Apple Offers iPad Self-Publishing

On Wednesday, Apple announced that they would be offering support for individuals seeking to self-publish to the iBook Store.  MacLife has the details at http://www.maclife.com/article/news/apple_reveals_new_service_authors_sell_their_books_directly_ibookstoreIn short, Apple will allow you to publish directly to the iBook Store if you meet the following criteria:

• The eBook must have a valid and unique ISBN number;
• The eBook must use the ePub format;
• You must have a US Tax ID;
• You must have a valid iTunes Store account with a credit card on file; and
• You must have an Intel-based Mac running OS X 10.5 or later.

All in all, this sounds pretty simple.  None of these requirements are at all difficult to get.  You can buy an ISBN through a number of services, you can Storyist (like I will) to convert your manuscript into .ePub, almost everyone has an iTunes account with their credit card ready to go, and Macs are pretty much a necessity for the serious writer anyway.Obviously, there are numerous advantages in publishing directly through Apple.  They take a smaller cut than Amazon or Smashwords, you don't have to go through an aggregator to upload your content, and the interface (like Amazon's Digital Text Platform) will be simple and elegant.  Does that mean that i'm going to change my business plan once again, avoid Smashwords and Lulu, and go straight through Apple?No.There are two reasons for this.  The first is that I don't have a US Tax ID.  This isn't really a problem as I'm certain that within the next year, Apple will expand to service to multiple countries including Canada.  That's what happened with Amazon's Digital Text Platform.  But I would prefer to publish my novel this year.  I would rather not wait if I don't have to.No, the second and bigger reason is a financial requirement that is being underreported in the press.  Under financial requirement from the iTunes Connect page (https://itunesconnect.apple.com/WebObjects/iTunesConnect.woa/wo/0.0.0.5.7.7.1), reads the following:

Apple does not pay partners until they meet payment requirements and earning thresholds in each territory. You should consider this before applying to work directly with Apple as you may receive payments faster by working with an Apple-approved aggregator.

So in other words, you have to sell a significant number of books in order to get paid.  Now in my case, I don't expect to sell more than a couple of hundred copies if I'm lucky.  Of course, this makes sense for Apple.  It would be extremely difficult if their account department had to handle hundreds of thousands of business partners, most of whom would be doing business in the single digits.  However, considering that Amazon offers a similar service without any problems, it is a little disappointing.Apple helpfully provides a link to a list of Apple-approved aggregators which you can find here.  These include the following:

• BiblioCore
• Book Baby
• Constellation
• INgrooves
• Ingram
• LibreDigital
• Lulu
• Smashwords

Now I admit, I have only heard of Lulu and Smashwords, the rest are completely new to me.  I will have to do some research into these options in order to see which service would serve me best when I launch my novel this fall.  If any of you have any thoughts or reviews about these sites, please don't hesitate to comment.So while Apple's announcement is a step in the right direction, it will only serve established authors at this point.  For us little folks, we will have to go through a third party.  Here's hoping that Apple follows Amazon's path and makes it available to everyone.

Pegasus Book Group Joins iPad Lineup

Macrumours.com (hey, I'm waiting for the mac mini and MacBook Pro upgrades alright!) is reporting that Pegasus Books Group has agreed to bring their entire line of indepndent books to the iPad. The news story can be found online at http://www.macrumors.com/2010/03/22/apple-signs-up-independent-publisher-and-distributor-perseus-books-for-ibookstore.To comment, this is definitely the direction that I expected the iPad to go. Its digital distribution network opens up incredible opportunites for small and independent publishers. The only advantage that a large publisher would have in this environment is promotion.But it remains to be seen if Pegasus Group is the right choice for a digital noveliss like myself. While they have three hundred small publishers as clients, I still worry that I would be too small to be accepted into their clientale. I have after not yet published a single novel.There is also a question over what cut Pegasus will take with their deal with Apple. While we know that Apple will take 30% of every sale, we don't know how much of a cut that Pegasus Group will take on behalf of its small publishers. If it's small enough, it may still be worth it if Pegasus improves the visibility of the novel by getting a dedicated section of the iBook Store.While it still may be too large for ultra-small publishers like myself, it definitely deserves investigation. Most likely though I will have to wait for the CDBaby equivalent for digital publishing. Here's hoping that I don't have to wait long.

The Biggest Apple News Today Was Not the iPad

There was great excitement among tech geeks today as Apple revealed its first-generation iPad.  Some people like it, some people hate it, but you can't deny that there is some great potential there.  However, the iPad announcement was not the biggest news of the day.  This was.That's right.  Apple has created their own electronic book store.Now in their announcement today, Apple boasted the support of five major publishing houses including Penguin, Macmillan, and Simon & Shuster and most likely many more.  However, that in itself is not a particularly revolutionary concept for digital publishing.What is revolutionary is Apple's vision for the digital publishing medium as covered in this article by Wired.  According to Wired, Apple's goal is not simply to sell mainstream books, but to revolutionize publishing in the same way that they revolutionized music and movies.  In a sense, Apple wants to open up content production to everyone, a strategy that they call crowd-sourcing.  This was the strategy that propelled the App Store to over a 100,000 apps, 3 billion downloads, and over a billion dollars in revenue.With books, if the Wired story is correct, that means that Apple would allow small publishers to publish content for the iBookstore while only taking a 30% cut.The consequences for our nascent industry are astonishing.  The traditional chokepoints to distribution would essentially be annihilated.  Through the iBookstore, essentially anybody would be able to sell their content to everyone for the first time and in only one place.So rather than sell self-published digital novels on Amazon, and Smashwords, and numerous other small distributors, you would sell it on iBookstore and reach an already established user base of millions (assuming that they'll bring the iBookstore to iPhone).That's it.  No more half-solutions, no more backdoors, just one-stop shopping for everything.When I saw this story this morning, my jaw dropped.  My game plan had to change.  My goal was not just to get my novel onto iPhones.  My goal is now to get my novel onto the iBookstore.How to do that however is left unanswered.  If we are to go by the experiences of iTunes, then within a few months we'll have to go through a third-party like CDBaby that has an Apple License.  Regardless of how it's done, it is apparent that it will soon be possible to self-publish your stories and sell them directly onto the iPhone and the iPad.  This has been the holy grail for self-publishers and now it's within reach.Another interesting choice for Apple's new iBooks service is the adoption of the open source ePub file format.  The ePub file format does have some detractors but it has one huge advantage over the "Meat Grinder" option that Smashwords offers: control.  Using the ePub file format allows you complete control over how your digital book is displayed.  This means that not only will you be able to publish your books on iPhone, you will be able to manage the typesetting of the manuscript.  As someone who was discouraged by the Meat-Grinder one-size-fits-all typesetting of Smashwords, today's development enables me to make my manuscript look indistinguishable from the books from the major publishing houses.  That is a major improvement.In short, it's a brand new world for digital self-publishing thanks to Apple and more importantly the new iBookstore.  It is a world that I and many other prospective digital novelists will have to learn how to navigate.  I hope that you will be able to join me.