Q: Once my book is uploaded, how long before it appears in iTunes?

It's hard to understand how a company that was: planning this for many months, is sitting on billions in cash to hire and locate support staff, and has a huge new data center to handle the volume... is making people wait more than 2 weeks. I can see how up to 2 weeks might be reasonable with more complex documents, in a space where there are many titles in the queue, otherwise it's lousy customer experience / service any way you cut it. People waiting 4 weeks+ is just unacceptable, especially when some people are finding out after weeks there are minor errors that take a few minutes to correct.

I wonder how many of these "error" cases involve problems with iTunes Producer. They need to take a close look at their authoring submission process and simplify it. iTunes Producer should be easier to fill out, find all errors in code or missing elements BEFORE submission, so that once submitted the only possible hang-ups are things that can be discerned by humans... and there should be enough staff to make 10 day turnarounds from that point standard except in cases of extreme high volume (let's say every July they are deluged with new text books for schools in theory - I could see how that would extend the waiting period).

Common Apple, help these people out! I'm half way into the production of a new book and this is making me regret my decision to go with this platform vs. InDesign and ePub.

Yes I very much agree with you!  The process required for getting iOS apps and music published is just as arbitrary and frustrating. 

One thing we all have to remember is individuals/companies utilizing iTunes Producer are not Apple's customers...we're their content partners.  Apple knows that if we want our content to find a home in the biggest market possible...we'll deal with the less than desirable process. 

I hope nobody gives up and counts out iBooks completely...

Does anyone know if the process is the same for aggregators?

My impression from research is that aggregators are not a good option for individual authors. It's more for small publishing houses that want to submit 8 or 10 titles at once every so many months. You're basically adding another level of bureaucracy between you and Apple, so as bad as the waits here are I think it's probably still the better option on balance.

We are indeed submitting 10 or more titles every months. Apple is approving at the speed of 1-2 per week, so now we got big backlog after 2 months... and we have to stop and see what happened next.

However, the good news is: 2 of our animal books (Zebra and Lion) seems to make into top 10 chart for US Education! A surprise to us since the books are just approved 2 days ago... if you are interested, take a look in Education category and get a sample... or just US$0.99 for the books.

Wish everybody good luck and get your book approved soon!

Dear limtc,

Please tell me how to find the Education category. When you look at Categories in iTunes, there is no such category. In Enhanced Books, I don't see anything below Cookbooks. What am I missing?

I did buy Zebra and look forward to taking a look.

Keep up the good work.

Jim (Sumbitted 3/12 and still waiting.)

The Education is under Professional and Technical category. Apple put our books there, probably not the best places for kids books.

Thanks for interest in our books!

virtualgs wrote:

 

The Education is under Professional and Technical category. Apple put our books there, probably not the best places for kids books.

 

Thanks for interest in our books!

I see that section now, you have to go under "more Proffesional and technical" at the bottom right in iTunes on a computer - you can't get there on an ipad - all you get if you browse on an ipad is New and Notable or featured.

also - how do you see that you are number 1? I can only search by release date or name. I don't see your book in the first few pages for example.

Im glad I investigated this though, as my book is the first in the New and Noteworthy in the category of Photography if you go to Arts and Entertainment and then Photography. Is yours the winktolearn one? if so your lion book is in that list with mine under photography too.

Yes, you can go there from iPad.

Go to Categories->Professional & Technical. Then click on the button "Professional & Technical" button on top, you should see "Education".

Yes, WINKtoLEARN (that's the name of our partner). You can't see your chart in sub-category in iPad, but you can see that in iTunes.

This is how the Education page looks like in iPad. No chart, but got New & Noteworthy (our book Zebra is up there).

You can also see "What's Hot" - my other free book "Virtual GS" is up there.

I think I submitted my (paid) book on March 8. After a couple days I noticed a message about an undefined metadata problem. I used the Contact Us form to ask and few days later got an explanation. I fixed and reuploaded got a reply to an email saying it would take 10 days.

On the 10th day, that error went away and was replaced by a more specific error concerning the cover. I fixed and uploaded a new cover and even though I got errors on the upload, my ticked chaged to indicate they had it so I left it alone.

Today, about 5 days after uploading a new cover, my ticket shows as resolved and the status now just says it's being reviewed for quality assurance.

That's progress! I am hopeful I'll be in the store soon.

limtc wrote:

 

Yes, you can go there from iPad.

 

Go to Categories->Professional & Technical. Then click on the button "Professional & Technical" button on top, you should see "Education".

 

Yes, WINKtoLEARN (that's the name of our partner). You can't see your chart in sub-category in iPad, but you can see that in iTunes.

yes i see that now, I never knew that before, it's well hidden, i wonder how many other people know to use that button to change category.

So you are in number 1 spot on the new and noteworthy, same as me in the photography section, but this is just because out books are newly released right? We aren't number 1 in that section are we? My downloads are around 100 per day so I can't see how that would make me number 1.

Are yours paid book or free book? If it is a paid book - 100 per day is an excellent result!

New & Noteworthy does not determine the chart position. The Top 10 chart only shown for top level categories on iPad, but does shown in iTunes Store.

My ibook paid book took about 30 days for approval. It did finally get approved without any problems.

Fruits & Veggies

limtc wrote:

 

Are yours paid book or free book? If it is a paid book - 100 per day is an excellent result!

 

New & Noteworthy does not determine the chart position. The Top 10 chart only shown for top level categories on iPad, but does shown in iTunes Store.

free book. yes 100 paid per day would be great lol.

free apps for example I have submitted have had more than 1000 per day downloads so I feel 100 is low.

Ok now I am confused, so you said "The Top 10 chart only shown for top level categories on iPad, but does shown in iTunes Store."

but above you said:

"However, the good news is: 2 of our animal books (Zebra and Lion) seems to make into top 10 chart for US Education"

How do you get to see the top 10 chart for US education, I would like to see the top 10 chart for US Photography. In ipad I can only see top books for the category of "Professional & Technical" under the Top Charts tab. And in itunes tore under education all I can see is:

New & Noteworthy

What's Hot

All Education Books

but on the side I can see Top Charts, but your book isn't there so I am looking in the wrong place, HELP!

EDIT - Wait, I can see top 10 in Itunes for photography, in the right handside under free books mine is number 2! And in the whole category of Arts and Entertainment it is number 4. Hmmmm, so 100 books per day isn't low then? Seems people don't download as many books as apps?

You can see the Top 10 chart of Education in iTunes! Not in iPad.

Unfortunately the books have fall off today - only in top 10 for 1 day.

100 books per day for a free book isn't low. I think the whole iBookstore sales is very low.