Apple restricts sale of iBooks Author works to Apple devices

Apple’s Education event yesterday set out the company’s plan to really shake up the textbook industry. Not only does iBooks 2 promise cheaper textbooks for everyone, it adds interactivity, search capabilities, and always up-to-date content.

Then came news of iBooks Author, which allows anyone to use a well thought out set of tools to create their own books for free. You can then proceed to sell them and make some money from your work. It sounds fantastic, but there is one big caveat.

After you’ve spent time creating your new book on a Mac, it comes time to publish it and sell it through the iBookstore. However, at this point Apple pops up a note which states that any book created with iBooks Author can only be published on the iBookstore. In other words, in return for giving you a free tool for book creation, Apple demands that book (in that form) only ever be read on Apple devices.

This is also enforced in the EULA no one reads. It states more clearly that if you are offering your book for free, then it’s fine to take the content elsewhere. But if you intend to charge for the book, you have to sign a separate agreement with Apple and distribution will only ever occur through Apple.

You can view this two ways. On the one hand Apple is giving you a free tool with which to create books and wants a cut and some control over the work in return. The alternate view is, this is Apple’s attempt to ensure content is restricted to its devices in a bid to get more people buying Apple hardware because it’s the only place to view a growing catalog of content.

The real loser in this is potentially the author who chooses to create their book solely in iBooks Author. Apple has made it super easy to create a digital book, but your work will never be seen on other bookstores for Android and Windows devices, unless of course you give it away or Apple consent to let you distribute it elsewhere (highly unlikely).

Any budding authors should keep this in mind. Great, free tools can come with some restrictions, and iBooks Author is no exception. The problem is you may not realize until the point where your book is ready to publish how limiting iBooks Author actually is.

One thing that remains unclear is how restrictive these terms are. For example, Apple may be able to block you selling the equivalent of a book created in iBooks Author elsewhere in terms of the layout and interactivity. But can they legally stop you taking the content (words, images) you created and repackaging them in a different book? That’s highly unlikely. If you create all your content before loading up iBooks Author, and just treat it as a final step before publishing, then you should be fine to publish elsewhere too.

Read more at Venomous Porridge