Apple won't rule out all singing, all dancing iBooks on Kindle Apple has come under fire for keeping all products of its new interactive book-making tool within its walled garden. According to a tough End User License Agreement, any iBooks created by the iBooks Author software can only be sold through the iBookstore so Apple can help itself to a 30 per cent cut. But an unusually chatty …
As far as i am aware, the 30% only applies to the .ibooks format. So if you were to save it out as a PDF you would be free to sell it as you pleased.
No gallery widgets etc, but no walled garden either.
No doubt someone will come up with a program that converts the .ibooks format into something for other platforms that preserves the rich features, and no doubt apple will change their eula when that happens.
I think all the haters are missing something: don't like the business model? Don't use it. Find another publisher for your worthy tome.
I whilst we are asking these sorts of questions, why should I as a consumer want to pay for what people produce? Especially with a digital download, I'm not even buying the paper!!! What are the authors thinking, actually wanting to charge for something they've spent time over?!?! Just doesn't make any sense! it's teh insaneness!!!!
/sarc
to the story about the investigation
http://www.out-law.com/en/articles/2011/december/apple-and-publishers-subject-of-competition-investigation-into-sale-of-e-books/
There's a name for a book publishing agreement that limits price as well, but I'm damned if I can remember it. May be an enlightened El Reg reader can help out
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You think that Apple would let you reverse-engineer the ibook file format and display ibooks on devices that you haven't paid Apple for? <TROLL> It would only have to look a bit like an ibook reader and you'd be asked to stop :) </TROLL>
Anyway, the EULA you are talking about is the one that binds the creator of the ibook file; I don't think that it binds anyone else, so interestingly if you downloaded a free ibook file I don't see why you should be bound to the EULA of the software used to create it? (However, I don't know because I haven't read the EULA)
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in this case the choice of publishers isn't a problem. The problems lie in the restrictions applied to the use of the software - you want to use it for free? then you can only sell the end product via apple. Anybody in their right mind and even remotely commercially minded would have to be seriously retarded (and exceptionally cheap) to insist on using the free version.
Moral of the story - don't be such a cheap tight-wad, pay at least $20 for Pages for Mac and you will be free to do what you want with your book and have it published by whomever you desire
I really dont understand the fuss... If you use Apples free software to create an interactive proprietary format book, then you can choose to either export it as a PDF and sell it freely as you can with any other commercial software, or keep it in the Apple-owned ibooks format and sell it through Apple's commercial outlet for a 30% fee, as with all of their store content.
Its less than any publisher would take and they're selling the book across thousands of iDevices for you. If you dont want to pay 30%, just export it as a PDF or keep it in iBooks format and make it free.
>>Just create the book normally and convert to the correct format for the store.
It's a fancy interactive format, so that might be tricky.... I was wondering how much of the functionality is lost by exporting to PDF actually.
Also, Apple could easily say you're only allowed to create iBook books in iBooks if they wanted to.
"It's a fancy interactive format, so that might be tricky.... I was wondering how much of the functionality is lost by exporting to PDF actually."
Most of it. The iBooks format is EPUB3 with some HTML5 trickery. PDF just can't handle the embedded files to provide the UI Apple is pushing for. If it's a plain text & pics affair, then you're fine, but only the .ibook format provides the video, slideshows and 3d interactive stuff possible with the Author software. I tried.
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You can write and you can publish.
Apple only seems to reserve their rights to the ibooks format as far as I can tell.
Everyone is barking on about Apple taking 30%. Publishing houses take far more than this. A colleague of mine gets 50p for every £15.00 book sold! That’s a 96% cut for the publisher! Knowing the colleague the book is a pretty niche market one anyway.
Sure you can publish for free as pdf etc. If you just want to get your work out there then this is fine. If you want to get some recompense for the time and effort then you need to sell.
A lot of people publish their own 'e-books' and charge for them (on their sites), but will you be exposed to the same market on your own site as iBook store or Amazon? I browse Amazon and iBook store, but rarely go looking for books elsewhere.
Seems to me fairly reasonable.
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