Why Apple Books works for me
Dan wrote last week about reports that Apple had laid off 100 people in the Books group. The news seemed to strike most observers as a regrettable, but understandable business decision. Apple Books has never really been able to topple, or even challenge, Amazon’s dominance in the ebook world, As a writer who sells books directly and via Apple Books, I have some thoughts.
I sell iOS Access for All: Your Comprehensive Guide to Accessibility for iPhone and iPad via my Web site, and on Apple Books. I publish a new version of the book for each year’s iOS update. The majority of books are sold directly through my own site. I’ve promoted the book that way, and made sure the site is accessible for blind readers and others. Readers have told me they want both ePub and PDF formats, so that’s what I offer. But there’s a subset of readers who prefers to get the book from Apple Books, so I link there. Whether it’s the familiarity of doing business with Apple directly, or the desire to store and sync purchases with the Books app on all their devices, I’ve heard loud and clear that Books is a place I need to be. A couple of times I made Kindle versions of the book and attempted to sell them on Amazon. I got very little traction there – perhaps because I didn’t promote its availability well, but more likely because people with accessibility needs don’t gravitate toward the Kindle platform. The Apple Books app not only offers a lot of flexibility in text formats and themes, it works flawlessly with the VoiceOver screen reader and other Apple speech tools. All of this makes my book a bit of an unusual beast, but it keeps Apple Books on my radar.
From a production standpoint, the Books store is easy-peasy for me, too, since I create the book as an ePub – the format supported by Books and the one I prefer to offer directly because of its native accessibility. All I have to do is load the book into iTunes Connect and submit it for publication in as many country-specific stores as I want. And while I’m at it, I can choose whether or not to apply DRM. I’ve chosen not to do so.
The issue with transferring Apple Books to another platform is not the existence of DRM, but the opacity of knowing exactly how to get the book out, and move it to another ePub-compatible platform. But once you dig in under the hood in iCloud, it’s certainly possible for a committed user to drag a file where you want it, assuming there’s no DRM.
There’s a tendency to focus on the condition of the Books app when we try to understand Apple’s decision to lay off staff. And because many of those let go work on the engineering side, that’s fair. But the cuts also hit the Books store, which maintains the book approval process, gets authors paid, and provides support. I’ve relied on that infrastructure more than once, and been pleased with the speedy turnaround those teams offered. I worry that could change after these cuts, and I hope I’m wrong.
When developers began the first uproar over the 30 percent “Apple tax” on their apps, I was painfully aware that as an indie book publisher, I was paying it, too. In fact, when I promote my book on podcasts or have a chance to speak to buyers in person, I remind them that I get all of the profits (minus a small per-month fee I pay to store and distribute the book files) when you buy a book directly from me. Apple Books returns just 70 percent to me, which makes things painful when I sell books in bulk to an agency or school district whose financial managers are more comfortable buying from the Books store. If I sell 50 books at 24.95 US$, I get $873.25 back from Apple. If I sell those same 50 books myself, it’s $1247.50. Ouch!
So is the “tax” worth it? I’m forced to think so, because the Apple process has been so easy for me and 25-or more percent of my customers prefer Apple Books. But ask me again when I publish my iOS 18 edition later this fall, and I’ve had a chance to experience the slimmed-down Books regime firsthand.
[Shelly Brisbin is a radio producer and author of the book iOS Access for All. She's the host of Lions, Towers & Shields, a podcast about classic movies, on The Incomparable network.]
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