Whether or not you have ever been the author of print books or “first-generation” ebooks, like many audio/video content producers, you have likely been intrigued by the relatively new interactive multimedia ebooks, either to produce them for yourself or for your clients. These interactive multimedia ebooks have existed for a few years from Apple’s iBooks via its free creator tool, iBooks Author. On the other hand, although many independent authors have published both print an Kindle ebooks for sale on Amazon, the company has previously been more restrictive by allowing multimedia interactive Kindle ebooks only via specific publishing companies. Although still in public beta, Amazon thankfully now offers independent authors and audio/video producers its free Kindle Textbook Creator tool (KTC), which does allow embedding audio and video. This article covers the pros and cons of these options.
Whether or not you have ever been the author of print books or “first-generation” ebooks, like many audio/video content producers, you have likely been intrigued by the relatively new interactive multimedia ebooks, either to produce them for yourself or for your clients. These interactive multimedia ebooks have existed for a few years from Apple’s iBooks via its free creator tool, iBooks Author. On the other hand, although many independent authors have published both print an Kindle ebooks for sale on Amazon, the company has previously been more restrictive by allowing multimedia interactive Kindle ebooks only via specific publishing companies. Although still in public beta, Amazon thankfully now offers independent authors and audio/video producers its free Kindle Textbook Creator tool (KTC), which does allow embedding audio and video. This article covers the pros and cons of these options.
What I mean by interactive multimedia ebooks
When I say interactive multimedia ebooks, I mean electronic books that can include embedded audio and/or video. This is to distinguish from “first-generation” ebooks —of which I have published several— which can include text and graphics that are directly visible on the screen, but cannot have embedded audio or video. These “first-generation” ebooks have indeed had the possibility to include a link (aka hyperlink) to an audio or video file that is actually located somewhere on the Internet. Here are three disadvantages of those links in “first-generation” ebooks:
- These links temporarily take the person reading outside of the reading app and fire a separate app to play the audio or video.
- These links only work if the person reading the ebook has an Internet connection when tapping or clicking the link: Otherwise she or he will get an error saying that s/he is not connected to the Internet.
- It may not be convenient, since it could unexpectedly become a burden on her/his data quota (if one exists). Many frugal-minded content consumers only download when connected to WiFi, for later use without using their metered data connection (if they even have one… Many iPads and other tablets are WiFi only). If you surprise them by including a link to a video in a previously downloaded ebook, you might expose them to a hit on her/his data plan or produce an error. That’s not true in the case of true interactive multimedia ebooks, where the audio/video files are embedded in the ebook file when first downloaded via WiFi.
Pros and cons of Apple’s iBooks Author
The current version of iBooks Author is a free creation an authoring tool which is available free for Mac OS 10.9 or later via Apple’s App Store. The current version of iBooks Author is localized in Castilian (aka “Spanish”), Catalán, “Chinese” (presumably Mandarin), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian and Vietnamese.
The main advantage of iBooks Author is that it can potentially create a slightly better-looking interactive multimedia ebook than what I am going to cover ahead with current KTC, Kindle Textbook Creator. When I say “better-looking”, I mean that with iBooks Author, you —the content creator— have the option to have a video play in place on the page (so the reader/viewer can appreciate the video while still glancing around the rest of the page which was laid out by you), or offer the option to have the reader/viewer have it go full screen.
The main disadvantage of using iBooks Author is that your only possible consumers/buyers of iBooks interactive multimedia ebooks will be users of Mac, iPad and more recently, iPhone, and iPod Touch. In other words, if you only publish iBooks, you are excluding all your potential readers/viewers/listeners who —instead of using Apple devices— use others like Android, Windows or multimedia Kindle devices.
To my knowledge, the leading author and creator of interactive multimedia iBooks using iBooks Author is David Sparks. You can see Paperless and many other of David’s interactive multimedia ebooks on his website here. Due to the market limitations of iBooks I mentioned earlier, David has also invested time creating alternatives of some of his titles as a PDF version. In addition to his many iBooks and PDF versions listed on his website, I also see that David has one ebook distributed as a Kindle on Amazon, called Mac at Work, as well as a paperback version of the same. Ahead in this article, I’ll compare PDF to the interactive multimedia ebooks created with KTC, since they have some things in common, and some differences too.
