iBooks formatting – Best practices

When you submit a book to iBooks store, following are the common reasons for correction or rejection. These guidelines were taken from iBooks store formatting guidelines which is available on iTunes Connect. For more detailed version, please refer to the above said document which is available on iTunes Connect.

General Guidelines

The following guidelines are applicable to all books, associated metadata, and art.

1. Use of Apple Inc. Copyrighted Terms. Books not produced by Apple Inc. must not use Apple trademarks that makes the content appear to be Apple-branded. Do not use the word “iBook” to refer to a publication or to the general category of ebooks.
2. Metadata, cover art, and the book asset must match and accurately represent the book.
3. The appropriate language must be designated in the metadata and must match the main language of the book’s text. The primary script (character set) and language a book is written in must match the metadata’s script and language.
4. The iBooks Store does not distribute books written in the following languages or scripts:

• Amharic
• Persian (Farsi)
• Malay (Jawi/Arabic Script)
• Arabic
• Hebrew
• Sinhala
• Aramaic
• Khmer
• Tamil
• Burmese
• Lao
• Urdu

The following languages are supported by iBooks. The  mark indicates if EPUB 3 is required to display the language correctly.

• Brazilian
• Portuguese
• Italian
• British English
• Japanese 
• Catalan
• Korean
• Chinese (Simplified) 
• Malay 
• Chinese (Traditional) 
• Norwegian
• Croatian
• Polish
• Czech
• Portuguese (Portugal)
• Danish
• Romanian
• Dutch
• Russian
• English
• Slovakian
• Finnish
• Spanish
• French
• Swedish
• German
• Thai
• Greek
• Turkish
• Hungarian
• Ukrainian
• Indonesian
• Vietnamese

 Authors

The main authors credited on the cover must be supplied in the metadata. The authors indicated as primary will be used to describe, organize, and search for the book. Following are some of the guidelines to be followed for not to be rejected while delivering the book to iBooks store.

1. The primary authors must be clearly indicated as primary.

2. Author’s name must be formatted correctly with standard spelling and capitalization. Do not format author names as Last, First, except for sort name field where this format is required.

3. If author has already content available on iBooks or iTunes then keep the author name consistent across all content available.

4. Don’t include extra information beyond the name such as roles, dates or any additional information.

5. If there is more than one author credited, each author must be listed individually and identified as Primary.

6. Authors may remain unknown by using Anonymous or Unknown. Otherwise, books without a credited author must use Publisher’s name as author in metadata.

 Series Name and Number

For books that are part of a series must adhere to following guidelines.

1. Series information must be accurate, spelled correctly, and match the covert art and book asset file.

2. The name of the series must be included in the series name section of the metadata.

3. The book number within the series must be included in the Number in Series section of the metadata.

4. The Number in Series must be a numeric value only.

5. Series information must follow the same casing and capitalization guidelines as titles and subtitles.

6. The series name must be consistent with all other books in the series.

 Titles and Subtitles

Titles and Subtitles are most important for proper display on iBooks.

Following are the guidelines to be adhered:

1. The title and subtitle must be spelled correctly and match the cover art and book asset file.

2. Don’t include any additional information such as advertising.

3. If the book has a subtitle, then it must be entered in the subtitle field.

4.The title or subtitle must be given as intended by the author without any censor. The iBooks Store censors explicit words in titles.

5. Edition information from the same author must be differentiated in either the title or subtitle fields.

6. The word “Exclusive” must not be part of the tile or subtitle when used as acclaim.

7. Titles and subtitles must not include wording that refers to pricing, such as “reduced price”, “Low Price”, etc.

8. Competing websites. Titles and subtitles must not include references to other booksellers to describe the book, such as “Amazon version”, “Kindle Version”, etc.

9. Nonstandard capitalization is not allowed in Titles and subtitles even if shown that way on the cover art.

10. English titles and subtitles must be in title case format .

11. French, Italian, Swedish, Spanish, and Portuguese languages must use sentence casing.

12. German titles and subtitles must use sentence casing, and capitalize the first letter of every noun.

Description

The description is one of your book’s most powerful customer-facing marketing tools on iBooks. This should accurately describe the book and  formatted correctly. Avoid unnecessary information like pricing or retailer references.

1. The description must be accurate.
2. Provide the complete information. Don’t repeat the information that was already provided in the metadata.
3. Formatting also is very important. Sentence casing must be used with correct use of line breaks. Don’t use bold text.
4. Don’t use bad HTML tags. <font>, <table>,<div>,<ol> tags must not be used, as they cause display issues on the iBooks store. Ensure that your description does not include “escaped” HTML tags.
5. Avoid misleading description like referring the physical content or content that is not included, such as “CD”, “Disc” or “Audiobook”.
6. Don’t try to upsell to another, more complete version of the same product.
7. Don’t promote competing websites that sell eBooks or compete with the iBooks store.
8. Don’t include wording that refers to pricing, such as “Reduced Price”, “ Low Price” or “Available for $9.99”.
9. Don’t reference or promote content that may be included in a future update.
10. Description must be unique and not a duplicate used for multiple books.
11. Don’t advertise or market other products or services.
12. Description must be an accurate description of the book’s content. Description issues that can lead to customer complaints or contusion will result in adjustments in metadata or removal of the book.

