What's so fantastic about Apple?

[kajata]

I would sell my e-book through Amazon. Not only do they not charge a 30% commission off of each book sold but they pay a 70% royalty!

 

[Sam.I.Am]

I would sell my e-book through Amazon. Not only do they not charge a 30% commission off of each book sold but they pay a 70% royalty!

I see what you did there...

 

[quadraginta]

I would sell my e-book through Amazon. Not only do they not charge a 30% commission off of each book sold but they pay a 70% royalty!

Not if you composed it with Apple's iBooks Author, it would seem.

 

[kajata]

Not if you composed it with Apple's iBooks Author, it would seem.

Sure, but unless they were doing some textbook with interactive videos*, etc. I would imagine an independent author would just import their work from a popular word processing format into iBooks Author and upload it to Amazon.

Unless they really hate Apple and out of principle won't make their books available to tens of millions of potential customers and would only feel good giving a 30% cut to Amazon and not Apple.

*And if it was some interactive textbook I don't think (not positive) the Kindle could handle it yet anyway.

 

[quadraginta]

Sure, but unless they were doing some textbook with interactive videos*, etc. I would imagine an independent author would just import their work from a popular word processing format into iBooks Author and upload it to Amazon.

Unless they really hate Apple and out of principle won't make their books available to tens of millions of potential customers and would only feel good giving a 30% cut to Amazon and not Apple.

*And if it was some interactive textbook I don't think (not positive) the Kindle could handle it yet anyway.

I think you missed some of the details.

It seems that according to the Apple iBook Author EULA, if you use their (free ) software to compose your work, you wouldn't be allowed to sell it on Amazon. You could give it away anywhere you wanted, but you could only sell it through Apple, and only if they agreed to let you sell it. Under their terms.

This is a snippet from JOAT's link above.

B. Distribution of your Work. As a condition of this License and provided you are in compliance with its terms, your Work may be distributed as follows:
​

• (i) if your Work is provided for free (at no charge), you may distribute the Work by any available means;
• (ii) if your Work is provided for a fee (including as part of any subscription-based product or service), you may only distribute the Work through Apple and such distribution is subject to the following limitations and conditions: (a) you will be required to enter into a separate written agreement with Apple (or an Apple affiliate or subsidiary) before any commercial distribution of your Work may take place; and (b) Apple may determine for any reason and in its sole discretion not to select your Work for distribution.

And this.

Apple will not be responsible for any costs, expenses, damages, losses (including without limitation lost business opportunities or lost profits) or other liabilities you may incur as a result of your use of this Apple Software, including without limitation the fact that your Work may not be selected for distribution by Apple.​

[boldface emphasis by Apple, Inc.]

 

[Jim_MDP]

John Albert...

You repeatedly mention Mac laptops when talking about non-removable batts.

Granted... my newest Mac (it's a laptop) is 4 years old, but it and my other 7 all had removable rechargable batts.

True about the iPod batts though.

 

[kajata]

Ahhhh, thanks for that info, q. I thought if you used other software to reformat it you could sell it anywhere but you clarified that.

 

[Sam.I.Am]

Ahhhh, thanks for that info, q. I thought if you used other software to reformat it you could sell it anywhere but you clarified that.

Yep. Based upon that licensing agreement I wouldn't touch it either. It's not like they are paying you an advance royalty for exclusive rights for the book and then paying you a % of sales after that. If they did that (like other publishing companies do for exclusive rights if I'm not mistaken) and then demanded exclusivity then I can see how someone might use them. What that license means is that if you submit your work on a "Cold call" basis (like many starting authors do with traditional publishing) that they now own it lock stock and barrel and if they decide not to publish it then the author is screwed out of their time and effort creating the work.

**** that noise. I'd be running away so fast that the vortex that I created behind me might just suck as bad as that license does. But I doubt it.

 

[kajata]

The more I'm reading on this it seems to be restricting your rights to sell your e-book created with the iBooks Author software through a non-Apple platform. If you wanted to take the same original content, use different software to format it you could sell it anywhere you want.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2...-author-marred-by-licensing-format-issues.ars

 

[Lamuella]

Sure, but unless they were doing some textbook with interactive videos*, etc. I would imagine an independent author would just import their work from a popular word processing format into iBooks Author and upload it to Amazon.

