Apple iBooks 2 app lets authors make their own books
Source: Sameer Rahim
Apple has launched iBooks 2, a new iPad app that allows anyone to create a beautiful ebook for free. But is the deal as good as it sounds?
The technology giant Apple has announced a new app that allows anyone to create their own ebook. Speaking at the Guggenheim Museum in New York on Thursday morning, Apple executive Philip Schiller launched the iBooks Author app, a content creation platform for the iPad 2.
This free app allows users to simply drag and drop the contents of, for example, a Word file into an empty space. The app then automatically works out the best way to lay out the text and format chapter headings. Authors will also be able to add illustrations and video clips to enhance the reading experience in a way you cannot with, for example, Amazon’s Kindle.
Professional publishers are already taking advantage of the iPad, particularly in the area of children’s books, where cute designs and graphics seem most appropriate. Last year Faber made a leap forward with the creation of the The Waste Land interactive app, and there are rumours they are adapting another classic modernist text in a similar way this year.
Although the iBooks 2 app is mainly designed to create textbooks, there is no reason why an aspiring author cannot create their own beautiful ebook with this remarkable piece of technology.
However, Apple’s intentions are not quite as generous as they seem. Although you can easily keep your ebook and give it away for free, if you want to sell it then the contractual agreement compels you to do this through Apple’s iBookstore, and for this you need to enter a separate agreement with Apple. In other words, in exchange for getting a snazzy app to make your book look great, you have to give Apple a cut of any profit.
Some technology bloggers are already complaining that this is like Microsoft saying they want to own the rights to any novel written on their software. Certainly Apple is being very canny because although 98 per cent of self-created ebooks will probably wither in cyberspace, there is always the possibility that one bright spark will produce a bestseller covering the cost (and more) of creating the app in the first place.
This move has the potential to liberate the talents of millions of people with little access to the centre of the publishing world, especially those in less developed countries. The danger, of course, is that with an avalanche of new user-generated novels being produced, it will become even more difficult for readers to separate the wheat from the chaff.
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