Amazon traditionally has been the only game in town for people who have book blogs or run newsletters on cheap Kindle books. Amazon has become more ruthless on the types of content they will pay commission on and this has driven many of the popular services out of business. Apple unveiled a new toolbox a few months ago for their iBooks program. It allows book bloggers, Youtubers, authors and content publishers to embed audiobooks, books, badges, app icons, or a basic text link on their website, blog or newsletter. This tool is available here and you can see all of the options in action on a very old edition of our Buyers Guide.
The Apple Books Toolbox has a useful new feature that allows anyone to quickly create interactive audiobook preview widgets. Choose any audiobook available on Apple Books, customize the dimensions, and you’re ready to display embed code on a website or newsletter. These audiobooks will play a sample, so users can get a sense of the quality of the production. If someone buys an audiobook from Apple, the publisher will earn a commission.
Here are a few other key features for the toolbox that just went live today.
- Access marketing assets in 26 languages for all countries where Apple Books is live
- Search for books content and instantly grab embed codes for easy linking
- Input your affiliate and campaign tokens to track clicks and transactions
- Shorten the URL into an apple.co link so it’s branded and ready to share on social media
I think it is great that Apple is getting serious about letting people get commissions from audiobook and ebook sales. Apple is one of the only ebook apps on the entire iOS platform that sells digital content directly in the app, Amazon, B&N, Kobo and many other retailers do not sell stuff in their own apps, this is due to them not wanting to give Apple a percentage of each ebook sold.
Will the new iBooks toolbox catch on? Not overnight to be sure, but, their system for displaying previews of audiobooks and books is unmatched by almost every other company right now.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
