4/10/2023 0 Comments Pubcoder reviewI made copious notes and sketches about what I felt worked and what didn’t. (I shall be blogging separately about how hard it is to find and navigate the App Store!) Nevertheless it was useful to see what interactivity all of these children’s apps offered – and in particular to see how they dealt with page turning, help menus, navigation and social media sharing – everything that I would call ‘customer experience’. Others felt more like ‘games’ than storybooks, or even like mini TV movies – though in hindsight I may have been looking in the wrong App Store category. Some apps I immediately loved – such as Nosy Crow’s wonderfully sophisticated Cinderella and The Three Little Pigs stories. I spent a lot of time browsing the App Store and downloading free and paid children’s book apps to see how they worked and what features they offered. (Ferdinand Fox’s Big Sleep runs on iPad only.)įerdinand Fox in the App Store ‘New Apps’ section during launch week □ How I planned my book app Some of these apps run on both iPhone and iPad, while others work on just one or the other. From what I can see, however, the vast majority of kids’ book apps are found on Apple’s App Store. So while both include page turning and (with some eBooks) audio, sound effects and (with some iBooks) word highlighting or automated animation, Books Apps can include touch activated animation or drag and drop movement, touch activated sound effects, reader recording facility, photo taking, games, puzzles and much more. Some book apps run on both Apple and Android devices and so are available in both the App Store and the Google Play store (Android apps are also housed in the Nook App store in the US). Book apps generally have much more interaction than eBooks. Book AppsĪ Book App is in essence a software program coded to run like a book. The exception is Apple, which doesn’t have a dedicated eReader and doesn’t share outside its devices – instead you use their iBooks app to read books from their iBookStore on your iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch or using iBooks software on your Mac. They are formatted as ePub documents (or Mobi/KF8 for Kindle or iPib for Nook) and you read them either on dedicated eReader devices (Kindle, Nook, Sony, Kobo etc range of eReaders) or using eReading apps, which are produced by all of the eBook retailers and work across their own and their competitors’ mobile, tablet or desktop devices. eBooksĮBooks are digital books that tend to be read in a linear fashion and can include limited interaction, such as audio or (in the case of enhanced eBooks) video, word highlighting or automated animation, depending on the device being used. Below is a quick and basic summary but feel free to comment if I have anything wrong. And with enhanced eBooks now in the mix, the boundaries continue to blur. If you’re not sure, you are not alone! There’s understandable confusion about how a book app differs from an eBook. It was my friend Bridget who – struck by the vibrant illustrations – said, “Why don’t you see if you can turn it into an app with simple animation?” Once I had the idea in my head it wouldn’t go away – a bit like the beautiful fox I first saw one misty November evening over 15 years ago, which inspired my Ferdinand Fox stories to start with…. In fact I don’t think I really understood what a ‘book app’ was until earlier this year, never mind how to find one! I was simply looking at how to turn the print book of Ferdinand Fox’s Big Sleep into a colour eBook. See this YouTube clip at the end of this post.Ĭreating an app wasn’t my original intention I have to confess. Or, now I think about it, would I? After all, I am an indie author – and I of all people should know that once we get an idea in our head there tends to be no stopping us! If you’d told me this time last year that 12 months on I’d have an interactive iPad App version of my picture book Ferdinand Fox’s Big Sleep for 3-5 year olds in the App Store, greats reviews from four educational app sites, and almost 1,500 downloads during its free promo launch, I’d have rolled my eyes at the joke. My app was hand coded back in 2013, but I’m sure there are simpler tools available these days which will make keeping up to date simpler and cheaper! Enjoy the post! Still, I will leave this post here for those of you who may wish to pursue this route. It’s had a fabulous run with over 550 sales, however in order to keep up with changing iOS requirements it will require expensive upgrades for which I cannot justify the cost on top of the annual App store fee. Update – As of this week I’ve withdrawn my app from the App Store.
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