Convert physical book to iBook?

Question

Level 1

23 points

Convert physical book to iBook?

A long time ago, I sold a physical book through various resellers (i.e. barnes and noble, etc). Those partnerships have long since dissolved and I now only have a few physical copies left in my possession with no plans to create more. I own the rights to the book and am the author and illustrator. I'm aware of Apple's policy to have exclusive rights to it upon selling it in the iBook store.

Is there a way to "convert" the book as it is in it's entirety in to iBook format or does it need to be recreated from the ground up?

Thanks a ton!

Posted on Oct 4, 2014 5:07 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,456 points

Oct 4, 2014 9:59 PM in response to Zathrak

Zathrak wrote:

I'm aware of Apple's policy to have exclusive rights to it upon selling it in the iBook store.

The only restriction in Apple's policy is that if you create a book in the .ibooks format using the iBooks Author app, you can only sell it via the iBookstore.

There is no need to use iBooks Author to create an ebook. Most ebooks are made in epub format. The Apple app for that is Pages, You can sell such books anywhere you please.

.ibooks format can only be read on an iPad or on a Mac running OS 10.9 and higher. .epub format can be read on any device or platform.

Whether you use iBooks Author or Pages, you will have to transfer the text into the app you are using to create the ebook. If you only have physical copies and no digital version of the text, you will have to have your book scanned with OCR software to create a digital text that can be used on a computer.

Reply

Answer 2

Zathrak Author

Level 1

23 points

Oct 5, 2014 9:42 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

Thanks for the info, Tom! So, if I've got a physical picture book (with some text) that I need converted to an iBook, I can use an OCR software to digitize it as it is in the physical book within pages and export it to iBook format...Right?

Reply

Answer 3

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,456 points

Oct 5, 2014 10:02 AM in response to Zathrak

There are several formats for ebooks, of which the most important and widely readable is .epub.

I don't know what format you will get out of the scanning/ocr process, perhaps .pdf or .doc. I assume you will probably have to use some kind of commercial service for digitizing, perhaps you can find one that offers .epub output. If not, you will then have to import your .pdf or .doc text in some way, like copy/paste, into an app like Pages, and then export to .epub format (or into iBooks Author and export to .ibooks format if you decide to go that route).

Reply