# Apple Getting Serious About Selling E-Books?



## Marc (Sep 18, 2014)

Publisher's Lunch has an article about Apple's new mobile operating system, iOS8, saying the iBooks app will be pre-installed. Before, the app had to be downloaded.

Bottom Line Potential: In June 2013, the app had been downloaded 150 million times worldwide. Septemper 2014, Apple said they had already sold 800 million iOS devices and the phones don't hit the shelves until tomorrow. (19 Sept.)


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## InstituteMan (Sep 18, 2014)

I would be thrilled to see Apple get big as a platform for ebooks in general and indie publishing in particular. The initial iBooks announcement was hyped and done well, as if Apple had big ambitions, but then the whole system kind of fizzled. That whole antitrust case didn't help them any. 

I have read several books on iBooks, and I actually like its interface better than the Kindle interface, but that doesn't matter much if the books I want aren't available. It's a chicken and egg kind of a problem. Without iBooks readers, there won't be authors writing for iBooks; but without iBooks authors there won't be many iBooks readers. Apple does have the advantage of a ginormous user base and plenty of money to throw at the problem, though, so I wouldn't count them out. I would welcome the platform competition as both a reader and as an aspiring writer.


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## Seedy M. (Sep 18, 2014)

I have a lot of books that are for sale through Apple. I even sell a few there. My only objection to them is that they are run like a bureaucracy, with a lot of "rules" you are to follow. While I agree most of them are good rules, a few are not. They are no less than censorship.
They pitch to suppliers about how powerful their iPod market will be, then try to impose those rules on the publisher. Luckily, I can opt out of having the work there. B&N are my best market, personally. NOOK has sold a lot of my work.
I have noticed that Apple moves a lot of some work. It's unfortunate it's the free stuff.


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