This blog post is especially for my fellow patient advocate independent authors.
An an author, new distribution platforms interest me. As do new Macintosh/Apple content creation tools, because I’m a Macintosh user since 1987, when I began converting my paper and wax graphic design operation to the desktop.
Apple yesterday released a new book authoring program, iBooks Author. It’s free, and you use it to make beautiful and nifty books to distribute on the iPad (assuming Apple approves your submission). Think of iBooks Author as GarageBand for writers. There’s definitely a cool factor here.
However, on his blog Dan Wineman did an early read of Apple’s iBooks Author end user license agreement (EULA) and has uncovered what appears to be an unprecedented claim by Apple on the content any author develops within the application. Wineman subsequently rebuts some critical comments regarding his initial blog post.
Who knows where this will end up but for now it would seem that authors take a hard look at the EULA, perhaps with legal guidance, before committing a new project to iBooks Author for iPad distribution.
Note: that aside, do investigate this nifty new tool for conventional and dynamic content creation. You’ll probably drool in anticipation of what you could put in patient-families’ hands in an iPad at the bedside.