Tag Archives: apps

Apps, Books, and Education

My daughter is 1.  We recently read One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish on my Kindle, an app by Oceanhouse Media.  Or more accurately the book was read to us by the app.
Right then an entire world opened up or more accurately worlds opened up.

This app let's readers choose between reading the text themselves and having it read to them.

This app let’s readers choose between reading the text themselves and having it read to them.

1.  Education

This app makes me happy as a teacher.  The ability to have the words highlighted as they were read, and then they can tap a particular word and have it read back to them.  What an amazing tool for early or struggling readers.  I found my self just tapping on different parts of the screen to see what it would say.  I stayed on several pages just exploring the text.  How many young readers do that as well, thus spending more time in the text.  I imagine kids with their tablets exploring a text by reading it and clicking on the illustrations to see more.  Great opportunities here.

2. Indie book publishing

Dr. Seuss wrote One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish in 1960.  His family still owns the copyright to it, and unless they sell it, they will own it for another 48 years.  (Dr. Seuss died in 1991.)

When you you write a book it begins as just a book.  But in reality it is an intellectual property that can be sold as hardback, paperback, or ebook.  It can also be packaged as an audio book.  Several different ways to bring income with the same property.  And if handled correctly it isn’t just income for you, it is income for your children and grandchildren.  Think about that.

3. Apps

If you write children’s books, like I do, you can also turn them into apps that students can explore.  I guess in theory you could turn an adult book into an app.  I’ll leave that up to other people.  Imagine though making a book, and then turning it into an app where students may interact with it even more than a paper book.  I’m seriously going to be looking into how this is done.  If you know how to do it, leave a note in the comments.

But turning your book into an app is a great exercise in intellectual property, you make one intellectual property sold several different ways, and you own that property for the rest of your life, and then your descendants own it for 70 years after your death.  The possibilities are amazing here, who knows what, in the future, digital ways we can sell an intellectual property.  Simply Awesome.


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