If you own the digital rights to your book, then you can publish your book/s on the iPad. You don’t have to be published through big name publishers to make it into the iBookstore. Exciting!
Here are your options so far (no doubt more are coming!):
Smashwords. Definitely the most egalitarian distributor out there, Smashwords now has distribution deals with Apple for the iPad as well as Amazon for the Kindle, Sony for the eReader and Barnes & Noble.com. You can load your book for free onto the site but it does need to conform to specific guidelines in order to make the Premium catalogue which includes the iPad, for example, it needs an ISBN. Check this article for how to ensure you get distributed.
Price: FREE (but you will need to spend some time formatting)
Amazon DTP for Kindle. The Kindle app is available on the iPad so if you publish on the Kindle you can still get onto the iPad. Go to dtp.amazon.com. There are lots of help documents!
Price: FREE (but you will need to spend some time formatting – check out this podcast with Joshua Tallent from EBookArchitects for help.
Lulu.com. Lulu is one of the top print on demand distributors and they are offering a way to get onto the iPad as well as offering a free iPad with some of their packages. Lulu is aimed at helping authors self publish and has various packages offering services, for example, if you don’t want to DIY formatting you will need some help.
Price: $2399 upwards (not for the faint-hearted!). I am mentioning this because I want to include the many ways you can get on the iPad but as I have posted before, self publishing should cost you nothing.
Create your own iPad app. Most iPhone apps will function on the iPad so if you have one in progress, then it’s still a good option. Check out this podcast on how to create your own iPhone app for more info. The developer’s kit for the iPad is now available and there will be a truckload of new apps coming out for the iPad soon.
Price: $$$$ (depends on what kind of app you want, but certainly not free!)
Disclaimer: ok, so I need to modify my own ebooks on Smashwords before they get on the iPad. I usually only post on what I have done myself, but this is so exciting, I thought you would like to know!
Update 1 June 2010: You can now self publish direct to the iPad iBookstore but only if you have a US tax number.
I now offer a multi-media online short course on how to publish your book on the Kindle, iPad, Nook and other e-readers as well as answers to all your ebook publishing questions. Featuring video, audio and PDF information for only $39.99.
Click here for all the details.
Images: Flickr CC iBooks Myuibe, iPad and iPhone Roger Bits.
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{ 43 comments… read them below or add one }
Good news for those of us with e-Books for Kindle! By the way, we did the Kindle conversion ourselves for our three books. It wasn’t as straightforward as we had hoped, but we learned a lot. Kindle’s instructions and guides are nearly useless.
I agree re Kindle help – I find Joshua’s information more useful – http://www.thecreativepenn.com/2010/02/24/podcast-ebooks-qa-with-joshua-tallent-from-ebookarchitects/
What accounts for the cost of the IPad App? Is it simply the cost of paying a developer or are there other costs associated with it? FYI, I believe one of my fellow podiobooks authors, Brian Rathbone, has worked with authors on getting their books turned into IPhone apps either for a percentage or for very low up front cost.
It is just the cost of the iPad app. If you just want an ebook that has pages turning, that’s not expensive – but you can get the same effect through publishing through Smashwords/Kindle for free. I am more interested in the apps that include video and audio/podcasts through the app. Those are more expensive, but worthwhile doing for marketing purposes – or if they add a different set of information, so people are happy to pay. e.g. I just paid $16 for Philip Pullman’s ‘The Good man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ” because it had the extra videos.
I have used both lulu.com and createspace. Due to living in Australia, the postage costs from USA really are a consideration. Lulu was quickest to “publish’ but the shippings costs are almost double that of createspace and take twice as long; still haven’t seen a proof yet. The quality of the createspace proof was fine.
I also had a question on Twitter
“How do you know for sure if you have digital rights for a book?” from @lizb1987
I replied “have you signed a contract for your book that includes digital rights with a publisher? If not, and it’s your material, it’s ok”
Also from Michael Pastore on Facebook:
“O’Reilly Media has a digital distribution program that will get you on the iPad, and elsewhere. Check their website for the costs: nothing up front, they take a percentage of ebooks sold. …
Apple will be soon taking ebooks directly from individual publishers: watch the news for that important announcement.”
