This is a product review on IBook Insider, another product in our review series.
IBook Insider seeks to provide you with step-by-step training on how to get your books published to the iBook store.
What our reviewer had to say:
This was presented as a PDF and 9 videos. The information appears for the most part to be sound and will provide the reader with a good guide for publishing to the iBook Store via Lulu.com.
This is Version 2 of this guide, because in the first, Lulu was the only method she covered. In this version, Deborah has added some Smashwords information.
The Lulu information is covered in 15 pages and includes a lot of screenshots. The Smashwords information is covered in 3 pages and contains links to free videos on YouTube and to someone else’s training. The information she actually does provide is a brief overview and a formatting quick list.
Normally, I wouldn’t have a problem with that, because she says quite plainly that she hasn’t actually used the Smashwords method herself, but that she is just putting it in there as another option the reader might explore. My problem comes from the fact that she felt the need to make a version 2 to include information that is really incomplete and not based on her own experience. It seems a little deceptive. I really don’t think that was her intention, but to someone who doesn’t know her, it might appear that way.
There are 9 videos, and only videos 6-9 are covered in the PDF. I have a tough time with almost everybody’s videos, and Deborah’s were no different. I don’t like videos in general, unless they are extremely well done. Deborah talks very slow, rambles a lot and repeats herself often. I watched the videos at double speed. I know that’s partly just my own intolerance to video; other people may not have a problem with it.
I did find a couple of points where Deborah was incorrect. One was when she removed the numbers from the table of contents. She said that it has to be a manual process, which isn’t true at all. That, just like everything else in word, can be adjusted in the related settings.
The other point was about the size of the Kindle cover. She said that it should be 500 x 800. That is no longer true, but the change to the size requirement probably came after she wrote this course. The new minimum size is at least 1000 pixels on the longest side.
Overall Impression:
All in all, this was a pretty good guide. For me, it would have been nice to have everything in the PDF and just not watch the videos at all.
Click here to learn more about IBook Insider.
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