Wanna Publish Your Own Book? Try The Apple iBookstore!

Wanna Publish Your Own Book? Try The Apple iBookstore!
There’s good news for all you budding writers. Apple has recently released information on how you can self-publish for the iBookstore – all you need is a valid US Tax ID, a valid credit card, a Mac running OS X 10.5 or later and an iTunes account. Most writers love to write but going through publishing [...]

There’s good news for all you budding writers. Apple has recently released information on how you can self-publish for the iBookstore – all you need is a valid US Tax ID, a valid credit card, a Mac running OS X 10.5 or later and an iTunes account. Most writers love to write but going through publishing hassles is not their cup of tea and iBookstore is aimed at cutting the middle man out to publish and distribute your books. How does it work? Let’s find out.

The first step is to check all the self-publishing requirements for iBookstore here. The book submissions are handled through  iTunes Connect and mandates that the titles be submitted in ePub format and validate against epubcheck 1.0.5. Another important thing to note is that Apple will not provide the ISBN number so you need to do that on your own. It may sound complex but it’s not – check out the US ISBN Agency site for more details. Once the book is approved, you can choose to sell your books in the iBookstore in several countries. You can also limit the countries and price for each country for your titles.

There’s no official word yet on how Apple plans to split the earnings from iBookstore or how long the company will take to approve titles. As far as apps go, it’s a 70-30 deal with Apple getting the 30 percent share. The iBookstore is to books what iTunes is for apps. Apple’s iTunes policies related to explicit sexual content also apply to the iBookstore. Apple rejected the first version of the “Newspapers” app because it included the UK’s “Sun” newspaper, with its topless “Page 3″ girl.

If ever there was a good time to write a book, it’s now! You decide the price and you decide the countries where it’s available - all in a hassle-free manner. While the service is currently open to users in United States only, I believe it’s a matter of time before it’s opened up in other countries as well.

Bar Refaeli
Malin Akerman
Mila Kunis
Eliza Dushku