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How to get my dad's novel on the iPad

T

terrymccarthy

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 9, 2010
3
0
Hey guys and gals,

My dad has posted his entire novel, The Wrath of Alexander the Great, online (which you can read for free at http://www.terry-mccarthy.com/ by the way).

Question: I am a bit unfamiliar with the iPad but was wanting to get his book readable with the iPad. I already sell a Kindle version on Amazon, and I have heard vaguely of the iBookstore and the iBooks application. Any tips on what I should do to have his book ready on the iPad for the April 3rd launch?

Thanks much for your time and advice,
Francis
 
Thanks :) 8/11 chapters readable online for free if you have the time to read more.

Bump: I've been reading up on the iBookstore and iBooks app but I'm still having a hard time finding out exactly how to get my dad's book in the iBookstore.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7E18 Safari/528.16)

Nobody knows yet but amazon ebooks are reader on the iPhone and ipad thru the kindle app.
 
The iPhone's Amazon Kindle application should be one of the apps that will run on the iPad when it launches, since nearly all of the iPhone applications are supposed to run on the iPad. No one knows how good the user experience will be for the Kindle app once it is magnified to fill the iPad screen and Amazon has not said whether they will redesign the app for the iPad (I bet they will).

iBooks reads the ePub format, but I have not heard what other formats it may also read. If you used a publisher, maybe you can contact them to see if they will be making books available for the iPad and ask how you can ensure your Dad's is one of them. Then his book will be available in Apple's iBookstore.

Good luck.
 
There are a few ePub authoring tools available right now, but we're not sure whether the iBook app on the iPad will be able to accept books manually transferred over, and the store appears to work through direct deals with publishers right now. I'd say you'll probably have to wait to find out for sure, but it'd be worth looking at eCub and Sigil, the two main ePub editors available now, and seeing how easily you can put it into the right format.

jW
 
The iBooks store is only currently available to the 5 big major book publishers listed at the keynote.

No details have been released on whether smaller companies or individual authors will be avaiable to add their titles, yet.

Other than that, you have the following options:
1.Kindle app for iphone/ipad. This will let you use the existing Kindle book.
2.A custom app for iphone/ipad. Will show up under books, but in the app store. Will require programming...either by you or an external developer.
3.A web app. This'll just require html (As the existing website) I'd reccomend checking out something like iWebKit to make it look more iphone like really quickly :)
4.Or if you just want to view the book yourself on the ipad, you should be able to transfer epub based books to it somehow when it comes out.

Hope this helps.
 
I thought that I read that Apple is going to allow independents sell their books on the iBooks. But as of yet, we haven't heard how this is accomplished. I know you can do this with iTunes and music now, you may get the best results if you look up how they do it with iTunes and see if you can find a customer support number to call and see if they are / will support Books the same way. I'm guessing you have to establish an account with them, register, and then give them distribution rights.

Basically, your best bet is to find out what they are doing right now for music and trying to contact them directly and see if you can get the jump on getting it out there for launch.

BTW, looks good, I'd consider buying it. :D Remember to post here when you finally get it on the store! I don't want to buy anything right now, I want to see how Apple manages books, I don't want to get tied into any specific app / format. :( But once it makes it to iBooks I'll need a reminder to go buy it. :D
 
If people can self-publish their e-books (and they already can... you could always put your Dad's book inside an app), it kind of makes traditional publishers obsolete, eh? I guess they'd still have a function as editors and promoters, but that's pretty limited, and could be done on a contract basis.

Their role as "gatekeepers" is fast coming to an end, and that's what has so many of them apoplectic.
 
Contact your local Apple retail store. They were given information to give to people in your situation.
 
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