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David,
You're the first person that's understood the difference between what Apple calls Flowing and Fixed Layout books. Those terms haven't trickled down into the InDesign vocabulary yet. So I wasted a lot of time trying to explain it in this Forum when all along I was talking about Fixed Layout and the rest of the people here were talking about Flowing books. I also confused Enhanced with Fixed Layout; Apple says Enhanced really means multimedia which can apply to both Flowing and Fixed Layout books. I didn't realize the differences until I got the Apple iBook developer kit. I developed this chart to try and sort it out for myself:
I looked at your sample; it's great. I think there's going to be a revolution of new, exciting, anti-formulaic children's books that don't take their marching orders from pedagodic research.
Too bad I didn't know what you were doing a couple of months ago. Would have saved me a lot of time I wasted on trying to find out how to produce a Fixed Layout book from inDesign. My project is 3/4 of the way complete. When I finally learned about Ingram's new digital book for iPad thing, I decided that it's not worth doing the coding myself at this juncture. Ingram does it for $0.33 per page, takes just a small cut and handles all the Apple stuff with our imprint. If we want to do the Read Along, they charge $1.66 per page. When you consider that childrens books are only about 36 pages, it's not all that expensive.
We are doing Print books as well. SO I'm laying out the Print books in inDesign first, with text over the artwork, then I'll either resample the images to 768 × 1024 (or perhaps your specs) and create a PDF for Web version or I'll just export the print book using PDF for web setting at 144 dpi 50%. I made a test using the first method, sent the PDF file to Ingram and they produced a perfect three page ePub test. I also tried the second method and hand loaded it on the iPad. It's a PDF, but it also looks good. If I can use this method (generating the PDF for Web file directly from the Print book inDesign file), it will save a lot of time. I send the PDF to Ingram and they turn it into an ePub with all the Fixed Layout bells and whistles.
One question: does your artist draw directly into Photoshop or do you scan his artwork? My artist does watercolors that I scan at 400 dpi, then I change colorspace to CMYK and set the image size for my Print book, do a little color correction, and then File > Place. I position the text and we're ready to go. I will check out the App you used, will probably end up using it at some time.
There's is probably a place for inDesign in all this, but at the moment they're talking, and working, at cross purposes, making such a big fuss about Flowing books, which are really quite easy to produce because they're text intensive. As for understanding Fixed Layout, they're lost in a terminology Tower of Babel.
Not having used bookbaby, I did wonder if they are just doing books with all text. I was very surprised to see that for $195, I could convert, publish and get 10% more in royalties than I can doing it all on my own.
I've never heard of Lynda.com, but will check it out. But I don't believe that a software company like Adobe should rely on a third party website to provide instructions on how to use their products, though.
Upgrading to CS6 with only "Classroom in a Book" for documentation (which I had to purchase 
) I will admit to struggling for four weeks attempting to figure out the best way to set up a book with a complicated layout. Classroom says to create one large indesign file—not to use the book feature. When I called Adobe Tech Support, I was told I could use the book feature.
It wasn't until my "case" was escalated to a senior support tech (and only after he shared my screen and saw my book set up) and I again asked the question "Should I set this book up using the book function, or one big long indesign file?" did I receive an answer to my question about using the book feature. Also, to be fair, I need to add that at the beginning of our conversation, I asked him the question, and he told me that he didn't want to keep adding questions, and would get to that question last.
So after at least an hour, when we got through my other questions, and was told the answer to my problems is to buy more Adobe software, he finally agreed to go back to my first question. The answer? "Yes, if you set this up as one big indesign file all the problems you're having will go away."
Only after two weeks of tech support maze hell, after the senior support tech saw how my book was set up by sharing my screen, and failed to comment on it (but did tell me that Adobe Digital Editions doesn't "work" because it is free, and I need to buy more Adobe software to see my book properly) did he finally tell me how properly set up the ebook. I don't think most people are as tenacious as I, and I imagine a lot of Mac users are switching Word because of the lack of good Adobe documentation and support. Hell, I know they are. Two large publishing companies in my area are now publishing using Word. Why would they do that?
I'm upset that it took me so long to get a straight answer, and I don't even think the answer I got was "straight." I don't know what's going on at Adobe, but tech support SUCKS, at least for indesign. I've had to deal with many different companies over the years, and my recent experience with Adobe tops all my bad experiences with UPS.
I do not know it the lack of quality support is because of a language barrier (in the last four weeks, I've only talked with one "American," and when I was speaking to the senior support tech yesterday I heard a woman in the background speaking in Hindi I assume telling him what to say).
In any case, I'm all good for now, and am happy to know how to use indesign to properly set up an ebook, but it wasn't easy getting here.
GreenFrog,
I feel for you, having had to waste so much time with the hooray hindis... As for myself, I've generally designed books using separate documents for chapters, front matter, et. al. That gives more flexibility in styling. Combines easily into a book.
The folks at Lynda.com are fully trained in Adobe products, plus they're Americans, and can actually think outside some call-center script!! I owe my career, since everything went digital, to the folks at Lynda.com, not only for indd book design, but also for other adobe software products. And as for your thought about how Adobe should also be book publishers, I think that would be wrong tack in so many ways. You, as a book publisher (as am I) know that book publishing in itself is a whole gamut of skills, skillsets. To expect a software company to also become a publishing company I think would be to invite disaster. (And no, Adobe didn't pay me for this plug. 
)
For whatever reasons, when I use the book "feature" in indesign, the resulting epub doesn't work. When I make one long file, everything works fine. I have a lot of cross references, pictures and tables.
I apologize for not being more clear, I don't think Adobe should be a publishing company! I think they should offer the best documentation and highest quality support because they have the very best publishing tools. If bookbaby is marketing itself as a "pubisher" that's not what I considered them to be, I considered them to be distribution.
Adobe really needs to get it's documentation and support act together, or they will lose much of the publishing sector to Word. I personally would rather spend weeks trying to figure out the answers to problems I'm having with an Adobe product than switch to Word but I do see the industry steering in that direction. I can only blame it on documentation and support, because their products are excellent.
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