Tag Archives: ipad

iPad-enable Your WordPress Blog

Kelly Abbott | March 24, 2011 - 6:09 am

Onswipe released a WordPress plugin that “makes it insanely easy to publish on touch enabled devices.” Nice!

 

 

Features include (from the product landing page):

  1. Accelerometer Aware Content
  2. Homescreen Icon
  3. Loading Screen
  4. Cover Image
  5. Integrated WordPress Comments
  6. Built-in Sharing

We currently use WPtouch which touch screen enables our blog using a mobile-friendly theme and works on an impressive list of mobile devices. But that’s just a theme. Seeing how the plugin can add/modify functionality of our blog for the HD touch screen experience is on my weekend funlist for sure.

iPad® meet WordPress.

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(Re)Making Love: A Sex After Sixty Story

Kelly Abbott | July 16, 2010 - 7:53 am

Because I know you care, here’s the backstory.

(Re)Making Love: A Sex After Sixty Story

A while back we decided to dip our toes into the ePublishing business. It came first with the offer to help Gina publish her book, The Complete Guide to Google Wave, in as open and free-as-in-freedom way as possible. As it were, Gina wanted help turning the page on the traditional publishing model. Who are we to blow against the wind?

But Gina’s is a tech book. I come from creative writing stock. Indeed, Jon and Trish are avid readers of fiction and non-fiction as well. So in our collective affinity for the humanities I reached out to see if there would be any writers interested in turning the page on traditional publishing outside of the tech world.

And then came Mary.

Mary L. Tabor is by all counts free. Free-thinking, free-loving, free-wheeling. Free. She’s a graduate of The Ohio State University’s Creative Writing Program (my alma mater as well) and having shucked a past life behind the corporate veil, she’s now proudly living in the ivory tower of creativity. As the title of her book would suggest, she’s older than we are, but challenges us in her youthful understanding of the world. And by youthful, I don’t mean naive. I mean un-blemished. I mean optimistic. I mean joyful and carefree and without pretense or fear. Mary is a breath of fresh air.

Here’s my blurb for the book:

Mary has written a memoir of the highest quality. Her experiences and the way she brings them to us remind us why we bother to read in the first place: empathy is better than callousness, trust more rewarding than cynicism, adventure food for the soul.

A few months ago I was going through the process of helping edit Mary’s memoir and it suddenly occurred to me how important her work was. If you buy the book (and I really hope you do) you’ll see straight away how strange a thing this eBook is. It is, by all counts, a book written in the current times. You’ll be struck at how current the events surrounding her life feel because they didn’t happen too long ago. You’ll be struck at how intimate the memoir can be when it’s raw and recent and un-filtered. And you’ll also be struck at how candid Mary is with her life because, as I mention in her blurb, she has the voice of an adventurer who believes with every gray and flowing hair on her sixty-plus head that there is no fourth wall for empathy. That we are publishing an eBook with her name on it is really the whole point. The medium allows for this kind of recency and intimacy. You should see for yourself.

(Re)Making Love: A Sex After Sixty Story

Available on Kindle, iPad, Sony eReader, PDF, Print, and more.

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The eBook vs. Print Book Numbers

Kelly Abbott | April 26, 2010 - 12:21 pm

Ken Auletta in last week’s New Yorker covers the growing dilemma publishers have in migrating their business models toward the inevitable (eBooks) and away from the past (print books). It outlines how the iPad helped publisher put greater demands on Amazon. It also details (in words) some interesting data about the publishing industry. Being interested in this world from both an eBook entrepreneur and a consumer, I thought I’d throw together some pie charts to help tell the story visually.

When a book sells, how much is left over for the publisher?

Of the print book's retail sale price, who gets what?

Of the eBook's sale price, who gets what?

What percentage of print books get returned to the publisher?

How large are the print and eBooks markets, comparitively?

Sad, but true.

Of eBooks sold, how many we purchased from Amazon?

If we include the iPhone as an eReader, who's got the most popular device?

Who's got the most popular device?

What percentage of all book sales go to the largest six publishers?

The big six publishers are:

  • Random House
  • Macmillan
  • Simon & Schuster
  • HarperCollins
  • Penguin
  • Hachette

Random House is the only publisher on this list to not have signed the 1-year agreement to sell books on Apple’s iBooks store.

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iPads and Earthquakes

Kelly Abbott | April 5, 2010 - 10:50 am

Racing on the iPad

Did you feel that?

No, not the earthquake. The media world exploding into a 300,000 little pieces. I got a chance to test out the newest weapon in Apple’s arsenal and have put together a few posts this morning. We’re interested in developing apps as well as publishing content through the bookstore. But for productivity and gaming, it’s not too shabby. Excellent battery life and always on accessibility guarantees I’ll be carrying mine with me wherever I go. How about you? Read more to see if the iPad is right for you right now. Enjoy!