The second disadvantage of iBooks Author for some (not for me) is that you must have access to a Mac computer to use iBooks Author.
If you are interested in learning to use iBooks Author, consider SCOtutor for iBooks Author by Don McAllister of ScreenCastsONLINE.
Pros and cons of Kindle Textbook Creator
Kindle Textbook Creator (KTC) is currently localized in Castilian (aka “Spanish”), English, French, German, Netherlands, Italian and Portuguese.
Unlike the two main limitations of iBooks Author I explained earlier in this article, both on the creation and the distribution end, KTC creates a final product —an interactive multimedia ebook— which can be authored on Intel Mac OS X 10.9 or later or Windows 7/8 (not confirmed if it works with Windows 10) and can truly allow you to author once, and publish (almost) everywhere. When I say “almost everywhere”, I mean that what you create with KTC can then be viewed/played on all of the below devices that your potential readers/viewers/listeners/buyers may own:
- Kindle app for Android phone
- Kindle app for Android tablet
- Kindle app for iPad
- Kindle app for iPhone
- Kindle app for iPod Touch
- Kindle app for Mac
- Kindle app for Windows
- Kindle Fire (1st Generation)
- Kindle Fire (2nd Generation)
- Kindle Fire HD (2nd Generation)
- Kindle Fire HD (3rd Generation)
- Kindle Fire HDX (3rd Generation)
- Fire HD (4th Generation)
- Fire HDX (4th Generation)
Yes, that’s almost everywhere. What’s missing? The black and white, greyscale and e-ink Kindle devices. All of the Kindle apps mentioned are free, and the interactive multimedia Kindle ebook you create with KTC can be sold by all of Amazon’s worldwide stores, known internationally as the world’s largest bookstore, as long as you have worldwide rights.
The fact that black and white, greyscale and e-ink Kindle devices are excluded would actually have been an advantage to several of my current books, since even though none of them (as of the publication time of this article) includes embedded audio or video, many include comparative charts that depend on the capability of seeing color. That’s why I have a warning on the sales page on Amazon’s websites about that, to warn potential buyers not to purchase the Kindle version if their device doesn’t support color, and offer the alternative of the paperback version. Kindle ebooks created by KTC automatically exclude the sale to one of the Kindle devices that don’t include color.
Although Amazon initially emphasizes the use of Kindle Textbook Creator for school textbooks, it will actually work and may be used for any type of interactive multimedia ebook where you want to embed audio and/or video. Neither Amazon nor the app will restrict you in that regard.
The interactive multimedia ebook you produce with Kindle Textbook Creator is what Amazon calls a Print Replica which is fixed-format, just like a PDF or iBooks ebook. Ahead in this article, I cover the differences between a Print Replica versus a standard “first-generation” Kindle ebook with freely moving text.
The source file for Kindle Textbook Creator, and what the program does and does not do
KTC is an extremely simple-to-use authoring tool to embed multimedia elements and create a .kpf package file (not a .mobi file). KTC is not a text-creation tool.
The only possible source file for Kindle Textbook Creator (KTC) surprised me quite a bit at first: It can only be a PDF file. This shocked me because although for “first-generation” Kindle books that use free-flowing text, PDF is an acceptable source file, it is the least desired one to use, and is a last resort only if you have no access to another file type. The fact that the only source type you can possibly use is a PDF file is related to the fixed-format, Print Replica issue I’ll explain ahead.
Before we leave this section, I want to explain exactly what KTC does and does not do, and then give suggestions:
- KTC will allow you to add or subtract pages that were present in the PDF source file you import.
- Any links (hyperlinks) that may be present in the original PDF will not be active (clickable), and those links that may have been in the table of contents on the PDF will be transferred into Kindle’s own navigation system. That way, the person reading will be able to go directly to different sections using the navigation system in the Kindle app or device
- If there weren’t any internal links in the table of contents in the PDF you imported (or even if there was no table of contents), KTC allows you to add chapter markers from each appropriate chapter or section to Kindle’s own navigation system, which allows you to name the page or section manually, as you do each one.
