Hertfordshire resident, and first time children’s book author, Gwen Christie has just beat competitors from all around the world in InteractBooks™ “Bring A Book To Life” competition. Authors and illustrators used the free software InteractBuilder™ to build an interactive book that can then be loaded on to smart phones and tablet devices. A panel of judges then carefully viewed every entry and Gwen’s book ‘The Champion Hare‘, based on the animal kingdoms version of the olympic decathlon, was awarded first place and she won a full Mac suite and and iPad.
Andy Whiteside of InteractBooks™ stated “We developed our free Interactbuilder™ software to make it easy for authors, illustrators, publishers and story tellers to create a wonderful interactive books that can then be up loaded as an app and sold via the plethora of Tablet and Smart phone devices. Conventionally this has been a costly, lengthy exercise and therefore only available to a select few. This competition shows what can be done with a small amount of time and some great imagination. We had competitors from Australia, India, Israel, United Kingdom and North America. The level of entries were amazing and are now for sale on InteractBooks app on the Apple app store. We were more than surprised to learn that this was Gwen’s first children’s book and in fact did not find out until after the winners were announced, she really did a fantastic job”
Gwen used to work in freelance graphic design but with the downturn in the economy there was less work around so she started working on her own creative projects. She started writing ‘The Champion Hare’ in March 2011. Its a story about a young hare who enters an animal sports contest, just like the olympics. He’s not the fastest or the strongest, and never wins an individual event, but he has unknowingly entered into the decathlon and by never giving up he triumphs in the end.
Gwen explained “Later that year I heard about interactive apps and thought how much the story would come alive with the addition of movement and sound effects. I knew I couldn’t afford to have an app created, so I searched online and discovered InteractBooks™. I was so excited to download the free software and start creating my very own app.”
Gwen worked with the illustrator, Paul Wrangles, to adapt the files and spent the next three months turning her story into an interactive one. “The software is very different from anything I’d ever used so I was a little bit daunted at first. After I’d completed a couple of pages my confidence grew, it’s so rewarding to see all the interactions working. I think there’s a lot of aspiring authors and illustrators who’d be interested in turning their stories into apps and the InteractBuilder™ is the perfect platform to use plus its free.. You have to be willing to put in the time and effort, but like the Champion Hare a bit of perseverance can see you triumph in the end!” Gwen intends to continue here new found passion and when asked if what the next book will be about she said “I’m not sure yet, but it will involve animals”.
Due to the success of the competition InteractBooks™ has started a new competition which runs until July 15th.
For more information on Gwen and ‘The Champion Hare’ visit – www.championhare.com
For information on InteractBooks™ visit www.interactbooks.com
For information and to download the free InteractBuilder™ software visit www.interactbuilder.com
Pin It
Share
Pricing: Pricing was correct at the time of publishing the review but is subject to change so please confirm before downloading.
Disclosure:Developers sometimes supply promo codes to download their app for review on this website. Unless explicitly stated, we have no affiliation or relationship with the supplier of the app or product being reviewed. The views and opinions expressed on theimums.com are purely the authors own. The iMums will only ever endorse apps or products that we believe, based on our experience, are worthy of endorsement. For our full disclosure, please click here.
