Apples new iOS 8 a plus for ebooks

Tuesday, June 3, 2014  
Apple's New iOS 8 is Game-Changer for eBook Retailing

Yesterday Apple unveiled iOS 8, the new Apple operating system upgrade that will come out this fall. Buried in a slide during the live demo event referenced as "iOS 8 features we didn’t have time to talk about" was an ebook retailing bombshell:  iBooks will come pre-installed on iOS 8. The iBooks app is Apple's ebook store.  Inside that app are over 250,000 books from Smashwords authors. This is a game-changer for ebook retailing. iBooks will come pre-loaded on every device with iOS 8. Image modified from original sourced from BGR.com According to the latest public information, there are over 800 million devices (iPhone, iPod touch, iPad) running prior versions of Apple's iOS. The new iOS will be available as a free upgrade to users of the iPhone 4s, iPhone 5, iPhone 5c, iPhone 5s, iPod touch 5th generation, iPad 2, iPad with Retina display, iPad Air, iPad mini and iPad mini with Retina tdisplay. Prior to iOS 8, readers who wanted to shop iBooks were forced to click to the Apple App store, search for the iBooks app, sign in with their email address and password, and then install it. The absence of a pre-installed app created unnecessary friction. It means only a fraction of Apple's customer base today has convenient access to your books (which makes the enormous success of iBooks all the more impressive).  Yesterday's news means iBooks will become ubiquitous. It'll be like having a bookstore in nearly one billion pockets and purses.  It's not a stretch to speculate that within a couple years, the iBooks app will be ever-present on over one billion devices around the world. Apple's brilliant move will place your books just one or two clicks from being discovered by readers. How can you make the most of this new development?   Make sure all your books are at iBooks ASAP.  As we announced May 18, Smashwords now delivering ebooks to iBooks five times daily, seven days per week, and many of our books and preorder listings are going live in the store within hours of us delivering them.  If your books are locked in the dungeon of exclusivity elsewhere, release them today on Smashwords!  If you're not yet on Smashwords, click here to get started today.   Promote direct hyperlinks to iBooks.  Make sure that on your blog, website and in all your social media promotions that you're providing a direct hyperlink to your books at iBooks.  With a direct hyperlink, your book page will open directly within the reader's iOS device, and with another click they can purchase it.  Use Apple's Link Maker or Widget Builder tools to find links or create attractive widgets that point directly to your book at iBooks.   Link your series with Smashwords Series Manager.  If you write series, make sure your books are linked with Smashwords' Series Manager tool, which you'll find in your Smashwords Dashboard.  We pass this enhanced metadata on to iBooks, and they use it to make series books more discoverable.  Also referenced in fine print on the slide above is a mention of enhanced series listings in iBooks for iOS 8, which means we can expect the Series Manager metadata to become more important than ever to iBooks merchandising and reader discovery. 

Congrats Smashwords authors!