Ebooks

We have written several Children’s Ebooks and would like to share some interesting information about them.
One might ask, “What is an Ebook?”
According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: “An Ebook, eBook, ebook, or e-book, also sometimes known as a downloadable book ) – electronic text that forms the digital media equivalent of a conventional printed book, often protected with a digital rights management system. Ebooks are usually read on personal computers, smart phones, or on dedicated hardware devices known as e-book readers or e-book devices.”
Hmm, that sounds kind of dry doesn’t it? In fact most of the very early ebooks were just that dry, text based, and boring….at least to the average reader. But that is because they were generally written for special and limited audiences, usually small and devoted interest groups! The subject matter of those ebooks included technical manuals for hardware, manufacturing techniques, and other subjects. Thankfully ebooks have come a long way since then. Ebooks can be rich with graphics, color, and entertaining! Aerotoons ebooks are those kind of ebooks. Our ebooks are loaded with graphics and the text is simple so that kids can easily read them.
Now that you know what an ebook is one might ask, “How does it work?”
From the definition above, ebooks can be read several different ways. Let’s spend a little time describing how our ebooks are used. Aerotoons ebooks work with any personal computer (PC) with Windows Internet Explorer v5 or greater installed as part of Windows, no extra software is required…. (*Please note at this time our ebooks only work on PC’s, however, Intel-based Mac (OS X) can use PC emulator software to run “Windows” programs.)
If you have the system requirements then all you have to do is download the ebook file to your desktop (about 7.1 Mb) then simply click on the file to open the ebook. The ebook will load itself and after it opens, just mouse click through the pages! You can even download our ebooks and try them before you buy, then if you decide that you want to purchase the ebook, you will automatically be directed to purchase the unlock code which unlocks the rest of the ebook.
Would you like to see how we create our aviation ebooks?
First, just like any other book or story, it starts out with an idea. What is the subject and who do you want to tell it to? At Aerotoons we want to talk about aviation and our ebooks are intended for children ages 5-8, (although we have seen a few kids as young as 3 able to read them). We realize that children are our future so we want to introduce aviation and flying to them and what better way than through stories? (AOPA and EAA have programs to get young people involved in aviation too.) Because our audience is children we like to keep our ebooks under 32 pages so that they can be read in one sitting (with Mom or Dad’s help). We use simple text and lots of illustration (a picture paints a thousand words) to make it easier for children in first grade and up to read.
With a subject and audience in mind, what will the story be about? In our ebook “Airy’s Special Day” we thought it would be fun to introduce different types of aircraft to children. We wanted to do that by telling a tale about how different aircraft interact with an airplane named Airy. He is everybody’s friend and one day has a special mission to fly. He invited everyone to come along with him and that’s where the adventure begins!
The idea for our other ebook “My First Flight” came to us one day as we watched a baby bird learn how to fly. It was so comical watching the fuzzy chick flutter from a tree to the ground, up then down, so we thought; “How cool would it be if we told a story about a baby airplane that is learning to fly?” So you see, some ideas for stories can come from everyday experiences.
After the story has been written and edited we begin to create drawings for the characters in the ebook. Each character begins with a series of thumbnail sketches. We pick the character that we like the best from those sketches and continue to make refinements until we have what you finally see in the ebook. (There were 7 different protypes for Airy before we decided to use the version based on a Grumman F3F.) Most of our characters are based on one of our favorite type of aircraft or something that we have actually flown. (Don’t forget to take the poll on the right side of the web page.)
“Cat” is one of the baby airplanes in our ebook “My First Flight,” we used a Grumman AA-1 as our inspiration for drawing her. Interestingly enough it is about this time that a character receives a name. You wouldn’t think that this would be so tough but sometimes finding the right name for a character is harder than you imagine. (Cat got her name from Grumman’s practice of  naming their airplanes after felines: ie. Lynx, Tomcat, Cougar, etc.)
Next we create a storyboard for each ebook  just like they do for the movies or commercials. A storyboard is a series of simple drawings that are placed in sequence like a comic book to tell the story visually. Here we get a real sense of what the ebook will look like, how the pages will be ordered, and what the background settings need to show. Storyboards are really helpful tools. We use them because they allow us to make edits or changes to the story if needed before any of the actual illustration begins. It is only after the final edits have been made that we proceed to the next step which is to create the actual pages that will be used in the ebook.
Aerotoons uses a variety of software programs to illustrate the ebook pages. Adobe® Illustrator® and Photoshop® are used to create the images for the pages and we use InDesign® to layout the books for print, and Dreamweaver® to layout the pages for an ebook. (Ebook pages are similar to html pages.) An ebook compiler such as Activ E-book Compiler is used to put the html pages together to build the ebook so that it can be read on everyone’s PC computer. Digital rights management (DRM) can be a touchy issue with some but we use programs to protect our ebooks from any unauthorized copying. ( HYPrlock is one type of DRM software that can be used to protect an ebook or PDF from any unauthorized copying.) It is a necessary step because of the time and expense involved in producing an ebook. It takes us about 2 months to produce an ebook after the story has been written.
We made the decision early on to publish our books as ebooks for several reasons. Ebooks can be published quicker, more economically, and easier than conventional printed books which means they can be offered to the public at a substantially lower price and the best part about them is you don’t have to leave your house to purchase one!
Well, there you have it, I hope you enjoyed reading about how our ebooks are made as much as we enjoy making them, feel free to try one out. “My First Flight” “Airy’s Special Day” “Aerotoons Color Time”
Happy Reading!