Interested in a self-published book to be available for all e books, preferably with connection to an in-demand publisher who will print and mail books. Preferably not Amazon who takes such a big commission. Any other company offering this service?
Hi Claire, on demand publishers include Lulu.com as above, or try LightningSource.com or Createspace.com
Thanks.
Joanna, another timely and informative post. You are at the top of my list of bloggers for writers.
As it happens, just last night I discovered a new online service that’s been flying well under the radar. It’s been in development in UK for 2 years and is now in public beta. It will convert PDF files into page-turning e-books and can also insert audio and video — all for free. I’m not sure the e-commerce element is yet functional, but one will be able to sale through its store, which looks a lot like the Amazon store. Commision to the website that publishes the book is only 10 percent.
I expect to scan a book written by my mother years ago and to upload it later today, just to see with my own eyes how this service works. I’ll probably do a blog post about my experience over the weekend.
So what’s the service? http://www.myebook.com. I think this will appeal to many, many writers. Not sure yet whether it will work on the iPad. Probably not, as Steve Jobs refuses to allow Flash applications to work in his Apple world.
Hi Tom, yes, I had a look at myebook.com a while back. They are excellent but I think they were only doing free books when I last looked. If they now allow authors to sell, that’s brilliant.
Thanks also for your lovely comment! I appreciate your thoughts and I also subscribe to your blog, which is great.
Hi All,
Firstly, I’d like to thank Joanna for the advice she gave me last year in relation to getting my book completed.
Please allow me to introduce myself; my name is N.M.Raj and I’m a Management Consultant for the construction industry. I’m also a relatively new author (Construction related Books); I published my first book last month. Interestingly enough, I decided to publish it first on iTunes for the iPhone and iPad.
I published my book DIRECTLY on iTunes as an “iTunes Application” (“iTunes App”) for the iPhone/iPad as opposed to dealing with the red tape, significant revenue loss and also getting it “Lost in Publication” within third party iTunes Apps like Stanza, eReader, smashwords Kindle etc. In a nutshell, I decided to cut out the “Middle-Men” who are flourishing on iTunes.
Publishing the book directly on iTunes was a tedious, painful but extremely enriching experience. If anybody is interested in learning more, please send an email to me at raj@primeconsulting.pl.
Also, feel free to have a look at my book on iTunes by clicking on the following hyperlink:
http://itunes.apple.com/pl/app/quick-guide-to-construction/id361237060?mt=8
All the best!
Kind Regards,
N.M.Raj
My name is Sean , and I want to see what it takes to publish children’s books for iPad/iPhone. Can you provide some details? I don’t want to publish it via Lulu or Smashwords where they charge you am arm and a leg….
Thanks,
Sean
Hi Sean, I don’t do children’s books specifically – but you could have a look at Winged Chariot – here’s an interview with Neal Hoskins, they are doing this on iPhone and iPad apps are (almost) the same
http://www.thecreativepenn.com/2009/10/10/podcast-neal-hoskins-on-publishing-books-as-iphone-apps/
By the way, Lulu is pretty reasonably priced and Smashwords is free so I am not sure where you got costings from?
Dear Joanna,
There is one thing I don´t understand: for your book to be sold at itunes you have to use one of these sites from above or can we put it for sale ourselfs? Like you can do at amazon?
Thank you and congratulations for your blog.. it´s great!