- KTC will allow you to select existing text and create a link to an audio, video, or larger graphic to be embedded, but in my experience KTC does not currently change the color of that selected text from the original color (so you might want to change it in advance as you prepare the PDF you will use as a source file). KTC can also embed a visually appropriate symbol in any particular spot on the page to link to an audio, video or graphic file to be embedded in the file, but it will not actually allow the audio or video to play in place on the page. At least currently, it will always be a popup player built-into the supported Kindle device or free Kindle app on any of the supported devices. In the case of video, the pop-up player also offers the option to make the video play full screen. The lack of being able to play video in place is the only key esthetic difference I observe compared with iBooks in the final result. However, you could certainly simulate it to a certain degree with a still-frame image that includes an arrow (play symbol) as many of us do with email campaigns. However, at least currently, you must have text or the mentioned KTC symbol below, since with the current version of KTC, I find no way to link from a graphic that is already embedded in the PDF, since in order to link from it, you would need to select it first, and that has not yet been possible. The only two current options are linking from text or linking from one of these audio/video/graphic symbols provided by KTC. After you have KTC place one of these symbols, you can easily drag the symbols on the page to the ideal location, but from what I can tell, you cannot change the size or color of the symbols.
- KTC will not allow you to edit the text imported from the PDF file at all, or add any new text. If you are unfamiliar with the topic, ISBN numbers are completely optional with Kindle books. However, a Kindle book must absolutely not share any ISBN number associated with a hardcover, paperback or other version of the same book, so if there is any present in the front matter pages of the original file, you must either remove the ISBN or (if you decide to purchase an ISBN number for the Kindle book, which is not required and I have never bothered to do so with Kindle books) edit it to indicate the new appropriate one. That must be done with some other tool, either to modify the PDF you already have, or to create a new, separate PDF version to use it as a source file for KTC from whatever software tool you may be using to create the layout of the text, any tables and graphics that may be part of the design.
If you have any version available that is more editable than a PDF, you are better served by starting from that one, since you’ll be able to add appropriate graphics and phrases like: Click here to play the video, Click here to play the audio, or Click here to see a larger version of the graphic in any color you’d like. You’ll also be able to make changes more easily in the front matter with that version.
If you only have access to the PDF version of a very long, older book where fixed-format Print Replica is the best choice (or you want to embed audio/video), then I have the following suggestions: Create new front matter pages, save them as PDF. Have KTC insert those new front matter pages before the rest, and have KTC delete the older, inappropriate front matter pages. Then add the KTC multimedia symbols to link to audio and/or video files you want to embed where appropriate in the body of the book.
In any case, you might add an initial section called How to read this interactive multimedia ebook. There you might add an explanation to clarify that this ebook is capable of pinch and zoom. This is important to clarify to readers, since it is a feature not included in most Kindle ebooks they have likely read in the past. If you have decided to use KTC’s multimedia symbols rather than having text sentences like Click here to play the video, you can also add an explanation of those buttons in this initial section.
Although the preferred writing tool for many authors during the initial phases is often Scrivener or Ulysses (since they both handle multiple chapters much better than any word processor during the initial writing stage), the final layout and fine tuning of styles and graphics is often done after that with different programs including Google Docs, Microsoft Word, Adobe InDesign or Apple Pages, all of which can export PDF files. (Ironically, even Apple’s iBooks Author can export PDF files, but I’m not saying you should use iBooks Author to create source PDF files for KTC, unless you have a good reason to do so.)
Print Replica versus free-flowing text
The concept of the “first-generation” Kindle and many other “first-generation” ebooks is to free the text from the page layout. That’s an advantage when a book is primarily text, especially since all of the different possible reading devices have such different sizes. With “first-generation” Kindle books, the person reading gets to choose the font size and often the font itself. The text is free-flowing, and there are no exact page count or exact page numbers, and that “first-generation” ebook with free-flowing text is still the preferred method for novels and other books that are mainly text, even though they can have embedded graphics. That free-flowing format is not present with Print Replica type Kindle books created with KTC or some other special Kindle creation tools that go beyond the scope of this article, since those other tools don’t handle embedded audio/video.
Here is Amazon’s own description of Print Replica:
About Kindle Print Replica
Kindle Print Replica textbooks maintain the rich formatting and layout of their print editions while also offering many of the advantages of standard Kindle books. Each page in a Print Replica textbook displays words and images in the same position as the corresponding print edition, while adding Kindle features such as annotations and the ability to sync your last page read across multiple Fire and Kindle devices and Kindle reading apps. Kindle Print Replica textbooks also have most of the same features as PDF-formatted books, including advanced zoom and pan functions.
