Publish a book to the iBooks Store

If you sell a book on the iBooks Store, you need to create a sample book for customers to view before deciding to buy the book. iBooks Author can create a sample book based on one of your book’s chapters, or you can create a custom sample book using the steps below. If you offer a book for free, providing a sample book is optional.

During the publishing process, you specify whether the book is new or an update to a previously published version. If it is an update, you must provide a new version number. Readers who downloaded your book are notified in iBooks that a new version is available.

Create a custom sample book

Do one of the following:
- Duplicate your book and delete chapters and pages you don’t want to appear in the sample book.
  If you use this method, be sure to check for broken links and glossary terms.
- Create a new book and copy items into it from the complete book.
With the sample book open, choose File > Export, and click iBooks.
Click the disclosure triangle next to iBooks Store Options and follow the onscreen instructions.
Click Next.
Type a name for the sample, choose where you want to save it, and click Export.
An iBooks file (with the extension .ibooks) is created. Follow the steps below to submit the sample along with your book.

Publish a book to the iBooks Store

Note: Make sure to use the latest version of iBooks Author to publish your book. To check, choose Apple menu > Software Update.

With the book open, click Publish in the toolbar or choose File > Publish.
Follow the onscreen instructions.
For more information, see iBooks Store publishing overview.
A book file with the extension .itmsp is created.
Click Open in iTunes Producer.
To add a custom sample book, drag the iBooks file (with the extension .ibooks) to the sample book area in iTunes Producer.
Follow the onscreen instructions to publish to the iBooks Store.

After iBooks Author creates your book file, make sure the file is no larger than 2 GB (the iBooks Store file size limit). Also, note the following:

Readers using a 3G connection can’t download books larger than 100 MB. If you create your sample book manually, make sure you keep the size of your sample book smaller than 100 MB.
The larger the book, the longer it takes to download, and the more storage it uses. Movies in particular can be very large. For best results, keep your book file smaller than 1 GB.