Apple will begin to distribute material from self-published authors in their iBookstore on the iPad and when the iPhone O.S 4.0 is released, the iPhone and iPod Touch as well.
Self-publishing has been steadily moving away from it’s stigmatized beginnings as being the route to authorship for the talentless and vain to the point where it is commanding respect from the big publishing companies. Many of whom use the self-publishing market as a cost-free testing ground for the best authors, looking for those who sell and then signing them up. This is obviously a huge incentive for those looking to publish. Up to this point, the route for those looking to self-publish would be to use a print-on-demand service (which is becoming increasingly prevalent), enlisting the help of a self-publishing company who command fees of around $1000 or to self-publish an ebook. Now there is a fourth option, to publish an iBook.
Authors will be able to have their books published on the iBookstore without the need for an agent or publisher. It appears as if Apple is following on from it’s successful App Store model in which virtually anyone with an idea can be successful. Apple is allowing authors near total control with writers being able to set prices and global distribution locations for their work, much like they do with developers for the App Store. What isn’t clear at this point is whether Apple will carry over the model of taking 30% of the profits as they use in the App Store. Another point of uncertainty is whether there will be a reviewal process of any kind and if so, how strict will it be? Apple has come under pressure due to it’s app reviewal process, some describing it as totalitarian in nature. The guidelines set out by Apple stipulate the book be in EPUB 1.0.5 format and have an ISBN. They also state that payments will only be made once an author has sold a certain amount of books; Apple has not stated what this amount is as of yet.
It is hard to know at this point how this move will pan out. Will the iBookstore be filled with the half-hearted attempts of those with a slow Saturday afternoon? Will Apple operate a stringent reviewal process? Or will those who are genuinely talented who have been given a chance to shine be successful and championed? I for one hope so.
[Submit iBooks > iTunes Connect]
As the title suggests, you can go ahead and grab the iBooks app now for your iPad tomorrow. And if you didn’t know, iBooks won’t come pre-loaded on your iPad, you have to download it from the App Store.
Penguin Group CEO John Makinson revealed some of the company’s forthcoming titles that’s coming to the iPad at the FT Digital Media & Broadcasting Conference in London yesterday [paidContent:UK].
“We will be embedding audio, video and streaming in to everything we do. The .epub format, which is the standard for ebooks at the present, is designed to support traditional narrative text, but not this cool stuff that we’re now talking about.”
As shown in the video below, the “books” resemble more like applications than traditional e-books, just what we would imagine books to be on the iPad, “very interactive learning experiences.” In fact, Makinson says that most of the “books” will be sold through the App Store as opposed to the iBooks Store.
“So for the time being at least we’ll be creating a lot of our content as applications, for sale on app stores and HTML, rather than in ebooks. The definition of the book itself is up for grabs.”
When asked about the 30/70 Split with Publishers, Makinson replied with, “this is better than the equivalent print agency model, in which publishers let retailers keep 50 percent.”
On CNBC today, McGraw-Hill CEO, Harold McGraw III has outright confirmed the Apple iPad announcement that is taking place tomorrow. He goes on to say that it’ll run an iPhone style OS (iPhone OS 3.2) and that it’s just “terrific”. McGraw-Hill will be one of the major book publishers to offer ebooks on the iPad.
“Yeah, Very exciting. Yes, they’ll make their announcement tomorrow on this one. We have worked with Apple for quite a while. And the Tablet is going to be based on the iPhone operating system and so it will be transferable. So what you are going to be able to do now is we have a consortium of e-books. And we have 95% of all our materials that are in e-book format. So now with the tablet you’re going to open up the higher education market, the professional market. The tablet is going to be just really terrific.”
Update: The iPad does indeed run a iPhone-like OS. And to help kick off the release of the iBooks Store, Apple has partnered up with 5 major book publishers including, Penguin, HarperCollins, SIMON & SCHUSTER, macmillan (Part of McGraw-Hill) and hachette. With more to come.