What’s New Description

EPUB3 and Multi-touch book updates with version numbers must include a What’s New description to describe the changes made in the update which will be displayed in the iBooks store.

1. EPUB3 and Multi-Touch book updates with version numbers must include a What’s New description to describe the changes made in the update.
2. This should accurately describe the changes made to the updated version of the book.
3. Must be formatted correct. Sentence casing must be used with correct use of line breaks.
4. Don’t include any extra information, such as advertising.
5. Don’t use HTML tags.

Accents and Characters

Designate the appropriate language in the metadata to ensure that accents and characters appear correctly. When providing metadata in other languages, all appropriate accents and characters in the text are required.

1. Supported languages must always use the appropriate accents and characters. Note that the appropriate accents for French titles must be included even on capital letters.
2. Do not use digraphs instead of common German characters.

Subject Category

Use the subject category a customer would expect while browsing a physical bookstore. Provide at least one subject category and  cannot have more than two categories per category scheme. Subject categories are automatically mapped to the most appropriate iBooks category and localized for each iBooks Store territory.

1. The subject category must best describe the book and not misclassified.
2. Other subject category issues that can lead to customer confusion and complaints will result in adjustments to the metadata or removal of the book.

Publisher Name

Should be consistent for all books from the publisher.

1. The publisher name is a must.
2. It should be consistent for all books from the same publisher.
3. Must be spelled correctly and match the representation of the name on publisher’s website and marketing materials.

Publication Date

1.       The publication date must correspond with the first release of either the digital or physical product, whichever occurs first, regardless of the publisher. Subsequent versions must still be given the date of the first version and not the date of any subsequent versions where as subsequent editions with substantial changes must be given the date of that particular release. Include the edition information in the book’s title to differentiate multiple editions of a book. Don’t include publication date in the title or subtitle field.

2.       The date must always be on or before the sales start date. Future dates are not allowed.

Screenshots

Screenshots are one of the most powerful marketing tools available, especially for books with visual content. Screenshots are optional.

1. Screenshots must be 1024×768, 768×1024, 2048×1536, or 1536×2048 pixels, in RGB color space, and in the JPG or PNG file format. Status bars can be removed from screenshots, in which case the resolution requirements are 1024×748, 768×1004, 2048×1496, or 1536×2008 pixels. The formats and sizes will be rejected.
2. Don’t use the book’s cover as a screenshot.
3. Screenshot s must accurately represent the book. Include only the images that are in the book.

Cover Art

Cover Art is an important visual representation of your book and will be on the store and the bookshelf.

1. The art must accurately represent the book with spelled correctly to match the information provided in the metadata and book.
2. The art must be at least 1400 pixels on the shortest side.
3. It should only include the front cover and not the back cover. It should be of good quality.
4. It should be unique and not duplicated.
5. It should not mislead like referring the physical content or content that is not included such as CD, DISC or Audio Book.
6. It should not upsell to another, more complete version of the same product.
7. The art must not promote competing websites that sell ebooks or complete with iBooks.
8. The art must not contain unnecessary borders that are extraneous.
9. The art must not be a setup shot, three quarter image, or a 3D representation of the book. Don’t use photographs of the physical book cover.
10. Don’t use wording that refers pricing, such as “Reduced Price”, etc.
11. Don’t refer any physical retailer on the cover art.
12. Avoid reference to physical format such as Larger Text, First time in Print, etc.
13. The cover art must not depict Nazi symbolism as restricted by Strafgesetzbuch section 86a if the content is cleared for sale in Germany, Austria, Switzerland or any other country which restricts Nazi propaganda. If this kind of cover is submitted three times, the entire catalogue will be suspended in restricted countries for up to six months.
14. Must not advertise or market other products or services.
15. Must not contain materials that infringe the rights of others.
16. Other cover art issues that can lead to customer complaints will result in adjustment to the metadata or the removal of the book.

Book Asset File

Book Asset File refers to the digital asset file for a particular book like .EPUB or .ibooks file. All book files must provide the best customer experience in terms of quality, functionality and accuracy.

