Will apple fail your app if its just an ebook in game form?

Mammoth

Will apple fail your app if its just an ebook in game form? I heard that they are trying to promote the purchasing of ebooks.

Photics

Mammoth said:
Will apple fail your app if its just an ebook in game form? I heard that they are trying to promote the purchasing of ebooks.

They'd have to remove the book category from the app store if they really want to promote iBooks. I'm planning to relaunch Revisions. It's something that could go on the iBookstore, but that means I'd have to drop $125 on an ISBN... and the sales over there for The Unofficial GameSalad Textbook were pretty lousy.

I should know in a few days. Maybe my app will be rejected.

Mammoth

I guess the answer is to make an interactive book.

Garanas

Photics said:
the sales over there for The Unofficial GameSalad Textbook were pretty lousy.

that´s because it is hugely overpriced. i would pay 5.99$ at most. 24.99$ is crazy - specially for a app. You might want to consider making more money by asking for less.

Photics

Garanas said:
that´s because it is hugely overpriced. i would pay 5.99$ at most. 24.99$ is crazy - specially for a app. You might want to consider making more money by asking for less.

You might be confusing what I wrote about the epub version of the book —— not the the app version. The iBookstore (epub) version wasn't very popular. The app version has been quite popular and successful.

I think the book is fairly priced and the feedback from the book has been amazing. I've gotten lots of great comments from the GameSalad developers that have used it. The book seems to have helped a lot of people.

I think the race to the bottom doesn't help developers... or even the industry in general. I've released apps for 99¢... and even free... but the feedback is often like I killed someone's cat. I worked hard on the textbook, so I like that it's an upscale item. Apple has featured it many times as a "What's Hot" book.

This is a good experiment coming up though. The relaunch of Revisions is in the exact same format as The Unofficial GameSalad Textbook. Both are universal binaries. Both books are well written. Will a $1.99 app outperform a $24.99 app?

Mammoth said:
I guess the answer is to make an interactive book.

Revisions is interactive, but it could easily be done with epub. That format is great, but the iBookstore is just not very visible. Also... a new ISBN is required with each major update. I've updated the Textbook lots of times already. I would have wasted hundreds of dollars.

Garanas

Photics said:
You might be confusing what I wrote about the epub version of the book —— not the the app version. The iBookstore (epub) version wasn't very popular.

Interesting - another reason might be because it is very simple to rip epubs but not you have to jailbreak a ipad to run ripped apps.

Photics

Garanas said:
Interesting - another reason might be because it is very simple to rip epubs but not you have to jailbreak a ipad to run ripped apps.

I'm not sure how DRM works for iBooks. It might not be a factor. I think it's because iBooks had to be downloaded... so many iOS devices might not even have iBooks. Additionally, the iBookstore is redundant. If these were two real stores, it would be one giant store that has everything — including books... and then somewhere down the street is a little store that has just books.