iBooks Author and the Indie Writer: How Apple’s New EULA Could Affect You

The big news hitting the internet waves (air waves?) over the past couple of days has been Apple’s announcement of the new iBooks Author application, which they advertise as a free application for the Mac via the Mac App store:

Available free on the Mac App store, iBooks Author is an amazing new app that allows anyone to create beautiful Multi-Touch textbooks — and just about any other kind of book — for iPad. With galleries, video, interactive diagrams, 3D objects, and more, these books bring content to life in ways the printed page never could.

Sounds great, right? Most people certainly thought so yesterday. I saw many comments across the internet heralding Apple’s new program, including claims that they were going to revolutionize the textbook industry, that this was the Next Big Thing ™ in self-publishing.

Thank goodness I decided to wait a day or so before I posted the news here on Indie Beware. Because there’s been some pretty questionable information coming out on the End User License Agreement (EULA) that all authors and publishers would be agreeing to simply by downloading the iBooks Author software.

This is right up my alley, as outside of my writing and my day job, I’m a total tech-head. I love reading and following anything and everything about technology. So, to summarize the information that I’ve gathered, including the relevant links:

By downloading iBooks Author to your Mac, you’re agreeing on default to the EULA. This is a bit backwards from most software downloads; the majority of software downloads allow you to download it and then prompts you to accept the EULA before you use the application.

Any books created using iBooks Author that you plan to sell can only be sold exclusively through Apple’s iBookstore. While this isn’t enforcable in the context of creating a book and then syncing it to your iPad for your own personal use, once you hit the point of wanting to sell the book to the general public, you can only sell it via the iBookstore. To quote from the EULA:

IMPORTANT NOTE:
If you charge a fee for any book or other work you generate using this software (a “Work”), you may only sell or distribute such Work through Apple (e.g., through the iBookstore) and such distribution will be subject to a separate agreement with Apple.

and

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.

What does this mean? It means that when you submit your eBook to Apple’s iBookstore, you’re agreeing to give them a 30% cut of your sales. No big deal, right? We all give Amazon at least 30% of our proceeds already, yes?

Except, not so fast. Nowhere does Apple guarantee they will actually accept the book to sell in their iBookstore. No idea what the criteria is (it seems to be subject to Apple’s whims quite frequently on apps’ acceptance criteria alone), but if for some reason your book doesn’t meet the criteria and Apple rejects it, you are, in a word, screwed. You cannot, under the EULA you agreed to when you downloaded iBooks Author, turn around and upload the same book to Amazon instead. Because in the EULA, Apple is claiming rights to the product put out using the iBooks Author software.

Before you freak out, please note that Apple isn’t claiming rights to your book itself. The text you wrote is still yours. They are, however, claiming the right to the product you create using iBooks Author. There is apparently an option in iBooks Author to strip out everything formatting-related so you can take the manuscript into another program to re-format it and upload it to Amazon. But you cannot use iBooks Author to develop an attractive eBook and then upload it to Amazon instead of Apple.

Apple is, as usual, asking a lot of authors here. I would highly recommend indies read all the articles I linked above and study everything they say before deciding whether or not to jump in on Apple’s new deal. While I have been outspoken in other forums about my personal distaste for Amazon’s KDP Select program (99% of it being related to the exclusivity demands), I have to admit I’d recommend KDP Select over this any day. But, as is usual, every writer’s situation is different from all other writers’, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Please read and consider carefully before you decide whether or not to agree to their terms and use Apple’s iBooks Author.