There is now a self-publishing option with Apple, but only for US citizens
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/05/apple-invites-indie-authors-to-self-publish-on-ipad-bookstore/
When I converted my self-pubbed books for Kindle, I used Smashwords excellent formatting manual. Works like a charm for all platforms.
yes, Smashwords has everything you need!
for those interested in publishing a stand-alone book on the app store, i offer a way to do it for $37 (plus your $99 apple developer fee). any book can be quickly and easily converted into an app, with no coding knowledge necessary!
check out http://www.chrismayerapps.co.uk/buycode
Hi:
Great post and comments! I just learned of another option Publish Green http://www.publishgreen.com/ they have 2 options one for e-publishing – these packages are for formatting the MS for various e-readers including Kindle®, iPad, Nook & more the cost is between $299-$499 depending which package you choose then you get your file and do what you wish with it. They also offer e-distribution packages and take a percentage of sales.
I have not tried this service, just thought I would share and see if anyone had any additional info.
Thanks
Ooh, thank you so much for this! I just published my blog on Kindle, only to find out that Australians are excluded from subscribing.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003Y8XMDW/ref=cm_cr_mts_prod_img
yes, the blog publishing is a bit strange for us, but you can definitely publish your books on the Kindle as an Aussie – or anyone! Mine are there so it definitely works. The only bad thing is that Amazon insists on paying by cheque, not Paypal. Stuck in the dark ages!
Hello all,
I’m a rookie in the world of self-publishing. This article above states:
“Update 1 June 2010: You can now self publish direct to the iPad iBookstore but only if you have a US tax number. ”
Where do I start to ensure my writings are my sole property with all rights reserved? I’m just a bit nervous of getting taken advantage of since my knowledge here is limited. Any suggestions??
Best!
Hi, your writing is your writing and you hold the rights as long as it is original UNLESS you sell the rights or license as Creative Commons. So, my books are my copyright as I haven’t sold them to a publisher. This blog is Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial which means you can use the material freely available on the blog as long as you don’t make money from it and you attribute me as the author and this blog.
Hope that helps!
So another question….
Is there a process to actually copyright your material or is it enough to simply add in the verbiage from Smashbox when you format your book for publishing?
Thanks again!
Here’s an article on copyright from Australia. I’m not sure where you are but it’s essentially the same.
http://www.copyright.org.au/
By the act of creation, you own copyright but read the fine print!
You might also find this useful
http://www.thebookdesigner.com/2009/10/self-publishing-basics-the-copyright-page/
Thanks, Joanna
This is great information…and very timely for me in my stage of publication. Nice to know there is a one-stop shop to maximize all distribution channels.
For Apple to approve your book as an iPad app it must have more than text and pictures or Apple will reject it as an app and tell you to publish as an iBook. This is a fairly recent development. It needs to have interaction, animations, sound, etc. to make it into the AppStore as an App. As the author notes, the costs are higher than creating an iBook, and largely depend upon the number of pages, animations, and overall complexity of the app. Also a cost factor is the level and amount of artwork required, and the cost of the artist. Not all artwork you may have for your printed version of a book will be useful or translate well into an iPad app. This is from experience, as we develop iPad children’s book apps for clients at http://ilabamerica.com
There is way to publish your content on mobile devices (iphone, Android and iPad) through the use of a web app.
Take a look at this software.
http://www.mygazines.com/mobile-publishing
Hi Joanna
I am a semi-retired mathematics teacher. I have always wanted to write math text books because I saw so many flaws in text books that I had to use over the years. So this year I finished my first book called Fractions, Decimals, Percents. I even got a letter of acceptance from a publisher, but the initial publishing costs were way out of my price range.
Do you think there is a market in the ebook industry for mathematics texts. If you know of a best way to epublish math books I would be interested in exploring this further. If this text book can sell as an ebook, I have at least 4 or 5 more books that I want to write.
I appreciate any advice you can give me.
Irv
Hi Irv,
Thanks for your comment and it’s great that you are writing on maths – it’s a subject many find so hard!
Just to be clear, if you have a publisher who is interested but wants you to pay them, then this is assisted publishing, which can be very expensive. I wouldn’t recommend this in your case.
You can definitely look to do an ebook – try reading articles on this page http://www.thecreativepenn.com/publishing/
and look at the interview with Joshua Tallent from EbookArchitects. That’s all free but you might also want to have a look at my ebook publishing mini-course
http://www.thecreativepenn.com/ebook/
I hope that helps, and wish you all the best. Thanks, Joanna
Nov8rix (www.nov8rix.com) will be launching their iPad tablet publisher this late fall/winter. Excellent!
