Publishers Weekly has an overview report, with the above name, on the iBookstore and its place in the market. Here’s a snippet:
Not everyone is embracing the iBookstore, though. At this time Oceanhouse Media — the leading publisher of children’s digital book apps on Apple’s App Store, with the exclusive right to make apps of Dr. Seuss’s work — is not planning to sell there. “We believe that in order to have an effective digital children’s book you need a level of interactivity that cannot be provided for with iBooks,” says Oceanhouse Media president Michel Kripalani. “Only apps can deliver this high level of interactivity, and much of the work is custom to each specific title.”
Oceanhouse Media has sold more than half a million Dr. Seuss digital book apps since its first release (How the Grinch Stole Christmas!) just one year ago, says Kripalani. With 140 apps on the app store, it sells “many thousands” of apps per day, he says.
One reason: they’re inexpensive compared to iBooks. “Personally, I believe that many of the books on the iBookstore are overpriced,” says Kripalani. “Why spend $14 on a static digital book when you can have a fully interactive Dr. Seuss, Berenstain Bears, or Mercer Mayer book for $1.99 to $3.99?”
Also, iBookstore should have an app to read on a Samsung Galaxy Tab. Apple needs a webstore so you can buy without using iTunes. Prices are way too high. It isn’t always possible to redownload a book you have already bought.
Amazon did it right right from the beginning.
As an Apple user I am convinced that, basically, their heart is not in iBooks. Jobs has clearly not engaged with it in a serious way and until that happens it will languish.
It will probably always be true that custom coded, screen size optimized apps will provide creatives with a richer palette that is possible with ePub and the other eBook formats, that gap may narrow with the advent of ePub version three. We’ll see what happens then.
But the larger question is whether a “fully interactive” remake of a classic children’s story is really more engaging? Has anyone actually done any empirical research into what kids (not their parents) prefer?