I think that I finally understand where your confusion lies. It is
with the term "Web App".  All this means is a web site.  For the
iPhone, a Web App is a web site that is formatted best for reading on
a device like an iPhone or Android, etc.

If you want to sell the eBook, one way is to completely avoid selling
it on iTunes AppStore because they charge you 30% of the sales.  You
can do what I have done for years in selling eBooks.  You can get your
readers to purchase an eBook "reader" on iTunes (before that it was
Palm, Pocket PC, Blackberry, etc. etc.).  One of the better ones in my
opinion is iSilo.

You can compose your pages on a Windows machine and will never have to
purchase a Mac.  This saves a huge amount of money...but then you
won't have the enjoyment of owning a Mac ;-)

You download the free iSiloX program from www.isilo.com and compile
your eBook into the format that is readable in iSilo but...here is a
benefit....it works on any device that iSilo works on.  My eBooks will
work on all of the devices...even on a desktop as long as the customer
has purchased iSilo.

You will have to do your marketing though yourself from your own web
site and you will have to process your own payments this route
though.  I don't mind doing it this way since I have been doing it for
about 11 years now.

You can set up your eBook to time out after a given time or it can be
free OR...you can require a registration number for purchased books.
The user has to send you their iSilo User ID and you use iSiloX to
calculate the user's registration number for that document.  Depending
on the PDA type, this number may be based on the serial number of the
device or in the case of the Palm, the HotSync user name or on the
Windows Mobile handhelds, the Owner information on the Today screen.

IF however you want to sell your eBooks only to iPhone/iPod Touch
users through the iTunes AppStore, you will need to have access to a
Mac. You will need to pay the $99/year as a developer.  You will have
to have a bank account that Apple can deposit your money into.  You
will need to let Apple have 30% of the sales of your eBooks.  This is
probably a fair deal though. Most book distributors receive about this
percentage on sales of print books too so you can take that into
consideration.

As for the "wrapper", there are several choices that have been
mentioned above.  But, before you get to a wrapper, you might consider
a framework which will make you life in developing the WebApp with
your book's content.  I recommend jQTouch for now.  I am playing
around with it and it is really nice.  You don't have to know much
JavaScript or CSS really to do an adequate job.  You probably will
need to develop your own "skin" to make the colors look like you want
them to look.  Or you can use the "Apple" skin that is already
included with jQTouch.

Then there are a few books that are out that may help. This post is
already long enough and I will leave that to you to find some with
searches for "hybrid" apps.  This word will help you find more
information about that.  I think that Jonathan Stark has a book coming
out very soon that should be good since it will include references to
jQTouch.

Linda

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