[Elizabeth Ann West]

I mentioned in an earlier post that I am embarking on a journey to make Kindle Fire apps, specifically a magazine app to highlight indie digital content. It will be articles, interactive content, and essentially takes our blog tours and posts TO the customer's ereading device.

As I've been researching, I've realized there isn't a great deal of documentation out there yet about how one just wakes up one day and decides to become an app developer with no coding experience. So I'm starting one. My writing blog was great for me to chronicle my path to publishing, and articles and posts there are still used by newbies every week.

Everyone is welcome to Appartment 325, my new home to chronicle HOW I'm going to bring LinQed Magazine to life and to market. There's isn't much there yet (hey, I just started moving in), but there will be a daily update on this journey at least until the first issue comes out...

http://appartment325.blogspot.com/2013/01/housewarming.html

 

[Madeline]

Good luck with that.  I've always wanted to try, but I get lost in the "how to" articles.  I think most app developers are coders, game designers, etc.  It can't be THAT hard if you have some familiarity with computers, I've just never been able to motivate myself to investigate it more.

 

[CMTheAuthor]

I'm going to wait until someone else catches the really really obvious pun you made with the name of that blog.    (At least, I hope that it's an intentional pun...)

I'll definitely keep my eye on your work, as the finished product sounds like it will be really interesting when it comes around.

 

[Elizabeth Ann West]

Yes, pun definitely intended. I guess I should share this:

When I first tried to execute this idea, I was just using OpenOffice and exporting to PDF. This was the first attempt (before I read any books on design): http://issuu.com/elizabethannwest/docs/autumn_flyer_raw_test

Then I got close to making an interactive PDF after reading how to use InDesign, and books on design principles. This effort is closer to what the app will look like, and where you see images of the book covers etc, those will all be clickable straight to a product listing page on Amazon. If you test out Timepiece, the Amazon link there works (the heart of the nimble woods doesn't as it's been taken down I believe)

http://issuu.com/elizabethannwest/docs/layoutalmostdone

With an app, I can have trailers play, like this advertisement (where the black box is, that's where a user would be able to tap and see the trailer), but video isn't supported in issuu.com.

http://issuu.com/elizabethannwest/docs/intro_pages

And now, I am head down making a portrait style first issue. I'm keeping it simple and will worrya bout reorienting with the accelerometer etc. later once I get more familiar. Right now I just want to make something pretty, informational, and export it as an app. Then go from there.