OReilly BooksThis is my review of the book "Take Control of iBooks Author".
I started to review for O'Reilly books last year, as I regularly use and purchase their books, you can see why I like them from my previous post. This review has been a long time coming, mainly because I have had a member of my immediate family in and out of hospital over the last 11 months, and it has been difficult to spend time reading and reviewing the book.
The reason I chose this book first off was I had starting to create two books using iBooks Author, and along the way I was having issues with a few things, which was incredibly frustrating, and more than once I had deleted everything I had done and started again.
As soon as I signed up for this review service I saw this title, and it jumped out at me, it must of been a sign. I have seen and read a couple of books from this series before and I have always been impressed. This title did not disappoint.
It helped me from the first couple of chapters, to slow down, think about the design of the book first, plan it, outline the chapters, think exactly how it was going to be put together.
It provides help on composing with advantages and disadvantages of working directly with the software or working outside the apply then importing it in, with lots of tips for which you decide to use, it has good guidelines on the design of the book, the pro's and con's for both portrait and landscape mode and why you would keep it one format etc.
They have great advice throughout the book, when it comes to working with Media, it is realy good at explaining best way to import the media into your book (video, audio or photos). It details the formats you should be using.
It has good suggestions like keeping your chapters small, it's best to have more smaller chapters rather than ones that are too large, this helps with the older generations of the iPad.
After you have your book finished, it also has good details on how you can either publish your book to the iBooks store, set it up so it can only be read on the iPad, or you can export it to other formats so other users can access your book if they don't have an iPad.
If you are thinking of using iBooks Author to create a book, then I would recommend this title. I am sure there are many out there but this is very simple to use, full of practical advice and not very expensive at $15. This has helped me with the two books I was planning, and with the help of this book they are now both nearly completed, I have found the experience a lot simpler after reading this book. Also the book is not very large, around 150 pages, so it's not very daunting like some of the 1000 page manuals you pick up which can sometimes put you off.
I have seen other examples in magazines, and in special magazines just on this subject but to me this has been the most detailed.
I am always looking at ways to improve, and so I am always interested in feedback so feel free to add any comments to the site, or you can email me here.
