Apple's iBooks Author Designed to Streamline E-Book Publishing

(EndPlay Staff Reports) - Budding authors, designers and publishers: Apple has launched a new app just for you.

iBooks Author, a free, downloadable Mac OS X application, enables users to create e-books using a simple drag-and-drop mechanism, reported Macworld . 

With iBooks Author, users get basic templates that allow them to quickly create titles featuring both text and interactive elements, including videos and images. Users simply drag and drop their content from a Word document, and the app will automatically format it, according to CNET .

Users can flow text around images and create image galleries that can be dragged into the book and even resized. If you need to present numerical information and don't want to cut and paste, you can link the app to an online database. In addition, you can add words to a glossary, reported Macworld. 

The next steps include connecting your computer to an iPad if you want to proof your e-book, and then submitting it to Apple's iBooks store, according to CNET.

Reviewers said the app can have a huge variety of uses.

"Apple expects various industries to be interested in creating their own interactive titles," wrote Chris Davies on slashgear.com . "That could include technology, children’s books, design books and more. 

"Until now, creating a truly interactive e-book for the iPad has required some serious investment of time, not to mention money, but Apple’s new app significantly streamlines both."

Also on Thursday, Apple launched iBooks 2 for textbooks and an expanded iTunes U app. The company is partnering with McGraw-Hill, Pearson, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt to offer textbooks via iBooks for $14.99 or less.

"Education is deep in Apple's DNA and iPad may be our most exciting education product yet. With 1.5 million iPads already in use in education institutions, including over 1,000 one-to-one deployments, iPad is rapidly being adopted by schools across the U.S and around the world," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, in a statement . 

"Now with iBooks 2 for iPad, students have a more dynamic, engaging and truly interactive way to read and learn, using the device they already love."