If you've ever dreamed of becoming a published author, you could hardly have picked a better time to be alive. A full-blown revolution is afoot in the way books are written, published and distributed, and the playing field has practically been nuked. It makes for some feel-good, tech-democratizes-all type stuff, but just because the playing field is level doesn't mean it's easy to navigate. Guy Kawasaki wants to help. 

The entrepreneur and former Apple evangelist has published books using both the traditional and DIY routes, so he's familiar with the inner workings of both. He recently coauthored a book titled APE (Author, Publisher and Entrepreneur): How to Publish a Book, which is being released through Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing program. (He'll be talking about his book at a ReadWrite Mix event in San Francisco this week.)

APE aims to be a sort of field guide for self-publishers, surveying the current landscape and laying out recommended tools for writing, publishing and selling a book. As the title suggests, Kawasaki advocates an approach that requires wearing all three hats: not just of a writer, but as a publisher and businessperson as well. Doing so, says Kawasaki, is the only way the DIY set can begin to compete with traditional publishers. 

After all, it's still big publishing companies that sell most of the books and have the advantage when it comes to professional editing, distribution and marketing. Self-publishing platforms like Amazon's are beginning to chisel away at that dominance, but it's really the proliferation of tablets and e-readers that's fueling this shift. 

The Explosion of Tablets and E-Readers

"You can get a tablet for a hundred or two hundred bucks now," Kawasaki says. "It has so many advantages over trying to buy stacks of books. When you walk onto an airplane, even in coach, everybody's reading a tablet now." 

Apple is well on its way toward selling its 100 millionth iPad (if it hasn't already) and it's now joined in the tablet arena by the likes of Amazon's Kindle Fire, the Nexus 7, Barnes and Noble's Nook and the brand new Microsoft Surface. Then there's the whole category of e-readers, a pack which Amazon's line of non-tablet Kindles leads (even if they're not forthcoming about the numbers).  

As this list of players grows, there's a seemingly corresponding drop in prices, which further fuels their adoption by consumers. The more of these gadgets land in consumers hands, the most e-books they buy. Indeed, during the first quarter of this year, digital book sales revenue surpassed that of hard covers for the first time ever.

Self-Publishing Is Easier Than Ever - But Still Hard

Finding and buying books may be easier than at any point in human history, but publishing those books isn't quite as simple as tapping the purchase button. There's a cobweb of platforms, tools, formats and strategies, a path which Kawasaki and Welch attempt to illuminate. With authoring tools like Adobe InDesign and Apple's iBooks Author, the act of publishing is getting far more user-friendly.

But for self-publishers, writing the book is the easy part. Where much of the hardest works comes into play is with editing, distribution and marketing - you know, all the things a traditional publisher typically cares of. That is, if you can manage to get a book deal. 

"It is just a stark reality that if you're a self-published author, you are responsible for your own marketing," says Kawasaki, who acknowledges that established authors like himself and Tim Ferriss have a unique advantage on this front. Not every self-published author will make six figures, or even make a living from their writing at all, but the opportunity they have to give it a shot is one that never existed before. 

The entrepreneurial skills self-publishers need to hone can go a long way for authors using the traditional method, Kawsaki adds. That's because big publishing houses only put a limited amount of time and effort into marketing a new book before moving on push the next one. 

"Even if you're with the best publisher in the world, it always helps to have your own platform," he says. That's something self-published authors will have to work very hard to build. 

With self-publishing, the trade-off is clear: Sure, it's easier and more democratic, while authors have more freedom and they earn more money per book. But selling those books is much harder without the backing of a traditional publisher and the whole process requires much more of the author than just sitting down and writing. 

It's a concept Kawasaki refers to "artisanal publishing," wherein the creators play a more hands-on role throughout the process of crafting and selling the product. In other words, it's more work. 

Nobody doubts that the classroom of the future will look very different than it does today. It will, at the very least, involve fewer dead trees and be much more tapped into that globe-spanning network of knowledge we call the Internet. Learning will also be even more geographically distributed than it is today. And it's increasingly looking like tablet computers will be at the heart of the whole experience. Like it or not, Apple is leading the charge. 

What Apple Showed

When Apple made its first official foray into digital textbooks earlier this year, I was skeptical. It seemed clear that iBooks 2, iBooks Author and the new "textbooks" section of the iBookstore would not revolutionize the education market anytime soon, even if the longterm potential was obvious. Tuesday, Apple shared some early results from those efforts and revealed the next phase of its overhaul of education. It's definitely onto something. 

