How to Publish on Apple Books: A Step-by-Step Guide for Indie Authors

Most indie authors start on Amazon and add other stores later, if at all. That leaves money on the table. Apple Books ships on every iPhone, iPad and Mac, its readers are used to paying for books, and its rules are simpler than most: one royalty rate, no exclusivity, no price matching and no fee for file size. For science fiction and fantasy series in particular, a well-set-up Apple listing can become a steady second income stream.

It helps to be clear about what the store is. Apple Books sells EPUB files that look much the same in every reading app, so it rewards good formatting and metadata, not special features. Authors who want a reader experience the store cannot deliver, such as an interactive star map, a companion guide that updates with each sequel or serialised chapters sold inside an app, are no longer looking at a publishing question: that usually means working with developers to build an iPhone app, which is a separate project with its own budget.

This guide stays with the store itself. It walks through the eight steps from account to launch, compares going direct with using an aggregator, and ends with the mistakes that most often delay a release. If you have not yet decided how to handle print, read our comparison of KDP Print, IngramSpark and Lulu alongside it, because Apple sells ebooks and audiobooks only.

Why publish on Apple Books at all?

Because it is one of the largest ebook stores outside Amazon and the terms are author-friendly. Apple states that it pays 70% royalties on every ebook regardless of price, charges no delivery fees, does not sell paid placement in the store and lets you give books away free with no restrictions. Amazon, by comparison, drops to 35% outside its 2.99 to 9.99 dollar band and charges a delivery fee per megabyte.

The audience matters too. Apple Books readers tend to buy rather than borrow, because there is no subscription equivalent of Kindle Unlimited in the store. That suits authors who price at full value and those running series, where a reader who finishes book one can tap straight through to book two. The trade-off is discovery: Apple's search is less forgiving of thin metadata, and its merchandising team, not an algorithm alone, picks many of the featured lists.

The one hard conflict is exclusivity. If an ebook is enrolled in KDP Select, Amazon's terms forbid selling the same ebook anywhere else, Apple included. Since Kindle Unlimited became Kindle+, that choice has the same shape: you either stay exclusive to Amazon for the subscription pool or go wide and add Apple.

Should you go direct or use an aggregator?

Both routes put the same book in the same store. The difference is control, cost and how many dashboards you want to manage.

A common pattern is to go direct with the two or three stores that bring the most sales and use an aggregator for the long tail of smaller retailers and library platforms. Just do not deliver the same book to Apple both ways; duplicate listings confuse readers and split reviews.

Step 1: Set up your account, tax and banking

Go to Apple Books for Authors and sign in with an Apple Account. Use an account you control personally, not a shared or work one, because the books, sales history and payments are tied to it. You will be asked to accept the Apple Books agreement and to choose whether you publish as an individual or a company.

1. Enter your legal name or company name exactly as it appears on tax documents.
2. Complete the tax forms. US authors provide a W-9; authors outside the US typically complete a W-8BEN and can claim a reduced withholding rate if their country has a tax treaty with the US.
3. Add a bank account for payments. Apple pays monthly, by region, once your earnings pass a minimum threshold, so small early sales may roll over to a later month.
4. Add the pen name you publish under as the author name on each book; it does not need to match the account holder.

You no longer need a Mac. The web publishing portal works in any modern browser; Apple's older desktop delivery tool is now only useful for publishers uploading in bulk.

Step 2: Prepare the ebook file

Apple accepts a finished EPUB, and its web tool can also convert a manuscript prepared in Microsoft Word or Apple's Pages. Conversion is fine for straightforward novels. For anything with a complex layout, such as maps, tables, footnotes or poetry, produce and check the EPUB yourself.

• Use real styles, not manual formatting. Headings for chapter titles, a single body style, page breaks between chapters. Repeated spaces and tabs break on reflowable screens.
• Validate the file. Apple's checks are stricter than some stores'. Run the EPUB through a validator based on the W3C EPUB 3 standard and fix every error before upload.
• Include a navigable table of contents. Readers jump between chapters from the reading app's menu, not just from a page at the front.
• Keep back matter useful. Link to your website and the next book in the series. Avoid links to other retailers, which can get a book rejected.
• Test on real devices. Open the file in Apple Books on a phone and a tablet, in light and dark mode, before you submit.

An ISBN is not required for ebooks sold on Apple Books. If you already own ISBNs, using one makes the book easier to track across stores and libraries; just never reuse the print ISBN for the ebook.

Step 3: Make a cover that works at thumbnail size

Most shoppers see your cover as a small tile in search results or a list, often on a phone. Upload a large, sharp image (Apple recommends at least 1,400 pixels on the shorter side; many designers deliver 1,600 by 2,400), and check that the title and author name are still readable when the cover is the size of a fingernail.

Genre signals matter more than originality here. Science fiction readers recognise the conventions of their subgenre at a glance: hard SF, space opera and post-apocalyptic stories each have a look. Covers for a series should share a layout so readers know at once that books belong together. Do not put text such as "bestseller" or prices on the cover; Apple rejects covers with promotional claims that are not true for the store.

