Apple Books ships on every iPhone and iPad. Your readers do not have to download anything to buy your book there, which is a real advantage, and one most independent authors never use.
Apple Books is not the largest ebook retailer, but it is the one that arrives pre-installed on an enormous number of devices. For readers inside that ecosystem it is the path of least resistance, and a title that is not there is simply unavailable to them.
The platform is also stricter than most about file quality. Apple wants well-formed EPUB and complete metadata, and it reviews submissions before they go live. That is an obstacle if you have never prepared an EPUB, and an advantage once you are through it.
The technical work is the largest share here. Authors already published elsewhere usually need the first and the fourth.
- 01
Publication
The title prepared and submitted: a well-formed EPUB, complete metadata, and the account and tax details Apple requires before it will pay anyone.
- 02
Editing
A professional pass over the manuscript before it goes into production, so what gets encoded is the finished text rather than a near-final one.
- 03
Cover design
A cover built for Apple's display requirements and for the way the store presents titles on a phone screen.
- 04
Marketing
Metadata, categories and description written for how readers search inside this store, plus the promotional tools Apple makes available to publishers.
- 05
Formatting and production
The interior encoded properly, a reflowable EPUB that works at every text size, which is where most converted files fall apart.
Four things that matter on the strictest of the major platforms.
- 01
Files that pass review
Apple reviews submissions and rejects malformed ones. Knowing the specification in advance is the difference between publishing in a week and publishing in a month.
- 02
Built for your book
Categories, pricing and territory settings made from what your book is rather than copied across from another platform's listing.
- 03
People who do this repeatedly
Editors, designers and production staff who have each been through this process many times, rather than one person learning it on your title.
- 04
Nothing concealed
Every decision made on your book is explained. The account and the earnings are yours throughout.
Eight steps, and you approve the finished book before submission.
Free consultation
What you need, and an honest assessment of it, including which parts you can reasonably do yourself.
Questionnaire
A form capturing your vision and your readership, which everything downstream is built from.
Content review
The manuscript read and reviewed for errors before production work begins on top of it.
Cover design
The cover developed in parallel with the editorial work, to Apple's image requirements.
Editing and formatting
The text corrected and then encoded as a reflowable EPUB that behaves correctly at every text size and on every device.
Finalisation
The complete book comes to you to approve. Nothing is submitted before you have read it.
Submission and review
The title submitted with its metadata and pricing, and shepherded through Apple's review process.
Live, and paid
The book goes on sale and Apple pays your royalties directly on its own schedule.
A few of the people the house has worked with, in their own words.
I had eleven years of notes and no book. What I got back read like me on a good day, my turns of phrase, my arguments, and none of the padding I would have added myself. The first chapter arrived and I stopped worrying.
Marianne ElleryIndependent author The structural edit was not comfortable reading. It told me the second half started in the wrong place, which I had suspected for a year and nobody had said out loud. Moving three chapters fixed a problem I had been trying to solve with better sentences.
Devon AlukoIndependent author What sold me was being told I did not need half of what I had asked for. I came in wanting the full package and left with a cover, a proofread and an honest explanation of why the rest would not have helped yet.
Priya RaghunathanIndependent author Three cover directions, all of them plausible, none of them the thing I had described. The one I picked worked at the size that actually matters, I could recognise it in a list of forty other books, which is more than I can say for my first attempt.
Tobias HearnIndependent author I own the book outright and that was written down before I paid anything. After two years of being quoted percentages by people who would not put them in writing, that was the whole reason I stayed.
Cecile MarchandIndependent author The audiobook took longer than I expected and they told me why each time rather than going quiet. The narrator they cast got my grandmother's accent right, which I had assumed would be the thing I had to let go of.
Nathan BoakyeIndependent author
How publishing on Apple Books actually works.
You need an Apple account set up for publishing, with the tax and banking details completed: that step alone stops a lot of people. Then prepare your book as EPUB, supply the cover and the complete metadata, set pricing and territories, and submit. Apple reviews the submission before it goes on sale.
A well-formed, valid EPUB is the core of it, reflowable for most books, fixed-layout only where the design genuinely requires it, such as a picture book. The cover must meet Apple's image specification, and the metadata has to be complete and accurate. Apple publishes its requirements in detail, and files that do not meet them are rejected rather than fixed.
Usually a few days, though it varies with volume and with whether anything in the submission needs a closer look. A rejection and resubmission adds another cycle, which is the main argument for getting the file right the first time.
Yes. Apple Books does not require exclusivity, and being on several platforms at once is the normal arrangement. The only constraint to watch is Amazon's KDP Select, which requires digital exclusivity for its term if you enrol in it.
There is no fee to publish; Apple takes a share of each sale. The royalty rate is set by Apple and applies across price points more uniformly than some competitors' banded schemes, which can make it attractive for books priced outside Amazon's 70% band. Rates and terms are Apple's and do change, so check the current ones before setting your price.
You do, completely. The author holds 100% of the rights to their work, in every format, for its whole life. The house is paid for the work it does, not with a share of the book. That is the arrangement the house reopened in 2008 to offer, and it does not change with the tier, the price or the point at which you come to us.
Yes. Your name is on the cover and in the record. Everyone who works on the book (writer, editor, designer) works on your book, and none of them is credited on it unless you ask for them to be.
Yes. Your story is yours, and nothing about the project leaves the house. We will sign your NDA before you send anything, or supply ours if you would rather use one.
No. Six disciplines are available and you take the ones you need. Authors arrive here at every stage (with an idea, a half-draft, or a finished manuscript that only needs a cover and a shelf) and the work starts where you actually are.
It depends on the work: length, how much research is involved, how much of the book already exists, and which disciplines you need. There is no list price for a book, and any firm who gives you one before reading your material is quoting something other than your book. Tell us where you are and we will price the actual job.
Move the marker. You do not need to know what to call it: you only need to know where you are.
Tell us where your manuscript is, where you want it to go, and we'll show you what's possible.