Apple to launch new Self-Publishing Program later this month
From Good EReader:
Apple is going to be holding an exclusive event in New York city later this month to possibly launch a new program for their iBooks and Publishing platform. Sources close to the matter have told us that they intend on launching a new digital self-publishing platform to get peoples content into the iBookstore. This is a huge step forward for Apple to compete with Amazon (DTP) and Barnes and Noble (Pubit).
. . . .
Apple will be taking a cue from the new Amazon program that gives indie authors an incentive to publish exclusively with them. There is no details yet on the actual semantics of the program and how it will work. One has to wonder on the revenue share system they will employ to be competitive with other mainstream self-publishing systems. The one thing we were told is that they will use the EPUB format and make it very easy for people to convert their documents or existing books to comply with their format.
Link to the rest at Good EReader
If true, this sounds terrific for indie authors and shows someone at Apple wants to increase sales through iBooks. This will put a dent in Smashwords’ sales, however.
Yes, and maybe a competing “pull” trying to get authors back from Amazon.
I’ll be watching! This looks very interesting. If iBooks and Kobo both launch publishing platforms this year (as Kobo reported it would) things are going to get much more interesting.
I’m curious how this is going to affect pricing. Right now I’m dealing with trying to return my books to pre-sale price and SW affiliates are dragging, which pulls my Amazon price down, as well. :-\ Are more players in the game just going to complicate things further? Or will authors wind up having more control?
I’ve been wondering about the future for Smashwords, too. I’m kind of sick of them, honestly, with the hassles of file conversion and the low sales. The only reason I bother is for Apple. I already pulled Kobo because of their reported discounting and slow response to changes (through Smash). I was just thinking it was time to buy my own ISBN and deal with iTunes/iBookstore directly. If they open up a direct self-pub portal, I’ll be there.
On the other hand, the authors using Select have been so successful, I’ve also thought about biting that apple.
So. Only constant is change, etc.
I was thinking the same thing. I’ve got a little publishing company with 10 titles out, and just recently finally got around to requesting a publishing account through iBooks so I could get away from Smashwords.
But our sales there (even through Smashwords) have always been so low I wasn’t sure it justified the cost/effort. If we could use free ISBNs, upload our formatted EPUBs, and seeing a simpler submission process (akin to KDP/PubIt), we’d certainly invest that effort.
If Apple is smart, they won’t require ISBN’s for indie authors.
Agreed. They should get rid of ISBN’s for ebooks – they serve no purpose. No one is going to look up and order an ebook that isn’t available on the selling platform that their device uses.
I’m surprised by the interest in this. Doesn’t it make more sense to stick with a seller whose focus is on content rather one whose focus is on hardware?
I’m more focused on broadening my sales platform! As long as they’re willing to treat indie authors fairly (and not randomly slash prices) then I’m more than happy to explore publishing with Kobo or Apple. I’m not going to stop publishing anywhere else, but Kobo, in particular, has an international reach that I want access to.
I did balk when I hit the line about Apple pursuing exclusivity.
If that’s a requirement, I have no interest at all. Amazon seems like a far better patron for artists than Apple, and iBooks is competing for part of the 1% of our sales that aren’t through Amazon.
But if they just want to offer lame incentives for exclusivity, I’ll be happy to ignore them just like I do KDP Select.
Agreed. I’m not going to go exclusive with any publishing platform. As long as it’s similar to KDP Select, no problem. But exclusivity isn’t in my best long-term interests.
Yeah, I’m an Apple fangirl to the core
, and I’m not giving them exclusivity anymore than I’m giving Amazon exclusivity. Not unless they’re gonna give me a magic unicorn pony that breaks wind with sunshine and rainbows, and a harem of cute, half-naked guys to take care of it. IN THE SNOW.
Smashwords creaks here and there, but thus far, they’ve been easy enough to work with, they get my stuff far and wide, and they’ve paid me three times as much as Amazon. (Including a couple of sales from Apple, heh!)
Patricia – I think the response of a lot of authors is that, if the publication process is simple and if you can use the same EPUB file you do with Nook, they may as well put their books up on Apple and everywhere else.
Haven’t authors been able to do that already via Smashwords once they’re in the Premium Catalog (which merely requires good formatting)?
