![\"ibooksauthor.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/kk.org\/screenpublishing\/ibooksauthor.jpg\")
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Somehow I missed the announcement of iBooks Author<\/a> last week. TechCrunch<\/a> published a list of “subtle details” from Apple’s announcing event. Engadget<\/a> published a helpful hands-on illustrating the interface with lots of photos and a video. Huffington Post<\/a> has excerpts from the end-user license agreement and legal analysis. ArsTechnica<\/a> has a good collection of reactions to the restrictions. Mashable<\/a> has a brief comparison chart identifying the competition.<\/p>\n In short, the tool is free, and with it, you can create media-heavy ebooks. If you want to sell the books you create with the tool, you can only sell the books through Apple. And, oh yeah, these aren’t epubs.<\/p>\n The ArsTechnica article points out that although the format is not strictly epub2-compliant, “there shouldn’t be any technical limitation to exporting a …compliant ePub document if none of the interactive features are used. Unfortunately, iBooks Author only exports PDFs and text.”<\/p>\n GigaOM<\/a> has reported on a webcomic author who has already used the tool to create and distribute (for free!) a collection of his work. Download it from Richard Stevens’ website<\/a>. You’ll see the file type is .ibooks. So… basically, even if you’re creating a free book, you can distribute the book however you like, but it’s still limited to iBooks rendering, is that right? Certainly, this is a useful, boundary-breaking tool, and folks like John Gruber<\/a> have done a great job explaining why it’s in Apple’s interest to pursue a proprietary format. I have to say, though, this does not sound like the answer.<\/p>\n We haven’t test-driven iBooks Author yet. Please let us know if you have!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Somehow I missed the announcement of iBooks Author last week. TechCrunch published a list of “subtle details” from Apple’s announcing event. Engadget published a helpful hands-on illustrating the interface with lots of photos and a video. Huffington Post has excerpts … Continue reading