Hi Joanna, I am a publisher and I am taking on large clients in converting their print matter to Ipad. As an INDIE publisher, we are getting larger clients all the time for conversions. I need to be able to publish directly to the Ipad for my clients and not under my Publishing company name but theirs. This may seem like a silly question, they do not want to use my company as (actual Publisher only for conversions) How do I just convert their materials to IPAD and send back to them or publish it to APPLE for them under their name. Do you know of a way that I can convert their materials and get it back to them or to ultimately straight upload to apple?
I hope you can help..
Sandy
Blue Feather Web and Publishing
Hi Sandy, at the most basic level, you can load it into Smashwords on their behalf and distribute it to the apple store – that’s how I get my books on the ibook store. If you’re in the US, you can load it directly, but you would have to have access to their account. Or you can just format to ePub and they can load it themselves if they register with Apple etc.
https://itunesconnect.apple.com/WebObjects/iTunesConnect.woa/wa/apply
Sorry, I can’t see how else you can do it – maybe provide the file and instructions as to how to do it themselves?
Thank You So Much Joanna! Bless You. For my smaller authors Smashwords will be perfect for me! For my VERY Large Corporate accounts I will have ask them to create iTunes accounts, correct? Unless I am doing a royalty situation and then I would use my publishing account.
My Worry is the Payments. If created in my Own iTunes Publishing Account, I, as publisher would then send monthly royalties to Authors. If Created in Smashwords, am I correct to say that I CAN have payments sent directly to MY Authors just doing the conversions for them?
I need to know what the costs are for I-Tunes for Proccessing. They don’t let you know on the Sign-up to Publish form at Apple? Any ideas?
I am sorry for all the questions, but here is another… How do I upload the drafts to iTunes and will my large corporate account have to give me login info? I bless you for all of your help. I have so many variable and different types of authors and very large corporations coming to me as publisher of many educational titles. I need to get this straight… Thank you. Sandy, Blue Feather Web and Publishing
Hi Sandy, I can’t help any further with iTunes as I haven’t done it myself and am not in the US so I can’t access that information. I just use Smashwords and I don’t like to give advice unless I have direct experience.
Smashwords pays authors by Paypal based on their account settings so as long as the authors had account settings with their details, it would be fine.
Awesome new tool for easy creation of books for apple’s ipad – Book Creator
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/09/book-creator-for-ipad-makes-e-book-publishing-easy/
Hi Joanna
Just wondering if you know if Australian organisations can publish e-books on AMAZON or LULU using an Australian bank account – there is so much conflicting information that I’m confused. I appreciate you taking the time to respond.
Cheers.
Lisa
Hi Lisa,
For Amazon & Lulu, you get paid with a cheque and Paypal respectively if you don’t have US bank account, so you pay fees for the conversion. There is no other way. Smashwords also use Paypal.
I hope that helps. Joanna
So if you have a Paypal account it is credited – correct? Otherwise a cheque is sent to your Australian address. I cannot seem to find anything on either site referring to those methods, but may be I’m just swamped with all the other information. Thanks for getting back to me so promptly. Love your site by the way, will certainly visit again.
Yes, Lulu sends money monthly, Smashwords every 3 months & Amazon sends a cheque 90 days after sales if over a specific amount to your address. You have to set it up in the KDP settings on Amazon and on the account for each service provider.
Hi Joanna,
Would you mind adding BookBaby to your comparison?
We’d be pleased as punch if you could!
http://bookbaby.com <— Get published on iPad, Kindle, Nook and more!
Chris
We enable individuals without engineering degrees to create iPhone/iPod apps of children’s books and comics online. Very much like a shutterfly experience for creating printed photo albums. Just upload your story and then drag and drop into scenes.
Check it out at http://www.glimmerapps.com.
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