Step 4: Write metadata readers and search can use

Metadata is everything about the book except the text: title, subtitle, series, author, description, categories and language. On Apple Books it decides where the book appears and how series are grouped, so accuracy beats keyword stuffing.

• Title and subtitle. Exactly as on the cover. Do not add keywords to the title field; Apple removes or rejects them.
• Series name and number. Use identical spelling on every book. This is what makes Apple show "Book 1 of 3" and link the volumes, and it is the setting authors most often get wrong.
• Description. Open with a two-line hook, then the premise, then why readers of comparable authors will enjoy it. Short paragraphs read better on a phone.
• Categories. Pick the most specific categories that honestly fit, such as a science fiction subgenre rather than general fiction.
• Language and publication date. Correct both; a wrong language code hides the book from the right storefronts.

Step 5: Set price, territories and rights

Because the royalty is 70% at any price, Apple leaves you free to price for your genre rather than for a royalty band. Indie science fiction novels commonly sit between 3.99 and 6.99 dollars, with box sets higher. Set a base price and let Apple calculate prices in other currencies, then adjust key markets by hand where round local prices look better.

Choose the territories where you hold the ebook rights. If a traditional publisher licensed your book in another language or region, exclude those territories to avoid a rights conflict. Apple lets you change prices at any time, which makes it easy to run a time-limited discount around a launch or a newsletter promotion.

Free is also an option with no strings. Making book one of a series permanently free, often called "free first-in-series", is one of the most effective ways to build readership on Apple Books because readers can move straight to the paid sequels.

Step 6: Decide on a preorder

A preorder lets readers buy before release; Apple collects the orders and delivers the book to every buyer on launch day. Apple's tools let you open a preorder well in advance, but for most indie releases two to three months is enough to gather orders without losing momentum.

Preorders are most useful when you already have readers: a newsletter, an earlier book with a link in its back matter, or a series. Upload the final file, or at least a near-final one, well before the release date, and note the deadline for the final version in your calendar. Missing it can cancel the preorder and lose every order collected.

Step 7: Upload, review and go live

With file, cover, metadata and price ready, the upload takes minutes. Apple then reviews the book before it goes on sale, which typically takes from a day to several days. Rejections usually come from fixable problems: an EPUB error, a cover mismatch with the title, links to other stores, or metadata that does not match the book.

Once the book is live, search for it in the Apple Books app on a phone, open the product page and download the sample. Check that the series links, the description and the cover all display as you expect.

Step 8: Promote inside the Apple ecosystem

Apple gives authors a few tools that other stores do not, and they cost nothing to use.

• Promo codes. Direct publishers can generate codes that unlock a free copy of the book, useful for advance reviewers, giveaways and newsletter rewards.
• Affiliate links. Apple's affiliate programme pays a commission on purchases made through your links, including other books a reader buys in the same session. Use these links on your author website and in newsletters.
• Merchandising submissions. Apple's team builds themed and seasonal lists. A clean listing, a strong cover and a series with steady sales improve your chances of being picked, and some aggregators and direct publishers can pitch new releases.
• Box sets. A collected edition of a complete series, priced below the sum of the parts, sells well on Apple and introduces readers to the whole world at once.

Measure the results in the daily sales reports. If a promotion moves sales on Apple but not elsewhere, that tells you where your readers are.

What about audiobooks on Apple Books?

Apple sells audiobooks in the same store and offers digital narration, which uses synthetic voices to turn an ebook into an audiobook for eligible publishers. It is a fast, low-cost way to test whether a book has a listening audience, but quality varies by genre: dialogue-heavy fiction with many characters still benefits from a human narrator. If you choose synthetic narration, say so clearly in the description; readers increasingly expect it. Human-narrated audiobooks can reach Apple through audiobook distributors that deliver to the store.

Common Apple Books mistakes

• Leaving the ebook in KDP Select. The book cannot legally be on Apple while enrolled.
• Inconsistent series names. "The Daimones Trilogy" on one book and "Daimones Trilogy" on the next creates two series.
• Converting a messy manuscript. Manual spacing and pasted text become broken layouts on small screens.
• Keywords in the title field. They lead to rejection or to quietly edited metadata.
• Delivering the same book twice. Direct and through an aggregator at once produces duplicate listings.
• Never checking the live page. Small display problems go unnoticed for months unless you look on a phone.

Apple Books rewards authors who treat it as a real store with its own readers, not as a box ticked on the way to going wide.

When does a book need more than a store listing?

For most novels, a well-formatted ebook on Apple Books plus a simple website is all the technology a career needs. A dedicated app makes sense only when the book itself relies on features an EPUB cannot carry: maps and timelines readers explore, content that changes after publication, audio or visual layers, or a paid serial with chapters released over time. We cover the options, costs and app store rules in our guide to turning a book into an app.

Whatever you add later, start with the store listing. Get the EPUB clean, the series linked and the description sharp, and Apple Books will keep selling the book long after launch week.

Questions

Massimo Marino Author Editorial Team

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