As a forewarning, I’m not going to go too far into the various bookstore formats, other than to say that at the least you’ll need to start with a Microsoft Word or ePub file. While Amazon and the like will accept a Word file to publish, to ensure your book converts to the various proprietary formats, I recommend creating an ePub file as your base. EPub is the most common ebook file standard, and I think you’ll have fewer problems starting with that. Fortunately, the ebook creation apps I’m going to tell you about all export an ePub natively. While there are Automator scripts to convert text to ePub, by using these packages you’re pretty much guaranteed to keep your document formatting.

One quick note up front: I’m not going to include Apple’s own iBooks Author tool. That’s because my goals for this piece were simple: talk about ebook-making programs that can be used in multiple bookstores and create files that aren’t just static images of a page. iBooks Author creates static pages that can only be used in the iBookstore. That’s great for getting an interactive textbook into the iBookstore, but not so good for other kinds of books.

Pages

Apple’s Pages app ($19) is probably the most straightforward and easiest way to create an ePub file. You will need to use a Word Processing template, not a Page Layout template. Other than that, you pretty much just type, type, type until your Great American Novel is done. You’re going to want to use consistent formatting, taking care to use document styles while typing away, or you’re going to have to go back and reformat the thing. Document styles are important because an ePub file is basically an HTML file with some CSS formatting applied. Therefore, using the Body style for your body text, and the heading styles for your headings will make your life a lot easier come file export time, especially if you need to create a Table of Contents. This support article by Apple has some handy tips for using Pages to create ePub files.

Scrivener

If you’re a serious writer, odds are you’re already using the wonderful Scrivener ($44.99) by Literature and Latte. Scrivener is a sort of Swiss Army knife of writing programs. It’s very flexible, and allows you to essentially merge and move around text files to create a piece of finished work (be it a printed manuscript, file, or ePub file). I’ve used it for some screenwriting, where I want to change the position of a scene. Rather than cut and paste, I could just drag that text file to the place I wanted it. While you could just use one text file for your entire body of work, laying out your file similar to the screenshot below will allow you to take full advantage of the program’s offerings. It’s a fantastic way to work on bits of chapters at a time without worrying about mucking the whole file up.

Once you’re done, just go to the file menu and choose Compile and then choose whether you want to create ePub, .Mobi, or .iBook chapters.

Adobe InDesign

Yes, that’s right: I’m recommending a $699 page layout program to create ebooks. No one is more surprised about this than I am. When I was offered a briefing from Adobe on using Indesign for this purpose, I tried to put it off due to my preconceived notion that using Indesign to create ebooks would yield a result similar to a Zinio magazine: a big honking static PDF-type file.

I was wrong.

Indesign, as it turns out, is a pretty powerful ebook creation program. In short, you can take a file you’ve created a smashing page layout of and turn it into an ebook. You can adjust the typography and create an ebook that looks almost exactly like a printed book. It’ll even fairly easily convert your initial drop caps into something the ePub file can understand. If you really need your ebook to look its very best, Indesign may be the best option.

But Lordy it’s not cheap. InDesign is a full-featured page layout program that designers use to create all sorts of material (ads, books, flyers, etc.). At $699 if your books are just text you’re probably better served with Pages or Scrivener because Indesign’s strengths are in layouts combining images and text.

If you’re working on an ebook that’s, say, a technical reference book with a ton of images and you want it to look damn good, InDesign is worth the expense. I was thinking of working on such a project a while back; had I gone through with it, I likely would have reached for my credit card quite happily.

InDesign also has a serious learning curve. It’s not a program you master in a weekend, or, say, a week before a deadline. In my case, I used to run a pre-press shop so my InDesign knowledge was pretty good, albeit rusty.

The app I use

Right now I’m using Pages, for the simple reason that it also runs on my iPad, meaning I can use my lunch breaks at work to write. Literature and Latte is working on an iPad version of Scrivener, but it doesn’t sound like it’ll see the light of day for quite some time. So, an app that I can use on multiple platforms and sync via Documents in the Cloud wins. It also helps that right now I’m working on short stories and novellas, which are well within Pages’ means to handle.

Scrolling view

You can access the new scrolling view by tapping on the “aA” icon in the upper-right corner, choosing Themes, and then tapping on Scroll. Now, instead of tapping on the screen edges to turn the page, you can just scroll up to keep reading. If you use Instapaper at all, it works just like reading in that app.

The chief problem I have with this view is it felt like I was reading a run-on page. Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but my eyes and brain are used to the brief rest that comes with turning the page. Simply put, I did feel myself freaking out a bit when the page went on way longer than I expected. My initial experience was so displeasing that after vowing to give it a solid chance, I just gave up. There are location numbers in the left-hand margin so you can get a vague sense of when page numbers change, but I would like it better if there was also a thin horizontal rule to mark the location changes.

I don’t think the new view is completely useless, though. An ideal use would be reference texts where you need to view a section of text than spans over two pages. For general reading, however, I still find the tap-to-turn method the best. Also, while Apple has said it’s tweaked iOS to detect accidental thumb pressed with the iPad mini, the scrolling text view could be a guaranteed way to make sure you don’t suddenly jump ahead 20 pages.

Purchased Collection

I don’t buy a lot of books via iBooks — Amazon, for the time being, is still my chosen purveyor of reading materials — but recently I needed to look at a book I’d bought through the iBookstore previously. To read it, I needed to go the iBookstore, choose Purchased, and then redownload it from there. It felt like a few steps too many.

