Guest Expert: Aggie Villanueva
We all know the slick, high tech interactive eBooks from places like the Apple Ipad, iPhone and other Vook-like major publishing houses footing the bill for these apps/books. There are also traditional publishers with money to throw at this technology, such as those that Penguin demonstrated last year for Apple’s iBook Store for iPad. The flow has been hot ‘n heavy for a few years now.
In Penguin’s video demonstration their first efforts included those projects most readily lending themselves to interactivity: a children’s book, medical book visually examining the human body as you spin organs with your finger, an app bringing together a vampire community and a travel eBook where you can book reservations right from its pages. And of course gaming is streamed in as many projects as possible.
Spark creates interactive homework helpers for teenagers which they describe as “Not just a book in electronic form but a unique combination of sound, image and video, animated classical literature, an audio-visual dictionary with pronunciations, games and songs” and much more.
These are all truly exciting, but very high dollar projects. What about your book and mine? I used to think creating this kind of platform is far beyond the average writer like me, and yesterday it was. But there are new companies starting (or expanding) all the time to bring this interactivity to every writer. Just Google something like “interactive eBook” to see the prevalence.
I’m in production right now of an interactive how-to eBook, Amazon Categories Create Best Sellers, using Entry Way Publishing. Owner Victoria Freudiger is working closely with me as I create instructional and introductory videos and audios that will be viewed right on the page.
We’ll have links to ongoing contests available to readers only, discussion pages, bonus pages, contact forms directly from reader to me, embedded code where readers can share anything in the book to Twitter and Facebook or to email it to themselves or friends. For the Kindle version functions include highlight sharing and text to speech capabilities, and for both Kindle and Apple, bookmarks, notes and highlighting.
Entry Way Publishing is creating it in Kindle format first, followed by an app downloadable to iPhone, iTouch and iPad. To save me money they are also converting the book to several more electronic versions that I can place anywhere online myself.
It’s not just for the biggies anymore. More and more writers are discovering that these high tech interactive platforms and indeed within our reach.
I hope to see YOUR interactive eBook soon.
A published author at Thomas Nelson before she was 30, bestselling author Aggie Villanueva published Chase the Wind, and Rightfully Mine, both at Thomas Nelson 1980s, she is now a multiple fiction & nonfiction Amazon/Kindle category bestseller, also ranked Top Rated in three categories. Aggie founded Promotion á la Carte, author promotional services July 2010 and was voted #2 six months later at Predators & Editors in the Promotion category. Among other sites, she teaches author promotion at BookBuzzr Blog, Promotion a la Carte Blog and Promotion a la Carte Radio. Villanueva is also a critically acclaimed photographic artist represented by galleries nationwide, including Xanadu Gallery in Scottsdale, AZ. Contact Villanueva at aggie@promotionalacarte.com.
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