I did went the Premium Catalog route with a book that had zero sales. I removed it from Smashwords and all sellers who had picked it up from Smashwords’ catalog. It hadn’t even sold on Amazon. Then I went exclusively with KDP Select, offered it free for a few days, and bingo! It sold several copies last month, is selling again this month, and it’s being borrowed from Kindle’s library. I’m not talking in terms of the impressive numbers that some who post here receive, but anything up from zero is good. By yesterday — the second day of the month — my various titles under my various pen names had sold more copies than they previously sold in any entire month — and there are more sales today.
I also had a book on B&N (Pub-it) with zero sales. I pulled it from there and went exclusively with KDP Select. Same story as above.
I know there’s a resistance among authors to putting all their eggs in one basket, but if that basket is where the bulk of the buyers are looking, it makes a lot of sense to me to do so. Given Apple’s poor performance in the ebook market, I’d certainly never give up the exclusive deal with KDP to take my chances with their new venture.
Oh where is the edit button, PG? “I did went” would have had “did” removed, if you’d let me….
I’m trying to make sure some other parts of the blog are operating properly before I activate comment editing, Patricia. Sorry for the inconvenience.
I don’t know if this is a common concern among self-publishers, but I think Gretchen hinted at it above and I know it’s my big objection: Smashwords requires a publisher to use their “meatgrinder” automatic conversion tool. For best results they require a publisher to do another complete layout on a book project to match their style guide.
If you’re only using Smashwords (and, say, CreateSpace for print), that’s not such a burden. But if you have the technical know-how to make an elegantly-crafted EPUB or MOBI file, the sausage Smashwords spits out just isn’t as attractive.
So we’ve been releasing directly through KDP because they’re our bread-and-butter (just like you mentioned). We’ve also been releasing through PubIt, not because we have a lot of sales there, but because we end up with a beautiful EPUB as a byproduct of our production process, so why not? But we’ve recently decided to stop investing the extra time and energy to completely refactor that text into a new Word doc for Smashwords. But if I could get to iBooks with the same minimal effort (and high-quality output) we get with PubIt, I’d be happy to.
That’s essentially just a long version of what Passive Guy said above.
I think the hassle factor plays a role. I always post ebooks on Amazon first, then Nook because it’s easy, then, sometimes, depending on how I feel and how much aggravation was involved the last time, on Smashwords.
If iBookstore was as easy as Pubit, I would immediately bump them to #3 on my posting list and wait for Smashwords to accept Epub files before I went back.
While it’s nice to see Apple finally getting on the bandwagon, I wonder if they’re going to make changes to their iBookstore store which is a pain to use. Doesn’t matter how many authors they attract, if the end users prefer to use a more user friendly platform, it will all be for naught.
Abel – I’ll be interested to see if they take lessons from KDP and Pubit and make it easy to submit books.
They would have to do a major rework of iBookstore to bring it up to reasonable quality for purchasers(and so would the Nook store).
I’m willing to put up with a clunkier store (after all, I’ve been seeing great sales over at B&N) as long as the publishing platform and publishing terms are on par with KDP or PubIt. I think Apple is capable of that. Will it happen? We’ll have to wait and see. Same goes for the Kobo store.
I’m very surprised since Apple seemed downright hostile to the notion of dealing with self-publishers. They must be hurting bigtime to bite the bullet on this. Kobo to follow?
Barbara – I think news like the #1 and #4 bestselling Kindle books in 2011 were from indie authors may be influencing Apple’s attitude toward indies.
Right? If there’s money to be made….
The devil is going to be in the details on this one–it seems like everyone wants to replicate Amazon’s business while ignoring what’s actually made that business work. Authors are willing to go exclusive with Amazon because they’re already getting most or all of their sales through that platform. Authors upload to Amazon, B&N and Smashwords because it’s easy. Is Apple really going to make the kind of investment that will result in a similar experience and payoff for authors? Can Kobo?
I mean, Google e-books sounded like a good idea too, but God, try putting a book up there–that’s an unholy mess.
I’ve kept away from Google, thank goodness. I’ve heard very negative things about publishing through them.
I’m with you, I’m curious to see the details on this. As a Mac user and overall Apple fan, I’d love to see a author-friendly publishing platform with a good international reach. I’ll wait and see what happens.
I looked at Google ebooks and could not figure out how to get my stuff there, so I wandered off again.
Apple is doing too little too late. Given the company’s dubious flirtation with DRM, the fact that very few artists will limit themselves to being exclusive to the iTunes platform says a great deal. Just about any song or album I want to buy I can get from Amazon for the same price. Further, Amazon gives away thousands of free songs each week compared to Apple iTunes…one freebie! (How very generous!)