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The iBook Experience

Kelly Abbott | April 5, 2010 - 10:36 am

I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

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The iWait is Over

Kelly Abbott | April 5, 2010 - 10:10 am

The Welcome Screen

The iPad is sexy. In typical Apple fashion the “blank state” experience is what it should be. Easy to get started and enough features to whet the appetite for more. I’ve installed a few apps and will review them in the coming days. So far the product gets a thumbs up for total experience. As a gaming device, it gets two big thumbs up. As an eReader, it gets a less enthusiastic thumbs up, but a thumbs up nonetheless. As a multimedia device, two more big thumbs up. Movies, music and photos are stellar on this device.

Racing on the iPad

Turning the Page

My favorite app is the Scrabble app. You can use your iPhone or iTouch as your tile rack meanwhile the iPad works as the board you place your tiles on. It auto-tally’s the scores. You can rotate the board by remote control if you want it to face you during your turn. It plays music from your iTunes playlist. And it has a dictionary you can check your words with. Love it.

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Independent Publishing on the iPad – Not Yet, But Soon

Kelly Abbott | April 5, 2010 - 9:33 am

iBook Shelf

Toward the end of last week there was more chatter about getting your book published independently in Apple’s iBookstore. In advance of the iPad launch this weekend, Apple reportedly inked deals with two “independent publishers” Perseus and Workman. Quotes are intentional. These deals do not represent independent publishing for the rest of us. They are publishing houses just like the rest.

On the other hand, Apple has also enabled two independent publishing providers Smashwords and Lulu to distribute their content via the iPad’s iBooks app. Getting closer. Just not, yes, close enough.

I’ll post more as soon as Apple reveals more. Stay tuned.


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iPad First Look

Kelly Abbott | April 5, 2010 - 9:13 am

Jason Enjoying Evil Technology

Meet my brother-in-law, Jason. He hates Apple. Doesn’t it show?


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How Do I Publish a Book in the Apple iPad iBookstore?

Kelly Abbott | January 29, 2010 - 10:32 am

Steve Jobs with the iPad

Hi, Steve. Thanks for innovating. We love your work. But there’s just this one thing that’s irking us now. As an independent publisher who’s primary channel for sales is digital, how can I delivery our titles to iPad owners?

This much we know:

  • The iPad is basically a larger iTouch. Yes, there are differences, but let’s just start there.
  • The iPad will have a native app called “iBooks” which is the way iPad owners will access the iBookstore at Apple.
  • HarperCollins, Penguin, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan and Hachette Book Group are already confirmed publishers with books available in the iBookstore.
  • The ePub format will be supported by the iBookstore.
  • And according to Steve Jobs in his Keynote: “We’re going to open the flood gates for the rest of the publishers in the world starting this afternoon.”

Where’s the flood?

I’m asking this because we’ve been researching this for our own book. We have new titles that will be ready for the iPad launch in 58 days. And if it takes weeks to get a book approved (in the same way it takes weeks to get an app approved) we need to have our ePub book(s) ASAP. I’m not sweating. Really. I’m sure Apple will indeed open the floodgates. But they’re already two days late.

After searching, I’m forced to lob this plea publicly: How do I as a publisher get a book in the Apple iBookstore?

iBooks App on the iPad

iBooks App on the iPad

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iWant Relief

Kelly Abbott | January 28, 2010 - 9:28 am

I want 3 iPads. One each for me and my wife – to use a Kindle-like device. And one for my son, who’s two years old, to use as an ebook reader/portable video player/personal gaming device. Say what you want about parenting with high-tech – the kid is going to be a hacker by the time he’s four whether we try or not. Still, I worry the iPad it’s not rugged enough for him – as he’s prone to destroying anything that’s not nailed, wedged, or firmly fixed in place. In the battle between his CAT earth mover and the iPad… Let’s just say the winner will be wearing Carharts.

For me and my wife, I worry that we’ll get into the habit of buying our books in the iBookstore only to not be able to take our books to the beach. Living in San Diego, this is a more practical lament than a fleeting one. We have a pile of magazines and newspapers we gratefully read and then recycle. The books we keep. I’ll miss filling my shelves with spoils from trips to the used bookstore.

Talking with a colleague this morning, he asked me if I would buy an iPad. I told him yes, for sure, at least one. After that, I’m not so sure.

“Why?” he asked.

Inner monologue: To have at home. It’s a fun device. I can imagine using more apps, reading books, and not having to fire up the laptop to surf the web. I’ll have to test it with David to see if he’s ready for one. But I think he’d love it too for the movies.

But when it comes down to it, I just said, “I really just wanted a better Kindle.”

I don’t own a Kindle. I’ve wanted to own a Kindle. But I couldn’t get past the form factor. What a drag to use, I thought. I’m the guy waiting for Apple to make eBook readers fun and more than just a reader. Yeah, that’s me.

“So you’ll spend $500 for the iPad but you won’t spend $250 for a Kindle?”

Guilty as charged. I won’t pay a penny for something that I don’t want. But if you show me something I want, I can be relieved of much more.

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