Beautiful "coffee-table" style photobook just released in iBookstore

Hey iBooks fans,

Please pardon the self-promotion. I'm a photographer who has just self-published a very unique photobook to the iBookstore and wanted to let you know about it. You can find it at http://itunes.apple.com/book/id432034564 or just search for San Francisco - A Photobook in the iBooks app. Here's a screenshot (please continue reading below for some background):

Ever since I started using an iPad, I've been looking for new and interesting ways to showcase my portfolio (e.g. to art buyers at shows, gallery directors, friends, strangers on planes etc.) I've tried every "portfolio" app out there but there was always something lacking (amount of control, UI elegance, ease of use etc). So I decided to see if iBooks might be useful where so many apps have failed.

I discovered that Apple has added certain proprietary extensions to the ePUB format, which allow, among other things - "full spread" layouts. This is where a single photo can be placed across 2 pages - just like those coffee table photobooks. This meant I could create an iBook full of beautiful landscape photos that use the iPad's full width (as opposed to just one page). This was exactly the kind of portfolio I had envisioned, and I'm now able to hand this iBook over to people to flip through at their own pace. As a photographer, I no longer have to worry about people accidently looking at the wrong photos, emailing my photos from within an app, accidently deleting photos etc. Everyone I've shown this book to has been amazed by the beautiful animations, reflections and book-like physics that iBooks uses. If you've never tried the page-turn effect with high-res photos (instead of text), this is the book you should check out.

Take a look and let me know what you think. Since this was an experiment in self-publishing, I've priced it very low (more like an app than a book). And as far as I can tell, this is the first "full spread" photobook available on the iBookstore. Please feel free to ask me any questions about creating or self-publishing an iBook. Thanks!

-Mel