iBooks

Blurb, a company that has a toolset for publishing digital photo albums into books, has a new tool to help you make photo books that are readable in iBooks. We used one of their templates to test drive it. Here is the 10-step process that we followed:

1. Decide if you’d like to use a template or design your own specs.

2. Pick a size for your book.

3. Upload images. (These can come from a platform on your computer like iPhoto or from a web based photosharing platform like Flickr, Picasa, Instagram or Facebook).

4. Layout the book. You can drag and drop the photos that you have imported to arrange the book, or the platform will do it for you. Read more

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If you’ve bought a book in iBooks on your iPad, when you open up iBooks on your iPhone, it will not be there. Unlike Amazon, Apple does not automatically sync these libraries. It is kind of a clumsy process, but easy enough to manage. Essentially, you have to manually redownload every book that you have purchased from iBooks again. But thankfully, you don’t have to buy them again. The download is free.

Open iBooks on the device that you did not purchase the eBook on. Click on the “Store” button and you should go into the iBooks store. On the bottom right hand corner of the screen is an icon that says “Purchased.” (It’s right next to the “Search” icon). Click on this and you should see a list of books that you have purchased through your iBooks account. Click on the book, enter your Apple ID when prompted, and the book will show up on your digital bookshelf. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Remember, it has to be the same iBooks account, so if you and your spouse are sharing an iPad, be sure to use the correct login to access your account.

Earlier this week Apple and the American Bar Association launched the first title in the ABA’s new series of eBooks.

iPad in One Hour for Lawyers is a beginner’s guide to the iPad. It has useful tips on setting up and configuring the iPad as well as how to sync files and (of particular interest to lawyers) manage case law, pleadings, contracts and other legal documents. You’ll also find an index of the most useful iOS apps for lawyers and the usual list of keyboard and browser shortcuts.

Andrea Hartley, Chair of the ABA Law Practice Management Section, says, “We are thrilled to partner with Apple to offer our cutting-edge legal publications as e-books in the iBookstore. iPad in One Hour for Lawyers, one of our bestselling titles of the year, is the perfect book to mark the launch of the e-book program. Readers can easily download the book on their iPads and learn as they go. We look forward to publishing many more e-books on Apple’s platform in the future.”

You can find the eBook in iBooks now, and more titles will be coming later this year.

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image by seychelles88

Sideways is one of the quieter and more innovative app developers, and it just released a new eBook in the iBookstore.

David Roberts’ Egypt is based on the work of a 19th century Scottish painter who traveled Egypt and the Middle East during 1838-1840. Sideways  scanned lithographs made by Roberts and organized them as a narrative journey down the Nile. This eBook has 80 minutes of professional narration intercut with excerpts of David Roberts’
journals and high resolution images so that a reader can page through the eBook or view Roberts’ artistry in detail while listening to his journals.

It’s on sale in iBooks for $12.99.

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O’Reilly Media is reporting that they have 800 eBooks available through in the iBookstore, with a couple hundred more to come in the next few.

Andrew Savikas is the VP of Digital Initiatives at O’Reilly Media, has more on his blog: “Ebooks are already a big part of our publishing business, and we know many are read on iOS devices. Having those ebooks available for sale in the iBookstore makes it even easier to find, buy, and read hundreds of O’Reilly and Microsoft Press titles on iOS devices. As always, there’s no DRM on ebooks sold by O’Reilly, so it’s easy to read the open-standard EPUB files purchased from the iBookstore on nearly any device with EPUB support.”

The O’Reilly titles on iBooks are currently only available in the U.S. and Canada, but they have plans to expand to every territory with an iBookstore.

The growth of the iPad is helping Kindle eBooks sales, according to new research from Cowen and Co.

The LA Times reports: “Turns out the iPad has actually helped Amazon. Not only are sales of the Kindle device expected to grow 140% this year to nearly 5 million units from 2009, but digital book sales via the Kindle store are on track to grow 195% to $701 million in 2010, according to Cowen and Co., which released a report Monday on the digital book market.”

Interestingly, according to the report, one in five people who buy eBooks from the Kindle store do not own a Kindle. The report also found that among readers who read more than 25 books a year, 44% prefer using Kindle on the iPad, while 47% prefer iBooks.

Vook, an eBook meets video format, has published a new Guns N’ Roses title out called Reckless Road: Guns N’ Roses And The Making Of Appetite For Destruction. Marc Canter, Slash’s best friend of 30 years, wrote the book along with author/filmmaker Jason Porath.

According to a promo video on the Vook site, “Reckless Road is a visual chronology of the first 50 gigs Guns n Roses played as a band.” The title includes audio from the early gigs and videos of GNR and their friends from the early days.

With tales of living hand to mouth on the streets and eating onions to survive, the release recounts how GNR was formed and got signed. “It’s not as glamorous as one might imagine, but I suppose it is what you make of it,” says Slash in the video.

The release is available on iTunes for both iPads and iPhones, as well as from the Vook site. A print version of the book came out in November of 2007.

A new wave of investors are betting on the future of the iBookstore. The digital distribution company LibreDigital will announce tomorrow that they have secured $8.1 million in funding from new investors at S3 Ventures and from current investors at Adams Capital Management and Triangle Peak Partners.

Earlier this year, the company secured a coveted spot as an “Apple Approved eBook Aggregator” in the iPad iBookstore. In addition to the investors mentioned above, the company also has support from both HarperCollins Publishers and The New York Times Company. The company provides distribution for many platforms, including Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Amazon Kindle, Sony Reader, and Google Editions.

LibreDigital CEO Russell P. Reeder had this statement: “This year, sales of e-books are expected to double to more than $700 million in the U.S. alone … This funding will be used to accelerate the delivery of e-books, and expand our technology offerings to include new solutions that help publishers better promote and sell books to digital consumers.”

Now that we’ve all got our iPads and downloaded iBooks, it’s time to start building our libraries. As TUAW points out, however, the selection in iBooks is still rather limited and pricey, but Apple did do a decent job stocking the store with free books from sources like Project Gutenberg. TUAW wants to know what free eBooks readers are downloading from iBooks. If you’ve got some recommendations, click the link above and chime in. They’ve even listed a few of their favs to get your library started.

Here at eBookNewser, however, still maintain that other apps, like Kindle and Kobo, may ultimately end up being the way to read on iPad. So, before or after you’ve check out TUAW, we’d love to hear from you in the comments below about what other apps you’re using to read and what you’re reading on them.

Concerning the image above, don’t forget that those used to be called iBooks too.

So you’re a publisher and you want to get your eBooks into the iBookstore. How do you do it? LibreDigital is one offical way. Apple has named LibreDigital a Certified eBook Aggregator for the iBookstore. What’s that mean? LibreDigital is now the preferred pipeline for publishers to get their books onto the iPad. Look at LibreDigital’s site for more info.

LibreDigital was one of the first big players to handle conversion, warehousing and distribution for eBooks, so it’s not surprising that Apple should pick them. They already handle eBooks for many of the biggest publishers, including HarperCollins, Hachette, and Simon & Schuster.

While LibreDigital isn’t the only aggregator Apple is endorsing, this is a big coup for the company nonetheless.