Communications Coach Nancy Duarte Releases First iPad Business Book Created Entirely with iBooks Author

Presentation communication agency Duarte, Inc. has just announce the launch of an iPad app for the book, Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences. This is the first interactive business book to be built with iBooks Author and get approved for the App Store. The book was originally published in 2010, which leads one to wonder how Apple is going to get a piece of that gate.

The app was engineered to integrate visual elements through video and interactive applications using iBooks Author.

“The iPad is a major revolution in the presentation and consumption of information, so we wanted to push iBooks Author further than anyone had before in order to transform Resonate into this truly new medium,” said Nancy Duarte, author of Resonate and CEO of Duarte, Inc. “The electronic edition is a self-navigating story that enables the reader to experience the content in a manner that combines the best features of cinematic storytelling, interactive exploration and traditional books.”

Some of the content of the print book originally included links to multimedia presentations, but it is now incorporated into the iOS version. The “sparkline” presentation comes to life though embedded interactive JavaScript applications, which intertwine the data in the sparklines with audio recordings of the speeches.

Resonate was first published in September of 2010 and was on Amazon’s list of 100 best-selling business books for almost a year. The interesting thing about that is Apple has distribution restrictions on works produced with iBooks Author. The publishing FAQ states:

If a fee is charged for the work and it is in the .ibooks format, the work may only be sold through the iBookstore. If the work is in a different format, such as PDF or ePub, this restriction does not apply.

The app is not a PDF or an ePub file because the listed requirements on the iTunes summary page specify that the book can only be viewed using iBooks 2 on an iPad. Maybe Duarte, Inc. struck a deal with Apple since the book already existed in print before being published in iBooks Author. Maybe the agency found a loophole in the distribution restrictions. Maybe they just managed to sneak the book into the App Store without Apple realizing the print copy is being sold elsewhere.

Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences is available for $17.99 from the App Store today.

email

About Lory: Writer of all things app related, traveler of the space-time continuum, baker of really great cookies. Follow me @appaholik