Rating: 1 Positives / 0 Negatives
Avatar
charlituna
Posted: 17 weeks ago

Isn't it free to offer books on the iBookstore? I wonder why he didn't have it listed?


Yes (with the ISBN caveat) but you don't have to use the store. Those that have no intentions, at least at the moment, of involving Amazon etc are likely to want to bother with the ISBN. If he decides to later charge or he's going to go to other stores that also have that requirement then he might. but at the moment the free book could be a way to draw folks to his site which is likely monetized via adsense etc. so it's a win (but not for Apple)
Rating: 1 Positives / 1 Negatives
Avatar
marv08
Posted: 17 weeks ago

Isn't it free to offer books on the iBookstore? I wonder why he didn't have it listed?


Yes, but you need to buy an ISBN from somewhere, as Apple will only accept titles with one. Single ISBNs are only around $100, but still too much for offering something for free. (They are much cheaper in bulk, but if you don't need them…)
Rating: 2 Positives / 2 Negatives

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