Hi Dan,

For the kind of interactive content you’re talking about, I believe epub3 (fixed layout) can handle it, but I’ll leave that part of the question to the design guys on here.

As for distribution, there are numerous options. You could set up your own separate publisher accounts with Amazon (Kindle) and ibook store etc., but we have chosen Ingram to distribute for us. Our title then go global to every major reader outlet – drawback is although set-up fees are very reasonable (US$25 an ebook), they take a big cut of royalties.

If you’re really new to this, remember a few basics, such as you’ll need a different ISBN for your ebook; avoid page numbers except on fixed epub3 and bear in mind some readers cannot yet cope with epub3, so you may need to create a separate reflowable epub for them. We produce academic textbooks too, and if you use diagrams these can be a nightmare on epub! We’ve started using Adobe Illustrator to make vector images so we can scale them correctly before they are rasterized and placed in the Ai file – this gives the best results we’ve found so far.

If you prefer to deliver content directly from your website, this can prove quite expensive, as you may need a new site, and you’ll certainly need an approved Adobe partner for best results. Last time I looked prices started at UK £2,500 per annum. I did find a much cheaper eBooks.com service for delivering from our site, but haven’t tried it yet, as it is not a priority for us.

Every success!

Mathew