I know, I know. I suffered.

One thing Amazon’s Kindle app has done better than iBooks is how it handles books in the cloud. You just click on the Cloud tab and you view a library on non-downloaded books. Now, iBooks works the same way. Go to your Collections list, choose Purchased, and boom, your Books in the Cloud are there.

Unfortunately, one area Amazon still eats Apple’s lunch is how it handles sideloaded content. You can upload damn near anything to your Personal Documents section on Amazon and download it to your various Kindle apps. Apple only supports this feature for books you buy through the iBookstore. If you sideload a lot of content to iBooks (guilty) you still need to use iTunes to sync it to your iOS devices.

Now, that’s suffering.

Sharing passages

Every now and then, I tweet a book I’m reading (or just finished reading). Maybe it’s the bibliophile’s version of sharing what I ate for lunch. How I’d expect a sharing feature to work in a books app is to tweet, Facebook, or whatever, a book I’m reading, some general thoughts, and a shortened link to the book in the retailer’s store.

That’s not how it works in iBooks.

Instead, you highlight a passage, tap Share, and that passage along with your commentary are shared. I rubbed my temples at the various types of passages that may be shared with me on Twitter and Facebook since I have friend with odd tastes in reading.

As with the scrolling text, I’m going to say this feature is the most relevant to people reading texts that need to share passages with others via email. When I was in school, I’d need to share parts of scientific texts with group mates. Schools, book clubs, religious study groups, etc. could find this handy for sharing amongst themselves.

Afterward

I’d put a side bet with myself that we’d see an iBooks update on Tuesday. What with the rumor mill and all, I felt it was easy money. It’s a good thing there wasn’t a point spread, though.

Because while testing these new features out, my thoughts kept tracking along the lines of: this is a full version release? It felt like it should have been called iBooks 2.5; not iBooks 3. Maybe there’s more coming in future dot releases, especially once iTunes 11 is released.

There are a lot of comic book readers out there, so I’m going to share with you the comic reading apps that I use the most, both commercial readers that allow you to read comics purchased from their store, and one that lets you read comic book files.

Commercial Readers

Comixology: Comixology (free) is the Amazon Kindle service for buying comics. Almost every digital publisher (sadly, no Dark Horse, but Marvel, DC Comics, and IDW are present) is in Comixology, and many of them make digital versions available the same day they become available in print. With the release of the third-generation iPad earlier this year, Comixology introduced the CMX-HD, which are high-resolution files that take full advantage of the Retina display. They look amazing; even small text is quite readable. On the iPad 2, I had to use the panel-by-panel view (a view that zooms in so each panel takes up the full screen). Now, I rarely need to. While you can purchase and read comics via the app, if you create an account on Comixology’s website, you can also read your comics on non-iOS devices. One nice feature is that I can define alerts for when new issues of my favorite series are released.

Dark Horse: Dark Horse (free) as you’d imagine, is dedicated solely to Dark Horse’s catalogue. Yeah, I wish they’d partner up with Comixology, too. Unlike Comixology, Dark Horse requires an account on its site to purchase comics, although it can use your iTunes billing information to purchase the comic; I don’t have a credit card on file with Dark Horse.

The Dark Horse app is well-done. Downloaded comics show up on the bookshelf tab, and the Store is easy to navigate and search. One oddity, though, in that I can’t find a way to see comics I’ve purchased, but not downloaded; I had to search the store and note that there was a Download button next to the title I had purchased.

Reading comics is likewise very easy, utilizing a panel-by-panel view similar to Comixology. I’m not sure if the comics are hi-res, but they look fine on my iPad 3.

Reader Apps

The standard file format for comics is either a CBR or a CBZ file, which is essentially a RAR file with the images in it. I will let you use your own moral compass on how to obtain the files, but for full disclosure, as part of my research for this article I only downloaded a few comics I had purchased digital versions of already. While CBR readers are a dime a dozen on the iOS App Store, for me, there’s only one app I really like: Comic Zeal. Previously, I had enjoyed Comic Reader Mobi, but sadly the developer was banned from the App Store. One free app I looked at, ComicFlow, didn’t seem to have an easy way to delete files.

Comic Zeal: At $4.99, this is a great app. It takes advantage of the Retina display, and while it doesn’t have a form of panel-by-panel reading that I could find, it is easy to pinch and zoom in. Again, like all the apps, it looks amazing on the Retina display.

While individual comics are easy to navigate, there is a learning curve on the Library interface. Rather than dragging and dropping comics into a folder, instead you swipe the comic to the right and then paste it into a folder. After a little bit, I got used to it.

Getting comics into Comic Zeal is pretty easy: you can just drag and drop them via the App tab in iTunes. An easier way I found was to use Google Drive to store the file. I then opened the file with the Google Drive app, and when it told me it couldn’t read the file, I had it “Open in” Comic Zeal.

The Last Page

The iPad has really reinvigorated my interest in comics. When I was reading them a long time ago, if I missed some of a series, or if I became interested in a series in the middle of the run, I’d have a hard time catching up. These days, I just set an alert in Comixology for the next issue of a series, and it’s relatively easy (although expensive when you buy 20 issues at once –oy, my wallet) to come into a series late. The cloud-based nature of both Comixology and Dark Horse also makes it easy to read my comics on alternate devices, like my Nexus 7.

It’s a shame, though, that I have little reason to go into my local comics store anymore.