Unless they really hate Apple and out of principle won't make their books available to tens of millions of potential customers and would only feel good giving a 30% cut to Amazon and not Apple.
*And if it was some interactive textbook I don't think (not positive) the Kindle could handle it yet anyway.

it's sad that you can't see a reason why people would dislike this EULA that isn't just blind hatred for Apple, but I think it says a lot more about your blinkers than it does about mine.

 

[kajata]

it's sad that you can't see a reason why people would dislike this EULA that isn't just blind hatred for Apple, but I think it says a lot more about your blinkers than it does about mine.

I can see why people wouldn't like this EULA. But also, if I wrote a book I would get it on as many different outlets as possible even if it meant having to take time to format it differently.

The best analogy I saw so far was with Garage Band. If you compose a song using it you're not forced to only sell it on iTunes. Why is Apple doing this with their book composing software?

 

[TheL8Elvis]

Now granted, this is free software and their obvious goal is to get books that they can sell through their store. And, obviously, no one has to use it. I suppose you could look at the software not as ebook publishing software, but instead as simply the required software to put a book on Apple's store.

Just to be clear - it's not required to use this software to create a book to sell in the app store.

Since the launch of iBooks, apple has and still does support ePub. Feel free to continue to use ePub, ignore this software, and life continues unchanged.

 

[Almo]

The more I'm reading on this it seems to be restricting your rights to sell your e-book created with the iBooks Author software through a non-Apple platform. If you wanted to take the same original content, use different software to format it you could sell it anywhere you want.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2...-author-marred-by-licensing-format-issues.ars

That's exactly it. Take your text, use Author to make the Apple-sold version. Take your text, run it through whatever else you want, and sell that result anywhere else.

Last I heard, real book publishers don't pay 70% of the intake to the authors, and they don't provide software to help you get published. It's really a decent deal. The clauses about them choosing not to sell it allows them to refuse books for any reason, like if it were a book about how to groom children for sex, or if it were just random jibberish, like Hybrid RPG.

 

[Stray Cat]

or if it were just random jibberish,

I believe they do sell books about UFOs and crop circles.

 

[Stomatopoda]

Last I heard, real book publishers don't pay 70% of the intake to the authors, and they don't provide software to help you get published.

Comparing real (physical) book publishers to E-book self-publishing is like comparing apples to .gifs of oranges. The latter presents no risk and very, very little expense to the "publisher".

 

[Sam.I.Am]

Comparing real (physical) book publishers to E-book self-publishing is like comparing apples to .gifs of oranges. The latter presents no risk and very, very little expense to the "publisher".

This is very true. They are not offering proofreading, editing, storyline guidance, fact checking or the other serviced that an involved publisher does. In addition they have no printing costs (paper, ink, binding, and basic brick and mortar costs), warehousing costs, shipping costs, advertising costs or shelf space "Rent" to deal with. They provide their proprietary software (which I would consider a wash due to it being required to port it to their format), E-Retail space on their server and payment methods. At best that's worth around 5% with another few percentage points for profit so lets just call it 10% total to round it off (or even 15% to fall in line with an agents fee (even though they are not acting as an agent who will promote your work for you). 30% is completely unreasonable.

 

[TheL8Elvis]

This is very true. They are not offering proofreading, editing, storyline guidance, fact checking or the other serviced that an involved publisher does. In addition they have no printing costs (paper, ink, binding, and basic brick and mortar costs), warehousing costs, shipping costs, advertising costs or shelf space "Rent" to deal with. They provide their proprietary software (which I would consider a wash due to it being required to port it to their format), E-Retail space on their server and payment methods. At best that's worth around 5% with another few percentage points for profit so lets just call it 10% total to round it off (or even 15% to fall in line with an agents fee (even though they are not acting as an agent who will promote your work for you). 30% is completely unreasonable.

Can we clear that we are talking about iBooks textbooks ? And that they are capping the price for high school texts at 14.99 ?

