Self Publish Your Books With iBooks

If you’re an author, you can self publish your books on iBooks. You’ll want to leverage multiple platforms to increase your visibility, but don’t forget Apple. As The Mac Observer editor-in-chief, Bryan Chaffin, wrote, Apple’s eBook platform isn’t perfect, but it is worthwhile to use.

Format Your Book

You’re probably going to write your book using Scrivener, Ulysses, or even Word or Pages. But that’s only the beginning of self-publishing, because you’ll need to format it, too.

To format for iBooks, you can use Apple’s free iBooks Author Mac app. Mr. Chaffin noted that iBooks Author makes great looking books, but it’s a pain to use. There are other tools out there, too, and there are entire books dedicated to the subject of formatting a manuscript. There are also lots of third party services and independent folks who can format your book and make sure it meets the iBooks Store requirements.

Connect With iTunes

Now that your book is finished, you’ll need to sign up with iTunes Connect using your Apple ID. The ID has to be verified and have a credit card on file. You can use your personal Apple ID, but you can’t use one that you use to sell other types of content, like apps. This means that if you’re an app developer, you’ll have to create a separate Apple ID to self publish on iBooks.

After signing up, you have to sign an iBooks agreement. There are two kinds of agreements: Offer Your Books for Free, and Offer Your Books for Free and Sell Your Books. After this, you fill out a secondary contract and share your banking and tax information directly with Apple. If you sell your books and live in the United States, you’ll have to provide a U.S. Tax ID (EIN).

Use iTunes Producer

Once you’ll filled out the forms and signed contracts, now it’s time to download the iTunes Producer Mac app. You can find it in the Resources and Help section in iTunes Connect. If you don’t have a Mac, you can still have a third party publish it for you.

iTunes Producer helps you create an iBooks Store summary page, with samples, cover art, category, title, author name and the price. You can control which countries your book is released in too.

Sell, Sell, Sell!

Finally, once your book and relevant content is uploaded, hit the Submit button in iTunes Producer to send it off for authentication. Once authenticated, you can check up on the book in iTunes Connect. You can change the price or remove it from the store later if you choose.