Please welcome Greg Pugh, author of The Perfect Pillow (also made with Kwik) and a Kwik 2 alpha tester. His new storybook, Floating Fun, was made entirely using Kwik 2. This creative storybook app is currently waiting for approval in both Amazon and Apple’s App Stores – we will have links to share as soon as they are available.
Learn more about Floating Fun and Greg’s journey as an author, illustrator and Kwik user. Enjoy!
My name is Greg Pugh, I’m the creator of the Colin Turtle book series. My interest in children’s book writing came from the fact that my wife and I knew we wanted to start a family, and I thought it would be great if our kids could grow up reading books that I wrote. I had no previous experience in writing children’s books, so finding a publisher and distributor for a paperback would be difficult and expensive. My alternative to paperback publishing was to turn my idea into an iPad app.
I discovered Kwik in a Google search and instantly fell in love. Within moments, I was able to import my artwork into Photoshop and tell each object what I wanted it to do with a mouse-click. Not only that but I was able to add narration and it automatically added memory optimization so I didn’t have to worry about the app crashing. My sister-in-law (http://darlingstewie.com) graciously recorded the narration and within moments I had my book on the Apple App Store.
[pullquote align=”right” type=”simple”]It’s ridiculous how easy Kwik 2 makes it for anyone to simply create a complex storybook filled with exciting interactive features that would normally require tons of coding.[/pullquote]So right away I had an iPad storybook app available on the AppStore and it was doing pretty well but then came the announcement of Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet launching soon. Right away Corona Labs and Kwik were updating their support for the Kindle Fire. I took the opportunity to go back into Photoshop and rework my background artwork, reduced the height to fit the new Kindle screen size, re-published, and before I knew it my book was available on the Amazon App Store shortly after the Kindle Fire launched. The Kindle Fire edition has actually outsold the iPad version 10 to 1, so I’m very glad that Kwik & Corona Labs supports this and so many other devices. (kwik note – expect similar results as the new Nexus 7 launches in the next 2-3 weeks)
After receiving positive feedback from parents telling me how their children loved my book, I wrote the script for my second children’s book “Floating Fun”. However, free time became scarce and the project was put on the back-burner for awhile. Then I heard that Kwik 2 was in the works and that Kwiksher was actively looking for people to help alpha test the software. When I saw all the new features that Kwik 2 had to offer, I was motivated to get “Floating Fun” back into production.
One feature that I love is the new navigation menu. I’ve seen some other children’s eBooks that have this feature but I wasn’t sure how to program it myself. Kwik 2 makes it as easy as clicking a checkbox and the publish button. Being a Corona Ambassador, I’m no stranger to writing Lua coding by hand, such as the code to add physics and gravity into your application. Well, Kwik 2 has a menu option for that as well, so you can just click a few checkboxes and you’ve got a complex physics system in your book. It’s ridiculous how easy Kwik 2 makes it for anyone to simply create a complex storybook filled with exciting interactive features that would normally require tons of coding.
In fact, I updated my first book, adding text highlighting and the menu navigation feature, in just 2 days! I’ve seen a lot of great storybooks created with Kwik and now with Kwik 2 coming out soon, I can only imagine the wonderful books that other authors will create. At this point, the sky is the limit and I think we’re going to see a lot of excellent apps coming out on the market thanks to Kwik 2.
If you would like to read some of my tutorials and reviews you can follow my blog at http://www.GPAnimationsBlog.com/
You can purchase the app here:
iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/
Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/