How To Write A Book App

Posted on March 8, 2013 by Cary Snowden

How To Make A Book App Among my many mentors in the publishing industry I am lucky to count Karen Robertson as a friend. Karen is a successful children’s book app author, speaker and coach who has established a strong following as a guru to the book app publishing industry. She has published several ebooks on the subject, each of which helped me along the way.

Karen just released her latest book titled ‘What is a Book App and Could YOU Create One? How 27 Writers Did!‘. It is very worthwhile, and not just because I am in it…

Among other valuable advice, Karen interviews 27 successful book app authors and publishes their stories, tips and struggles in a compilation that is a must-have for any author considering going digital. The experience in the personal stories of published authors is worth a lifetime of working it out on your own.

In her book, Karen Robertson, explains what a book app is, why it’s such an exciting publishing option, what you need to know about this opportunity, and how it’s done. It is a tremendous resource and will help you decide if it’s right for you to publish your children’s book as an app.

From the writers’ stories, you’ll see that there are a lot of ways to make a book app happen in a way that will meet your objectives and budget, even if you aren’t technically inclined.

Her eBook is available exclusively on Kindle for just a few bucks. If you don’t have a Kindle reader, fear not: I use the free Kindle app that lets you read books from the Amazon Kindle store on your Android devices, iPad, iPhone or iPod touch.

Check it out if you are interested in turning your books into a book app, and don’t forget to check out TaleSpring for a great way to get ahead on the development for almost no money at all.

The Day I Talk Like A Pirate

Posted on September 15, 2012 by Cary Snowden

Talk Like A Pirate Day is coming up on September 19. Are ye ready, mate?

Share this info graphic with yer mates from me Facebook Page, Yarrr!

Make Your Own Pirate Flag

Posted on May 20, 2012 by Cary Snowden

Ready for a fun kids project? Need a Jolly Roger for the cubicle, board room or front door?

Here’s how to make your own pirate flag, appropriate for display anywhere.

Download the Pirate Flag PDF and follow the instructions included on the second page. The PDF includes the Jolly Roger from The Day I Became A Pirate book app, a list of materials you’ll need, and a quick set of instructions.

Here are the instructions:

YOUNG PIRATES: Make sure you have parent or teacher permission.

Things you’ll need: printer, scissors, three long straws, tape, paper cup.

Print page 1 of the Pirate Flag PDF document.
Cut the flag out from the printed page.
Connect the three long straws together by ‘crinkling’ the end  of one, and inserting it into the other.
Tape the straws to the back of the flag along the left edge.
Poke a hole in the bottom of the cup, turn it upside down  and push the straw through the hole.
Tape the bottom of the straw to the inside of the cup.
Display proudly and say Yarrr

PS: Definitely a good idea for Talk Like A Pirate Day, this September 19th.

How To Create Your Own Book App

Posted on April 22, 2012 by Cary Snowden

As I have been working on The Day I Became A Pirate, and getting ready with a few more books to follow, I have been receiving questions from other authors about how to do various things in the TaleSpring online software.

I spoke with TaleSpring and got permission to start a How To TaleSpring series of videos I plan to post on how to create your own book app and how to take advantage of some of the tools in the software.

Having nearly finished my own pirate book app, I am ready to start sharing my experience in actually creating the book and hopefully saving new authors the trouble of learning some of these things through trial and error.

This first one was created in response to a question I received from a new author who is using TaleSpring to create his own book app. I did not originally intend on staring with ‘Text’, but it is a fairly fundamental element of book-making, so I suppose it is as good as any topic to begin with.

Here is the video: How to TaleSpring: Text

A Book App Sample Page

Posted on April 17, 2012 by Cary Snowden

We are closing in on the finish line with our new pirate book app titled The Day I Became A Pirate. I have received a few questions about how it works, and how I handled the text of the book, which was an unusual problem for this one. I discussed this first in my post titled ‘Challenges In Creating A Book App‘.

As discussed earlier; I wanted to feature the written part of the story without taking space away from the illustrations. As a rhyming story, the text is not only important but fun to read, and a prominent feature of the book. On the other hand, the illustrations and interactions are also an important part of the story, and I wanted to use every possible pixel to tell the story with Zach’s wonderful illustrations.

I tried several methods, and at one point had every other page alternating as text and then illustration, but this seemed cumbersome and forced the reader to do a lot of back and forth to revisit elements of the story to match with each set of interactions.

I finally decided to add the text on a scroll overlaying each page. This decision came as a result of reviewing the book with Jason over at TaleSpring, who’s experience with a few pages brought out the idea of placing the scroll over the page, and allowing it to be tapped away or brought back whenever the reader wanted. Brilliant!

In the book app sample video above I show an example of a simple page in the book. As it opens, the scroll appears over the illustration and presents the text to read. At any time the reader can tap the scroll and ‘put it away’. Should the reader ever want to revisit the text, they can tap the scroll icon at the bottom of the page to bring it back.

In this example I show another feature of my book; the cheat sheet. Readers can click on a skull and crossbones icon at the bottom to get an overlay to appear on the page with indicators showing all the clickable hot spots. Simply tapping the cheat sheet sends it away and the reader can tap where they remember the hot spots.

There is another button at the bottom featuring a parrot. The parrot button activates a narration in which I read the page for the reader. Often in character. This can be started at any time and make the story fun to listen to for younger children, and ads an entertaining element to the interaction for experienced readers.