1. Books must be correct and contain the content indicated by the cover art and metadata.
2. Books must be complete and there should not be any missing chapters, referenced indices, footnotes, or other content. iBooks Textbooks submitted in complete sets of individual chapters are acceptable.
3. Samplers and excerpts are incomplete books and note accepted. The iBooks Store automatically offers customers the option to preview free samples.
4. Don’t submit test versions of your book.
5. All images, maps, charts, tables, media, and sections must be correctly placed in the book. Content must not be misplaced, mismatched, out of order, or incorrect.
6. The book content must not be misleading like referring to physical content or content that is not included such as CD, DISC, etc.
7. The book asset must not refer to pricing.
8. The books must not promote competing websites that sell eBooks or compete with iBooks.
9. The book must contain proper formatting.
10. Font and font sizes must be stylistically consistent throughout the book. Text that is part of the main body of the book must not be embedded in images. Some of the common issues are that the text that is part of the main body of the book must not be submitted as scanned images. Characters like diacritical marks, ligature marks, and language characters must not be submitted as images. The text must not have illegible or cut off characters. The text must not contain incorrect characters, encoding errors, or OCR errors resulting in spelling that is inconsistent with the original text.
11. Spelling and grammar must be consistent with the author’s intent. Supported languages must always use the appropriate accents and characters. Spaces, hyphenation, and punctuation must be grammatically correct.
12. Common images quality issues are:
13. Images broken across pages
14. Image alignment
15. The size of the image must not exceed 3.2 million pixels.
16. Image may not be blurry , pixilated, mismatched, misaligned, rotated, incorrect or have other quality issues
17. Tables must display correctly with properly formatted rows and columns.
18. Indices and footnotes must be included if present in the original text and they must link back to the originating text. Don’t use scanned images as indices or footnotes.
19. All books must open and function as expected in the latest version of iBooks on all applicable devices like Mac, iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. Books must not perform poorly or crash.
20. All links must be functional and lead the user to the correct location.
21. Books must not contain placeholder text such as “Lorem ipsum” text or placeholder images.
22. Books must be of sufficient length or functionality.
23. Books must reach a substantial audience.
24. Books must not contain marketing materials or advertisements except as part of a catalog. Books may refer related products that are offered on the iTunes store, App Store, etc.
25. Books must not contain materials that infringe the rights of others.
26. The book must not contain Nazi symbolism as restricted by the Strafgesetzbuch section 86a.
27. Books must comply with all legal requirements in any location where they are made available to users. It is publisher’s obligation to understand and conform to all local laws.
28. Book must not transmit user data without clarifying the user that data is being transmitted to a third party.
29. The book must not reference or promote content that is not included in the current version of the book  which may be included in a future update.
30. The book must not attempt to upsell to another, more complete version of the same product.
31. Flowing EPUBs must not contain page numbers embedded within the body of the text. Reference to physical page numbers must be defined via the EPUB page-list functionality. Embedded page numbers in fixed layout EPUBs and Multi-Touch books must match the page numbers generated in iBooks.
32. Interactivity in iBooks on  a Mac requires mouse or trackpad input while interactivity on iOS devices requires touch input. The script must take into account both touch and mouse or trackpad events.
33. iBooks app does not have interactive features that enable writing on the actual page. Books that require the customer to write on the page must provide interactive writing or coloring or may be rejected. Books that are not primarily workbooks but contain a small number of question and answer sections are acceptable.
34. A custom-created sample must be provided for Multi-Touch and Read Aloud books.
35. Other book asset issues that can lead to confusion or customer complaints may result in removal fo the book.

EPUB Files

EPUBs should include a table of contents created using an NCX(EPUB2) or Navigation Document (EPUB3), avoid including page numbers in the body of the book’s text, and should not require interactive features that are not supported by the iBooks app such as writing on the page, etc.

For additional guidelines, see the following documentation available on iTunes Connect:

• iBooks store asset guide
• iBooks store EPUB example
• iBooks store Fixed Layout EPUB example

1. All books must contain a complete listing of all chapters or book sections.
2. Some languages require the book to be formatted according to the EPUB 3 specification.

Books with Audio or Video Files

If your books has audio or video files, be sure the media has good quality and is placed correctly in the book.

1. The media file should not have any kind of quality issues.
2. The media should not be placed in the wrong section of the tbook.
3. The book must have duplicate audio or video files.

Books Created with iBooks Author

Be sure that widgets function in books created with iBooks Author. Replace iBooks Author placeholder template art with your original artwork.

1. Books must not include incorrect, missing, or poorly functioning widget.
2. Don’t include iBooks Author template art unless related to the subject matter of the book.

Duplicate Books

Books with the same title and by the same author appear as duplicate books on iBooks store, regardless of the difference in price, subtitle, page numbers, description, or cover art. If you are submitting a different version of the same book, be sure to differentiate the version using the title.

Common reasons for correction or rejection are:

1. If you have provided duplicate books, one of them must be removed from iBooks store. If one of the books offers more content than the standard version or is an abridged version, you must indicate the difference in the title of the book.
2. Publishers spamming the iBooks store with many versions of similar books may be blocked from distributing their books on the iBooks store.