One of the perks of being an International student and studying abroad is to be able to experience learning about the up to date technology. It makes you realize where the world is heading and the gap between the developed and developing countries seem to be far more than one can imagine.
This part of the world is of creators and that part of the world ends up resulting to be just mere consumers, till that part of the world is able to learn the technology when the developed part of the world shifts to latest technology.
When I came to RMIT, in my semester one, I opted for “Electronic Publishing” as an elective course. I wasn’t really sure of what to expect out of the course, but I definitely didn’t see myself exploring the up to date systems and practices of publishing content.
I’d be honest, I didn’t really know much about E-books too, because in the developing countries, the idea is still fairly new and very few people who own the reading gadgets and smart phones have slightly fair idea of what an E-book is like.
I know, it was easy to just say that eBooks are the Electronic version of a book, but there was far more to just knowing this bit. With the course COMM 1218, I got to learn about different formats of E-books, how one can indulge in self-publishing through different softwares such as Jutoh, Inklewriter, Inkling and a lot more.
My personal favourite is Inklewriter as it enables you to build up an interactive story book which engages the users to actively participate and lead the story in a direction they want it heading to. You can see some of the Inklewriter software produced stories on InkleStudio.
It’s quite a task for the author of the story book because he needs to versions of the story to lead to some conclusion as the reader keeps decided where he wants the story to lead by choosing one of the options given to him.
The video tutorial by the official Inklewriter channel gives a glimpse of how you can go about exploring this software.
I believe this type of eBooks can be designed according to ones need and adding in your creativity, you can come up with something fun and really interesting. This seems to be a useful tool to make story books for children, to engage them to participate by making them part of the story world.
The need for building interactive platforms in the digital world has taken a lot of attention globally. I would definitely work with Inklewriter to come up with a story that will enable me to explore my potential as a media person. However, for a more formal material, instead of publishing it as a “pdf” file, I would use Jutoh.
Jutoh enables us to create eBooks with “epub” format. E-Pub format can be accessed through various E-reading devices such as Kindle Fire, iPads and Tablets etc. You get to design the cover of the book, and present your work in a more visually appealing way as well.
After creating an eBook you can publish it on a commercial platform such as Amazon, the agreement involves sharing some percentage with the company on every sale. The other option is putting up your work for non-commercial purposes by using personal websites or blogs to publish your work.
Life as I Experience.... 