I love my iPod, I can put 160 GB of songs on it, but hate the iTunes interface. I love eBooks, love my Kindle and iPads are really neat, but how many authors are really going to limit themselves to exclusivity with Apple? Does Apple have sufficient chutzpah (or resources) to offer 70% to authors?
The death of Steve Jobs has left a void, no matter how many people in Apple or their devotees say otherwise. Their latest release of the film industry’s “standard” nonlinear editing program, Final Cut Pro (10x) was an absolute disaster. It is the first time in the history of Apple it has ever given refunds to users and consumer, no questions asked. That is definitely a far cry from when something purchased in the iTunes store mis-dowloads; the pretty much tell the consumer, “Oh, well…guess you’re SOL. Buy it again.”
Apple cannot even remotely compete with Amazon’s model as far as product delivery and customer service. I just hope any authors considering this realize that entering into any deal of exclusivity to Apple is potentially a very real risk for them.
Though I would welcome it as a new self-publishing platform to compete with KDP, it may not be the case.
According to @claytonmorris, it looks like it is aimed at the textbook or educational market. http://claytonmorris.com/blog/2012/1/3/apples-january-event.html
This may not preclude a self-publishing initiative, but we may be reading too much into speculation as is always a risk with Apple announcements.
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It’s not as easy to do this indie publishing as Amazon makes it seem. For about 8 months there was no support at BN. You contact KDP support and get a reply within 24 hours. At least someone’s home.
Authors are not an afterthought at Amazon, but I’ll bet they will be at Apple. I was already mistreated in tradpub, I’m not enthusiastic about letting that happen again.
Authors already are an afterthought at Apple. Support for its current publishing setup is all but non-existent.
Huh! Anytime I’ve contacted Amazon Support, they’ve been useless copy-and-paste script-readers with names suggesting they’re contracted from overseas. Nice enough people, and reasonably polite, but they’ve evidenced no awareness of what I was contacting them about.
Along with ease of use and good royalties, I’d like to see Apple open to international authors. I wish Pubit would do that as well. Amazon allows international authors direct access, even if they’ll only pay us by cheque (sorry that’s check in US english BTW!). Apple and Pubit would do well to realize that there’s a whole bunch of us outside the US willing to try their platform – if they’d give us the opportunity.
They absolutely have to drop the ISBN requirement and open the publishing platform up to Windows users.
Yes, Apple’s requirement to use a Mac to publish has always rather pissed me off, and indie authors I know who sell there say they don’t sell much. I’d like to see a sales platform that’s as easy and intelligent as Amazon’s that might offer some real, healthy competition.
You think maybe they noticed when 40,000 people pulled their books from all other vendors in December to join KDP Select?
Or maybe they noticed that now 60-80% of the top 20 ebooks in pretty much every genre on Amazon are indie published? And that most of those books are in KDP Select?
Thing is, I don’t see anyone going exclusive on Apple. Going exclusive for some work on Amazon is tolerable – barely – because they own over 2/3 of the market. But going exclusive on iBooks, which on a good day might have 10% market share? Ouch. I mean, they’d need to be offering an AMAZING deal to make that worth anyone’s while.
My guess is that “Hey, we’re Apple” is the best the deal is going to get.
Kevin McLaughlin:
Those drop-outs could certainly be a factor, but my reading of the KDP Select response by writers was that most of them were willing to do so as an experiment. If the results paid off, they would continue with the Select program. If not, they would return to the former wider distribution.
Though I mentioned earlier that this announcement may not be about a competitor to the KDP (and Clayton Morris indicated that it was textbook/educational related), it appears that there is considerable interest in having Apple emulate Amazon’s KDP and B&N’s PubIt and allow writers to easily submit works directly to the bookstore. Given that they are in third place, I would hope that they might consider offering a better deal than the “standard” 30% to direct publishers.
Wouldn’t a price war between these marketplaces be interesting?
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Although my sales aren’t frequent at SW, I love their distribution channels. Through them I’ve been able to have sales at B&N, something which otherwise wouldn’t have been possible as I live in England, and the last time I checked B&N only allow U.S. citizens to have an account. I do sell a few more at Apple however, but I do wonder is it as easy to sell directly with them as it is to reach them through SW.