How to sell your ebooks in the Apple Book Store

How do you become a famous author? Step 1: Start publishing to Apple Books!

Apple's iBooks Author, available for free on the Mac App Store, makes it easy for you to write your bestselling novel, textbook, cook book, or story book, complete with illustrations, cover art, and even interactive content. You can even sell your digital books right in Apple's Book Store!

Write your book

Of course, there is no reason to get excited about winning the Nobel Prize for Literature until you've actually written a book. If you've already got the backbone of your content written thanks to a little help from NaNoWriMo, you can use the iBooks Author app for Mac or another EPUB creator tool, like Pages. Keep in mind that your book has to be published as either a .ibooks or .epub file.

If you don't know how to create a book in EPUB or iBooks format, Apple has partnered with a number of book publishing experts that can help you correctly format your book and make sure it meets the Book Store requirements.

Sign up with iTunes Connect

So, you've already got a book ready to publish. Good. Now it's time to get registered as a Book Store author so you can start selling. You'll need to enable your Apple ID for iTunes Connect first. Your Apple ID needs to be verified and you must have a valid credit card on file.

(Apple is in the midst of re-branding iTunes Connect as App Store Connect. We'll go with the iTunes Connect nomenclature for now.)

You can use the same Apple ID that you use to purchase content in the App Store or iTunes, but you can't use the same Apple ID that you use to sell other types of content in iTunes (like apps, music, or movies). So, if you are already an app developer selling in iTunes, you'll need to create a new iTunes Connect account with a different Apple ID.

Once you have enabled iTunes Connect with your Apple ID, you will need to sign a Book Store agreement. There are two different types of agreements: Free Books and Paid Books The former is the agreement you want if you never intend to sell content in the Book Store and will only give it away. If you think there will ever be a chance that you might want to sell books in the Book Store, you might as well select the Paid Books agreement.

If you are selling books on behalf of a company located anywhere in the world, or you are a U.S. individual, you must provide Apple with a U.S. Tax ID (such as an SSN, ITIN, or EIN) on the Paid Books Agreement Information page.

Get the iTunes Producer app on your Mac

Once you've written your book and formatted it correctly, are registered with iTunes Connect, and have signed the requisite agreements, you're ready to submit your ebook to Apple Books. That's where the iTunes Producer app comes in. It is a resource tool for publishing. It's different from iBooks Author.

You can get iTunes Producer from the Resources and Help section of iTunes Connect. It is only compatible with the Mac. If you don't have a Mac, you can get one of those Apple partners to publish your book for you.

iTunes Producer will help you build your Book Store summary page, complete with samples, cover art, category, title, author name, and price tag. You can also select which countries your book is available in.

Sell your books in the Book Store

After you've uploaded your content, created your summary page and included details, cover art, and a sample, you can submit your ebook for publication. While in the iTunes Producer app, you'll hit the Submit button to send it to Apple Books for processing. After the book is authenticated, you'll be able to check the status of your book in iTunes Connect. If you ever want to change the price of your book, or even remove it from the Book Store completely, you can do so from your My Books dashboard.

Help is a click away

If you're new to this game, Apple provides lots of online resources.

Good luck and happy selling!