Creating ebooks in iBooks Author

This week I had the opportunity to train a group of teachers on how to use iBooks Author to create iBooks that can be read on a Macbook laptop, iPad or iPhone.  These books are interactive and can include as much (or as little!) multimedia as you prefer--images, video, audio, links, etc.

I had not created an iBook in a while and needed a refresher so I browsed YouTube for endless tutorials.  The tutorials I found most helpful are below with a series by Matthew Henchen:

To actually create the books, we went through the process step-by-step together in just under an hour from start to finish and shared to iPads.  We chose to do blank templates and create simple books with text, images, and a Discovery Education video.  The easiest way to add multimedia is just to simply drag and drop the item onto the iBook page.  We decided to use iTunes U to share the books with a student set of iPads because it does NOT require syncing the device with each new book.

Here is the presentation I walked through with teachers.

Here is a copy of one of the books I created as an example.  I have embedded it as a PDF in case a reader of this blog does not have iBooks.

Don't be intimidated by the thought of creating your own iBook!  It's easier than you would think!