Apple offers a powerful marketing feature on iBooks, and even authors who upload directly to Apple can use it. Your book title can be posted on iBooks for pre-order — up to one year before book launch — even if you don’t have a book cover or interior file yet. However, it’s advisable to have the cover at least.
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Pre-release twelve months in advance and you have got twelve months of people discovering your book before it hits the market. It means twelve months of additional sales in those first few days. All you need is your metadata: the book title, author, book description, price, pre-order, and release date. A lot more favorable than Amazon’s pre-order conditions!
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Easy Upload to iBooks: Authors can distribute to iBooks on their own through a direct upload route — or through an aggregator (book distributor) such as Draft2Digital.com
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Mark Coker von Smashword wrote: “e-books born as pre-orders earned the authors 3 1/2 times more income than books that were simply uploaded on the day of release. The average was even more stunning. The bottom line, however, is that about 90% of indies are failing to take full advantage of this amazing tool. If you don’t have your next 12 months of planned releases listed as pre-orders today, then you’re leaving readers and money on the table. Preorders are such an essential best practice that it’s simply dumb not to take the time to learn how to use them to your advantage.”
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The Book Designer Writes:
“This presents a huge opportunity to build sales and buzz around a book, especially for authors with a fan base and writing books in series, because iBooks factors all pre-orders into first-day sales. So books will often hit the bestseller charts based on orders that have been accumulating for months.”
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Apple Explains:
“Additionally, you can add excerpts or chapters to your books in advance of the release date. Readers love to have access to early samples and will often share them with their friends and fans, helping you to grow your audience even more before your book releases.”
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Apple’s Detailed Instructions:
- Open iTunes Producer
- Enter the book’s metadata in the Details pane
- Click on the Price pane
- Enter a Pre-Order Start Date, a Sales Start Date (Release Date), the rights and pricing details
- Select Save from the File menu
- Click Submit
Title, author, book description, etc., can still be changed prior to the release, as well as the release date itself. Compare this to Amazon! Way better conditions!
Once Your Book is Ready to Publish:
- Search for your pre-order in iTunes Producer by typing the title or Apple ID in the “Search iTunes
- Connect” field
- Drag and drop the cover or screenshots in the Details pane
- Drag and drop the book file(s) in the Files pane
- Click Submit
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Files must be submitted at least 10 business days prior to the scheduled release date
to ensure they pass the review and are available to customers on the expected date. Don’t wait until the last minute.
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If you need help during this process or have questions, you can contact the iBooks support team at (877) 206-2092 Mondays through Fridays, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Central Time. Phone numbers for other countries: https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT202787
Or, click “Contact Us” under Resources and Help in iTunes Connect to send them an email: ibooks_applicationsupport@apple.com
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