Apple Books is a curated shelf with a small audience and a high spend per reader. It also has the strictest metadata requirements of any store, and a record submitted carelessly stays wrong for months because nobody is prompted to fix it. Getting it right once is the whole job.
What you receive
- A complete iTunes Connect record: title, subtitle, series and volume, contributors with roles, language and territory rights.
- Category and keyword mapping to Apple’s own taxonomy, which is shorter and less forgiving than Amazon’s.
- Age rating and content flags set correctly — the usual reason a romance is quietly hidden from search.
- Preview and asset guidance: the sample percentage and the promotional images Apple expects for featured consideration.
- A pre-submission check so the file passes on the first attempt rather than in a week-long loop.
How the setup runs
- Collect the identifiers — ISBN or Apple ID, plus any existing record that needs correcting.
- Map the categories honestly; Apple’s reviewers reject mismatches rather than ignoring them.
- Write the description for the store’s typography, which supports bolding but not custom HTML.
- Submit and verify that the book appears in its categories and returns in search for its own keywords.
Where Apple differs from Amazon
Three things matter. Apple’s categories are broad, so a niche placement is impossible and the differentiator becomes the description and the cover. Keywords are entered as a comma-separated list with a hard character limit, and repeating words wastes the allowance. And the store is browsed on a device where the sample download is one tap away, which makes the first chapter’s opening line a conversion element rather than a formality.
Pre-orders, series and pricing tiers
Apple supports pre-orders properly, and a book set up as part of a series inherits a series page that lists every volume in order. Both are worth configuring before launch rather than after, because the series page is a discovery surface of its own and a broken volume order makes a set look unfinished. We also check the price tier and territory list, since a book priced only for the United States is invisible to readers in every other storefront.
The sample is the pitch
Apple’s reader downloads a sample before buying, and the sample ends wherever the percentage falls. If that boundary lands mid-scene the reader feels cheated; if it lands on a chapter break they feel satisfied and want the rest. We set the preview deliberately rather than leaving the default, usually landing it on a scene end, and check that the first screen of the sample carries a line worth continuing for.
Pricing
| Tier | Scope | Price | Was | You save |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | 1 ebook | $20 | $30 | |
| Professional | 3 ebooks | $60 | $75 | |
| Bulk / Authority | 5 ebooks | $100 | $100 |
Frequent questions
Do you need my Apple account access?
We work with a content provider account invitation, or prepare every field for you to paste if you prefer to submit yourself.
Can you fix a record that is already live?
Yes — metadata corrections go through the same interface and usually appear within 24 hours.
Does Apple allow the same cover as Amazon?
Yes, though we check it at phone size, where Apple’s shelf crops differently.
Set up Apple Books — send the identifiers and the current record link if there is one.