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

I re-updated my description and book today.  I have asked previously how long it takes and when I contacted Apple, they said my book has been moved to the bottom of the review queue.  Any idea how long this takes- my textbook is live on the iBookstore, but needs an update drasctically!  I hope it is not as long as the review process. 

There have been reports here of the currently selling book being removed from the store while an update is under review, effectively making the book disappear from the market.

It might be a good idea to contact Apple before doing an update to find out what the situation really is.

Michi.

Not meaning to add fuel to this blaze, but in addition to the iword issue I also got flagged for a picture bounding box slightly overlapping a static headline field. It would have made more sense if a navigational link had been blocked.

I have submitted my current book as two editions; one as a normal iBook and the other which adds full animated video productions of each chapter. The non-video edition was green-lighted two days ago, the video version is stalled for unknown reason.

dmingo

Contacting Apple is pretty useless. I have a ticket that shows "my content disappeared". I checked, no issue. Passed to others to check, no issues. Reupload, a month later, same ticket asked me to fix.

Send them letter to ask for explaination, and they reply asking me to read the ticket, basically creating a loop. I guess the person doing the review and writing the letters are different person and they don't help each other.

I just submitted 4 multimedia books, converted from iBookstore but UI is iOS focus and does not look like a book (which honestly looks a little bare...). There are a few advantages on apps vs iBooks:

- it is supported on all countries not just 32. This is the main issues for us (we are from Singapore, and we can't even sell our books here!)

- it supports Chinese and other languages (many languages are not supported in iBookstore)

- the app does NOT required an ISBN number (this is a big win for everybody)

- and most important, it supports iPhone. I know ePub do too, but it is too limited. We are primary using iBA format

Any one of the reasons itself is enough to do apps rather than iBooks. I am currently leaving iBookstore development and focus on App Store (and probably Kindle/Google Play). Kindle/Nook is not the only options if your books are multimedia focus. I will feedback on my experience over there.

thye chean wrote:

 

Any one of the reasons itself is enough to do apps rather than iBooks. I am currently leaving iBookstore development and focus on App Store (and probably Kindle/Google Play). Kindle/Nook is not the only options if your books are multimedia focus. I will feedback on my experience over there.

Kindle seems like a feasible alternative. The Kindle Fire can handle audio and video, as well as HTML with CSS 3. You won't get the same fancy widget set for your development as with IBA (galleries, interactive diagrams, etc), so you'd have to come up with your own solutions for such functionality.

The advantage of developing for the Kindle is that the book can be read on iPhone and iPad as well as the Kindle (Kindle Fire if you want video and fancy interactive elements).

Apparently, the Amazon process for getting books into the store is quite efficient, and you wouldn't have the issue of not having an iBookstore in Singapore.

Michi.

When I mean Kindle, I mean Kindle Fire - doing as an app. I already have an account there with 2 major hits.

Kindle bookstore is not available in Singapore and many countries, similar to iBookstore. In fact, all versions of Kindle is not available here. So doing development will be even harder than iBooks development where almost everybody has an iPad.

thye chean wrote:

 

When I mean Kindle, I mean Kindle Fire - doing as an app. I already have an account there with 2 major hits.

 

Kindle bookstore is not available in Singapore and many countries, similar to iBookstore. In fact, all versions of Kindle is not available here. So doing development will be even harder than iBooks development where almost everybody has an iPad.

Ah, sorry, I didn't realize that there is no Singapore Amazon store.

Having looked at publishing for Kindle more closely, it currently makes a poor match to what is possible with iBooks Author. I found quite a few drawbacks:

• If you want interactive features, you really need to create a Kindle app. Not a trivial exercise. In addition, an app will show as an app, not as a book in the Amazon store. But, if what I'm selling is a book with interactive content, people are unlikely to find it because they will look in the books section.
• If you have video content in the book, you are almost completely out of luck at the moment. Video and audio that are embedded in books will currently only on iPads and iPhones that have the Kindle app installed. Video and audio will not play on a Kindle Fire, and they will not play in the Kindle reader for PC or Mac. (Clicking on an embedded video does nothing and won't even show an error message or the like.)
• Creating a book for the Kindle requires a lot more skill than what is needed with iBooks Author. The authoring tools are nowhere near as polished. You can use InDesign, Word, or various other packages, but they either have much more limited functionality or a seriously steep learning curve. Not an insurmountable obstacle, but the layout and packaging process for a Kindle book looks a lot more complex and time consuming than with iBooks Author.

The second point is pretty much a show-stopper for me because the core of my book is over two hours of video. (It's DIY book that shows various processes in videos; without the videos, the book is only a shadow of what it is meant to be.)

I expect that the video/audio limitation for the Kindle reader for PC and Mac will probably be removed fairly quickly. It's not so certain that it will be removed quickly for the Kindle Fire, even though the Kindle Fire has video and audio capabilities. (And, of course, the Kindle E-Ink devices will never play video.)

Another serious issue is that, if you buy a Kindle book with video or audio enhancements in the Amazon store, there is no warning of any kind to tell the buyer that the video and audio will only play on iPhone and iPad. (I just bought a cheap multimedia book to try this.) At the very least, I would have expected a warning or notice saying something like "The video and audio components of this book can be used only with the Kindle app on an iPhone or iPad".

The problem with this is that there is serious potential to anger customers if the multimedia content of a book is major. You run the risk of having people buy the book in all innocence and then find out that they can't see and hear the most important parts of it. Not good…

Michi.

That's why real alternatives to us (in Singapore or many parts of the world) is app. We still love Apple so we will try to do on App Store first.

We will let the existing books stay here and come back to iBookstore again when something happened like a new iBooks Author or iBooks features, or Apple opens up to more countries.

This is a general question:  About how many textbooks do you sell each day. 

Gregg Mojica wrote:

 

This is a general question:  About how many textbooks do you sell each day. 

already asked here

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3870709?tstart=0

I had a ticket with some issues. Fixed it and replaced. Ticket status now says:

Apr 12, 2012. From Apple.

Epub internals validation passed

Does that mean my book is on route for publication?

I have the exact same thing. 

What does it mean?

Thye,

Are you writing your own apps? If one has an existing ibook in iBA format, how difficult is it to turn it into an app?

Jim.