In an earlier post I wrote about the new iBooks Author app that Apple released this month. The release has garnered a lot of attention and excitement across the tech and education worlds. However, that attention has not been entirely positive.
While many share my opinion that this is good for educators, writers, and yes, even churches, there are plenty who don’t.
Almost immediately after the announcement, Microsoft began posting snide comments on Twitter about the deal. Perhaps that is not surprising, since they won’t be getting any of the cut, but others have joined in.
The controversy boils down to a clause in the user agreement that says authors may not charge for distribution of their work through any venue other than Apple’s iBookstore.
The actual language in the EULA says:
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.
Certainly, this seems to be an extreme position taken by Apple. However, upon closer examination it’s not as bad as Microsoft and others are making it out to. They would have you believe that once you publish with Apple, you lose all rights to publish your original content with any other service. However, that is not exactly true. Apple is simply restricting work created with their app. In other words, if you write a book and then add in interactive content through iBooks Author, you may still publish the original (non-interactive) book through other channels. Obviously, Apple is hoping you will use their iBooks Author app to create content and distribute through iBooks, but this is not a model that is out of question.
For instance, let’s assume you decide to publish your book through the iBookstore and through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing service. The interactive book created using iBook Author will be distributed through iBooks on the iPad, and Apple will take home 30%, leaving you a 70% profit. With the Amazon distribution, you will have to publish it as a standard ebook in Kindle format, and then pay Amazon their standard 30% cut, plus data usage rates. And, Amazon reserves the right to sell your book via promotion (sometimes promoting it for free), and passing the “savings” on to you, without your say.
So, distribution is still up to the creator of the work. Books available through iBooks will likely surge as authors now have a tool to make them more dynamic, and it will be up to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other ebook distributors to come up with their own ebook creation applications. And, of course, we may well see a 3rd party create an app that does something similar – which may or may not cost money for the use of the app.
Charles Specht says
Victoria Strauss of “Writer Beware” just wrote an interesting article about this very subject. Victoria is well-known in the publishing industry and has even reviewed two potential publishing agreements I was considering. Her knowledge is tremendous.
Check it out: http://accrispin.blogspot.com/2012/01/fine-print-of-ibooks-author.html
Nick Sheetz says
As soon as I saw that Apple had released this software I was curious as to how the church could use it for ministry purposes. One of the things I instantly thought of were devos that go with the sermon series. Southland Christian Church in Lexington, KY does a great job with some really awesome devos that go along with each series that they preach through. Each devo is in PDF format and can be downloaded from their site. How awesome would it be to create interactive devos that go with our sermon series. The sky is the limit really. It would take a ton of work which is the biggest drawback in my mind but I think it opens the door to a lot of cool possiblities.