Most of the 100 million iPads sold worldwide were purchased by consumers and businesses, but a growing number of those buyers are school districts. In the last nine months, 2,500 classrooms have started using iBooks textbooks, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced. Their content now covers 80% of the core high school curriculum in the United States. It's not a bad start, but Apple has a long way to go before iBooks makes an iTunes-like impact. 

The next wave of that impact won't come from iBooks 3 or the new version of iBooks Author, which are both nice, but relatively minor updates. If anything from Tuesday's event will help push digital textbook adoption forward, it's the hardware. Specifically, the iPad Mini. By offering a $329 tablet, Apple suddenly made iPad adoption notably more affordable for cash-strapped school districts. Apple also released the fourth generation 10-inch iPad, which should help drive down the price of the company's older devices as well. 

Indeed, the cost of these iPad-based programs is one of their biggest logistical handicaps, especially in urban school districts. I live in Philadelphia, where the public schools are forever plagued by budget cuts. The teachers I know have to ask for donations from the community (or pay from their own pocket) just to ensure's there are enough pencils and reams of paper. Their students aren't going to see $500 tablet computers anytime soon. A $329 iPad is bit easier to swallow for educators set on bringing iOS, rather than cheaper Android or Windows tablets into the classroom. Give it a few years, and these things will be dirt cheap. 

Apple's Not the Only Player, But It's Still Apple

Of course, Apple has plenty of competition, both on the hardware front and when it comes to educational content. Because of the iPad's premium price tag, some schools are experimenting with Kindle Fires and other Android-based tablets. The 7-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab, for example, is considerably cheaper than the iPad mini. One fifth grade classroom that tried deploying the Galaxy Tab found it to be effective overall, but software glitches continually interrupted the experience for students. That's something that the Apple fan boys will be quick to point out: The iPad, as they say, just works.

There's some truth to that. Compared to Android, iOS is more polished and intuitive, but what Android tablets may lack in user experience, they typically make up in more affordable hardware. 

The iBookstore isn't the first place to offer digital textbooks, either. Startups like Inkling, Chegg and Kno were reimagining the textbook for a digital world long before Apple started getting serious about its role in education's future. Meanwhile, Amazon has its own e-textbook storefront and rental program and Barnes and Noble offers its own digital learning tool called Nook Study. 

While the educatiuonal space is filling up, it's also relatively young. So far, Apple has made one of  the most direct pushes into it. We don't see Amazon pushing the Kindle Fire as the next big thing in classrooms, for instance. Not yet, anyway.

As is often the case, Apple has a tremendous advantage by virtue of the fact that it's Apple. The iPad's dominant position in the marketplace gives it the best shot of carving out a meaningful segment of the education market, where its sights are now very deliberately set.

Apple's eBook platform for iOS is getting its first significant update in nine months. iBooks 3.0 will arrive in the App Store later today, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced this morning at the event where Apple's new iPad Mini was introduced.

The new iBooks app will feature better integration with iCloud, continuous scrolling and support for dozens of new languages. Apple is also whittling away at its own walled garden a little bit by letting readers share passages via Facebook and Twitter.

Apple has been baking social networks more deeply into its operating systems, and this update is a nice touch. The inability to share short excerpts with friends was a palpable shortcoming in iBooks until today.

It's not just eBook readers that are getting new features today. Apple is also pushing out a new version of iBooks Author, the drag-and-drop publishing tool used to create books for the iBookstore. iBooks Author features new templates and embeddable fonts. 

A new push in education 

In January, Apple took aim at the education market when it launched iBooks 2 and started offering digital textbooks in the iBookstore. While iBooks 3 is a more subtle update, Apple is emphasizing the growing role iPads play in education and has some numbers to tout. The iBooks platform now covers 80% of the core curriculum in U.S. high schools and more than 2,500 classrooms are using iBooks textbooks, Cook said. 

Apple also addressed one common criticism about the iPad's viability in the classroom this morning: the price. Alongside the fourth generation iPad, the company unveiled the iPad Mini, a $329 tablet with a 7.9-inch display.

The lower price point will make the iPad Mini an attractive option for cash-strapped school districts, while also pushing the competition in a way that is sure to impact the tablet market overall.