I will only add one detail to Amazon’s spiel, which was probably written by Amazon before the existence of KTC. Amazon says: “in the corresponding print version”, but with KTC there doesn’t necessarily need to be any corresponding print version. If you choose, you could make the interactive multimedia ebook version the only one, without the need to kill any trees.
With Print Replica Kindle ebooks created with KTC, the person reading does not have the capability of changing the font or type size per se, but s/he can certainly pinch and zoom to change the size. That’s exactly why Kindle ebooks created with KTC are only compatible with the models I listed, which are all capable of pinch and zoom. As a result, it’s generally recommended to create the PDF source file for KTC with a larger —rather than a smaller— font size so that they’ll be legible even on smaller smartphones without having to zoom up just to read.
Built-in preview/simulation in KTC for popular readers
After you linked the embedded audio, video or larger pop-up graphics, you can immediately preview the results page-by-page with a built-in preview/simulation for popular readers including Fire HDX, Fire HDX 8.9, Fire Phone, iPad, iPhone, Android Phone an Android Tablet. Thanks to this preview/simulation feature, you don’t have to own any of the devices to see how the results will appear.
Audio/video formats accepted by KTC
Amazon made it quite simple: KTC accepts MP4 for video, and MP3 for audio. That’s all they say. Amazon doesn’t give us any more details than that. I would certainly go by the spatial resolution (pixel count) and temporal resolution (framerate) known to work with the oldest smartphones you expect your readers/listeners/viewers/buyers might use, or perhaps create a separate 1080p and 720p version of the interactive multimedia ebook if you want to target phones as old as the original iPhone 4. Starting with the iPhone 4s, 1080p is compatible. (Remember that 1080p is actually lower than the native resolution of Retina screens.) If you only want to target iPhone 4s era phones and later, you can stick to 1080p (1920×1080) exclusively. In any case, I would make the framerate match your original video, as long as it is 23.976 (aka “23.98”), 24, 25 or 29.97 fps. If your original video happens to be 50p or 59.94p, then make your MP4 at half of the original framerate.
Remember that 30.000 fps hasn’t been a video standard since the United States changed from black and white video to color and changed from 30.000 to 29.97, and that many smartphones on the market can’t play over 30 fps. See my related article: Video framerates and the Tower of Babel: a translation guide illustrated above.
Conclusions
As I have covered in detail in this article, there is one particular esthetic benefit in interactive multimedia ebooks created with iBooks Author, but for many authors and content creators, it may be offset by the author once, and publish (almost) everywhere benefit of KTC, together with Amazon’s sales platform, which is known to be the largest bookstore in the world. Rather than restricting our potential sales and distribution (or investing extra time creating multiple versions), many authors/content creators will prefer to author once, and publish (almost) everywhere, let Amazon do the selling, accept the advantages that Amazon offers us with KDP Select if we give them 90-days exclusivity for the digital version only (no restriction with hardcover or paperback versions), and then spend our remaining time promoting it and then creating the next interactive multimedia book, or whatever other next project may be. For more info, visit Amazon.com/ktc.
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My latest book (paperback + ebook)
My most recent book is available in two languages, and in paperback as well as an ebook. The ebook format is Kindle, but even if you don’t have a Kindle device, you can read Kindle books on many other devices using a free Kindle app. That includes iPad, Android tablets, Mac computers, and Windows computers. Although generally speaking, Kindle books are readable on smartphones like Androids and iPhones, I don’t recommend it for this particular book since it contains both color photos and color comparison charts. The ebook is also DRM-free.
In English, it’s The Castilian Conspiracy. Click here and you will be automatically sent to the closest Amazon book page to you based upon your IP address. Or request ISBN–10: 1456310232 or ISBN–13: 978–1456310233 in your favorite local bookstore.
En castellano, se llama La conspiración del castellano. Haz clic aquí para llegar al instante a la página del libro correspondiente a tu zona y moneda en Amazon, según tu dirección IP. De lo contrario, solicítalo en tu librería preferida con los ISBN–10: 1492783390 ó el ISBN–13: 978–1492783398.
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