Why do I have to convert an ibook to epub to sell it?

If you want to sell a book in the .ibooks format, you must do so via the iBookstore, those are the license conditions for using the free iBA software.

If you want to sell your book via some other channel, you must use a different format.

Note that the .ibooks format can only be read on an iPad with the iBooks app, no other way. If you want people to read your book on an iPhone or iPod touch or any laptop or desktop or other device, you must use a different format as well.

If you are not happy with the way any of this works, you can tell Apple via

http://www.apple.com/feedback

According to your iBA user agreement, you can only sell it's hybrid output in the store...that's the only place it is supported since iBooks and iPad are required to consume it.

I recommend authoring/mastering in Pages, as one example, which outputs a standard epub format, and then branching that content laterally to iBA, rather than mastering in iBA and then looking for other channels.

Dang... i remember this now, .ibook format is for iPad only and in order to publish a book on the iBookstore and have it be compatible with iPhone or iPod Touch, you have to create it in the ePUB format. Can you confirm my understanding on this?

Also, then do you know the process for updating an existing published book - can one simply submit a new version? in the ePUB format?

Thanks - this was helpful and i think answers the question i just posted.