eBooks and eArticles

[Nick Beale]

As a person of taste and discernment I naturally buy vinyl LPs. All the better when one comes with a code to download the music, offering you digital convenience alongside analogue quality. In the same way, I'd love to get a real book accompanied by a download offering searchable text, zoomable illustrations etc.

For reading I'd prefer a real full-length book, for smaller scale things I'd be perfectly happy with an electronic item, especially one that exploited the medium's strengths.

Speaking as a writer, I'm intrigued Apple's iBooks Author software. It offers templates for creating books or whatever which you can then sell through the App Store. That also addresses the point about losing your books if your computer crashes because you can always reload your purchases from the store. It's incompatible with my OS version (which I don't want to change yet because I still need to run some older programs) and it's usually wise to let them get a version or two under their belt before you jump in. Also, templates notwithstanding, design is an issue with a number of the self-published books I own. I enjoy a book more if it's well laid out and that skill isn't so widespread.