FoxTrot creator Bill Amend recently released three short ebooks with about 100 curated FoxTrot strips through the iTunes Book Store. He’s getting a lot of attention from Mac blogs such as The Unofficial Apple Weblog, MacGasm, and even a mention by the venerable John Gruber of DaringFireball.
One of the latest is from TechCrunch:
TC: What made you try this? How did this compare to the ?traditional? book release system?
Amend: The first time I played around with an iPad on launch day all I could think about was how awesome it would be to somehow get my comics on this thing.
Unfortunately, the comic strip eBooks I?d seen all tended to be a little clunky for my tastes, so I assumed I?d need to build a custom reader app, which proved too big a task for me. And then iBooks Author came out and changed everything. You have no idea how much fun it was to make these things. I love working with the people at Andrews McMeel on my print books, but the finished product always feels like their creation more than mine. These iBooks are all my doing and it?s a great feeling.
Way to go Bill. I’ve seen the books in the cartoon book lists and am pleased to hear you gave e-pubbing a try yourself. It’s an even greater feeling when you learn ground up epubbing and do both formats for both stores. We’re Indie publishers now!