Quick first thoughts on iBooks Author

Spent some time developing in iBooks author tonight and after having thought about and read about and discussed it all day, it seems right to jot down a few thoughts. Right now it isn't a revolution, but we live in the world of the fast update. I think it could very quickly become a revolution.

First, the basics: It's Pages for tablet books. That's in itself a big deal. Raise your hand if you've just made a PowerPoint then synced and viewed it on your iPad. Well, imagine an editor whose files targeted the iPad. Pretty cool.

But the devil is in the details. The templates are ok if you're not a professional. The interactives, "widgets", are the usual suspects: photo gallery, media embed, multiple-choice, Keynote show, interactive image, 3D image, and whatevers HTML. This too is a big deal, you could easily spend $15,000 to have someone make 200-page book with just the embed choices there. But let's be honest, if you're ready to spend $15K, then that widget list as a DIY project isn't really astounding.

So this is my analysis: As of today iBooks Author is a boon to dedicated individuals and a meh for corporate publishing houses that aren't on the inside. For example, I'm definitely working on my Chinese Lit. class packet from back when I was a professor. Maybe I'll get that literature workbook published after all!

But, I won't be recommending it for industrial-scale publishing when I clock in tomorrow. However, I expect that in 6 months I might recommend it for industrial scale publishing.

Here's why I won't recommend it today: Can't load in a PDF, the current templates are not shattering designs, and the interactive widgets are limited. The HTML import is great, but a publishing house needs templates to give editors, not possibilities to farm out to freelancer developers.

That said, I want to end by saying, in the world of the fast update, iBooks Author will surely be disruptive:

* First, today, it gives individuals the ability to create handsome tablet books. Since industrial media is built on scarcity of access to publishing machinery, iBooks Author is a direct assault on the staus quo. (And, good that.)

* More interactive templates will come. If we're lucky, Apple will open an iBooks Widget developer program, just like there's plugin and (at least used to be) Dashboard widget programs. Super fantastic if iOS developers can interact with iBooks so we can build an ecosystem of iBook and support apps-- textbooks that inform game content would be wonderful!

* Hopefully the import range will increase. The day I can turn a PDF into an iBook, the game changes because all of my industrial publishing product, printer-ready PDFs in large part, will be easily munged into iBooks. (Right now, it's 4-5 figures minimum for the most basic PDF to eBook conversion process.)

* I suspect we'll find a surprising range of capable authors. It is quite possible that the status quo scarcity of quality authors will collapse into a glut. Just as a literal world of capable auteurs, musicians, and photographers emerged from digital disruption, I suspect the same for textbook authors. First of all, the range of textbooks might increase. Sure, Nobel laureate physicists are rare. But I bet there's a surprising amount of engine mechanics who can also make fantastic textbooks, all without help from an industrial scale publisher. I also bet that in most of the world, fixing a combustion engine is a bigger sales volume than physics.

If you make educational materials, get ready!