I haven’t had a chance to play with the iBooks Author app yet, but if it’s anything like what it seems to be, it’s a big step in the direction of democratized content distribution. And I say that knowing full well that Apple takes a big piece (don’t know how much) of any money you make selling your new creations in the iBookstore.
The first generation of democratized publishing came with Gutenberg. The second generation, though, didn’t come until the 20th century, when technologies like the mimeograph (and, later, the photocopier, and even later, the first-generation Macintosh) achieved wide circulation.
Now we’re in a third generation, when the Internet makes it possible for anyone to disseminate information and opinions electronically — and technologies like iBooks Author, which enable anyone to package up information into a physical or quasi-physical product, may usher in a fourth generation.
It’s important not to underestimate the emotional power of that ability to package the information you’re disseminating. Writers want to publish their books not just because they want to make money, but because they want to be associated with (to give birth to) a discrete, finished object. That impulse is so strong that I think being empowered to package up an iBook is a qualitatively different experience than simply putting up a bunch of web pages, and that would be true even if you could only give away your iBooks for free.