Took about a week for Apple to approve my application - but that was over Christmas, so it may be faster now.
Not quite.H.S. St.Ours said:And of course, any old ePub will do for Apple ...
Gonna test this, I think. Seems like a reasonable thing to try out, especially since who knows how long Smashwords will take before it removes them?Deanna Chase said:Though I know someone who who didn't take their books down for Smashwords until after their books went live with iTunes direct.
Anybody know what you do if you have books under your own name AND under a pen name? (Will Apple let you do that, if you have a DBA?)Amanda Brice said:I went today to file a DBA so I could use my pen name as the publisher rather than my legal name.
Lucky man. D2D sounds like a good option for me too, but they aren't taking new publishers right now.James Bruno said:It took me a day or two for my books to be listed there via D2D.
Give them your email address. I got the "we're not adding new publishers right now" message a couple of days ago and then last night got an email that they'd added some more to the beta test and I was in. Give it a few days -- you'll probably get in.DRMarvello said:Lucky man. D2D sounds like a good option for me too, but they aren't taking new publishers right now.![]()
Your book is priced at $2.99, which means you'll earn roughly $2 per book sold. A Mac Mini through the Apple store is $599, although you need to add your own monitor and keyboard...but an HDTV monitor works nicely. Just sayin'...and if you're only going to be using it for uploading to the Apple store then you wouldn't need to leave it installed on the TV all the time either. Just hook up and unhook when needed.DRMarvello said:I looked into the pricing on a Mac Mini. I'd have to sell about 1,000 books just to break even on the purchase. Given how poorly my book does right now in non-Amazon outlets, I'm not willing to make that investment.
Thanks, Amanda. I'm apparently math-impaired today. I multiplied the $500 cost of the Mac Mini by $2 instead of dividing.Amanda Brice said:So it's more like 300+ books sold to break even.
Or you can get a refurbished Mac Mini for around $300 or under, so that would be 150 books sold to break even.
Keep in mind that either Smashwords or D2D take 15% commission, which isn't bad really, but you do need to factor that in to the "break even" number. 150 books sold through Apple via SW or D2D wouldn't result in $300 income but rather $255. You'd actually need to sell 176 books to make $300.
Actually if you get your iTunes producer account set up first (which you can do without a Mac), it's only $539 because you get a 10% discount.Amanda Brice said:A Mac Mini through the Apple store is $599, although you need to add your own monitor and keyboard...but an HDTV monitor works nicely.