Going Interactive

Last summer I re-wrote my travel book – Pain, Curiosity, and a Bear – into one volume (instead of the three it was initially). This was more of a chore than I thought it would be when I started, but I hadn’t been happy with the books – formatting and a surprising number of errors, mostly my fault for having terrible work flow. I wanted to get all that cleaned up, and the chance to make it a single book was also nice – especially since I could cut the cost to something affordable. Just about what the cost of a single volume had been before.

But I didn’t do an eBook. There was an eBook covering the first part of the trip, Going North, but I was tired when the print book was done and there are always other projects that need to be done. So, no eBook. It’s sold so/so, and I wondered if an eBook would be more appealing. I am more likely to blame my lack of marketing or promotion, since it’s sold well at shows.

Anyway, late last year I got a MacBook. My old PC laptop just wouldn’t consistently run anymore and attempts to just replace it with an iOS tablet were falling short of what was needed. This meant I now had access to iBook Author, so naturally I didn’t do a thing about it for months.

I was shopping books for something else, and discovered interactive books. These are eBooks with embedded video, music, photo galleries, all kinds of stuff. They were fun, a different experience than eBooks are (which are different than regular books). Right now, they seem to be iBook specific. The format definitely is, and I don’t know (yet) what happens if you try to export an iBook into another format. I did take a class at an Apple Store, but frankly the instructor didn’t seem much more familiar with the software than I already was. she admitted I was the first “real” writer who’d come to one of her classes, and many of my questions had taken her off guard.

So, I am now playing with iBook Author, have moved the text from PCB – Americas into it (this is actually not that easy to do), so next I get to play with the special features that make iBooks, iBooks. I’ll share.

I am also thinking about starting up a couple small writing/critiquing groups. There had been some in Milwaukee, but these have moved to some sort of pay-to-play thing that I am not a fan of. Not without knowing what I’m getting. There are too many free critique groups to pay for one, at least only. I guess it’s kind of like porn. There’s so much free stuff online, why pay? I guess the paid stuff is supposed to be better.

Anyway, I am not starting a local porn group.