This is more than just a 'jumped up word processor' as Lamuella said.

Books created for iBooks 2 can have all manner of media attached, complete with multitouch capabilities. The company listed numerous ways in which iBooks 2 authors can create engaging content for students, including multiple-choice questions with immediate feedback within the text, the ability to make notes and highlights that can be found in a single location as note cards or sprinkled throughout the text, ways to explore embedded graphics and 3D animations, full-motion movies, and more.

As I pointed out - You can continue to use whatever ePub software and self publish your regular books to amazon and itunes whomever else you want...

Also - Sam - what is you experience/basis for determining a fair percentage ?
Are you in the publishing business ?

I don't know a whole lot about the costs of textbooks to k-12 schools. But lots of what I have read have speculated this could be a good thing in bringing down textbook costs.

 

[Sam.I.Am]

Can we clear that we are talking about iBooks textbooks ? And that they are capping the price for high school texts at 14.99 ?

This is more than just a 'jumped up word processor' as Lamuella said.

Books created for iBooks 2 can have all manner of media attached, complete with multitouch capabilities. The company listed numerous ways in which iBooks 2 authors can create engaging content for students, including multiple-choice questions with immediate feedback within the text, the ability to make notes and highlights that can be found in a single location as note cards or sprinkled throughout the text, ways to explore embedded graphics and 3D animations, full-motion movies, and more.

As I pointed out - You can continue to use whatever ePub software and self publish your regular books to amazon and itunes whomever else you want...

Also - Sam - what is you experience/basis for determining a fair percentage ?
Are you in the publishing business ?

I don't know a whole lot about the costs of textbooks to k-12 schools. But lots of what I have read have speculated this could be a good thing in bringing down textbook costs.

I think that for a textbook that does all of that (as you described above) $14.99 will not draw in people who actually make textbooks. All of that multimedia content costs money to create (and that's excluding any usage fees seeing as they are charging for it there will be copyright issues). Any book that they sell at that price will be on a very thin (if not non-existent) profit margin for the author as it is and giving 30% of that ($4.50) will make it a losing proposition.

I can see someone charging that per chapter and calling the chapter a "Book" though (like you can buy just one song from iTunes) but then the final product (as in all of the entire books chapters combined) would be more in line with current textbook prices and unlike music there is a certain context or continuity from one chapter to the next so missing a few chapters here and there may not be an option unlike with most music.

As far as what amount of profit one can expect in a business where you actually do work and maintain a brisk and mortar store (as in most of them) a net profit of 10% is considered to be successful (as low as 5% in the restaurant business). In this case the work and capitol investment being done by Apple is minimal (as I described above) and there are minimal costs at their end so unless there are more costs that they take on (editing, fact checking, accreditation and so on) that I haven't seen mentioned here then 30% is an outrageous profit margin and I don't see them getting a lot of business from this model.

But of course Apple likes it because they assume very little risk in the hopes of making enormous profits so why wouldn't they take a shot at it?

 

[This is The End]

I think maybe Apple released iBooks just to derail this thread!

sneaky

 

[This is The End]

Well, it seems pickpockets have discovered what's so fantastic about apple!

iPhone thieves find Apple support helpful to them, too

When Apple Inc (AAPL.O) set up its customer service plan for the iPhone, it seems to have had the best intentions of humanity in mind -- any phone under warranty can get serviced because it's the phone that's tied to the warranty, not the owner.

<snip>

While some thieves sell the phones through the traditional channels of fencing stolen goods, examples abound of stolen iPhones being brought back to Apple, as if broken, for either replacement or a discount on a new unit.

<snip>

when someone snatched it from her hand and ran.

Days later she received an automated email that her damaged phone was repaired at an Apple Store. She went to the store to try to get back her phone, but they wouldn't hand it over to her, and she was told there was nothing they could do. "Because I don't have possession of the phone, they won't help me at all," she says.

Menard says she was astonished to find out that Apple wouldn't help, even though they had her phone. Because someone else had brought in the phone, she was told, the store could not return it to her.

Apparently, the thief can just take your iPhone and get a new one from Apple to sell. So even if you write down the serial number, you would be out of luck.