Apple has had a strange relationship with courting authors to publish on its platform, Apple Books. The company used to operate the Apple Author app from 2012 to 2020 when it was retired. The publishing features were then gravitated towards Pages, part of their document suite. Apple just announced with the latest update that the app has lost its publishing system on Apple 3rd. Apple no longer offers any dedicated way for authors to use an official Apple product and distribute titles to Apple Books.
Pages lost the ability to publish books due to their new AI features. Last Thursday, Apple rolled out new Pages, Numbers, and Keynote updates. Apple Intelligence powers the most notable update. Mac, iPad, and iPhone users can now edit text using Writing Tools directly in their documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.
Apple did not want to open a can of worms where users would start to write books with Apple Intelligence and submit them directly to Apple Books. Apple Books does not have a system where the author or co-author could be AI. Amazon has had this system for over a year because Kindle Direct Publishing is the dominant market leader.
The only way to publish on Apple Books is to use their Apple Books for Authors website. You can submit an EPUB book by following the prompts. However, it might be easier to use a 3rd party digital distribution partner that submits the book to multiple stores, providing authors with a broader revenue stream.
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.