Apple Books for Authors: free direct listing, pre-orders and 250 promo codes per e-book

Topic: putting Cedwyn e-books on Apple Books directly (no aggregator, no fee) and using Apple's free promotion tools: pre-orders, samples, 250 promo codes per book, official badges and affiliate links. Apple Books was missing from the free-storefront files (Kobo / itch / Books2Read / Google Play). Added 2026-10-26 (skills harvest 14:52).

The facts (Apple's own pages plus practitioner write-ups, read 26 Oct 2026)

• Cost: nothing. No listing, upload or yearly fee; 70% royalty at any price; no exclusivity; no price-matching rule; no delivery fee (Written Word Media summary of Apple's terms; Chapter's 2026 guide agrees). Payment within 45 days of month end once tax/banking are complete; outside the listed currencies the payment threshold is US$40.
• No Mac needed. Since the Apple Books for Authors relaunch, an EPUB can be uploaded from any browser through the web publishing portal (authors.apple.com) with an iTunes Connect account. A Pages import route also exists on Mac.
• Pre-orders: up to 12 months ahead of publication; Apple wants the cover, files and a sample. Description and date can be changed later. Apple's launch guide: "the more pre-orders you have on your release date, the better your odds of gaining visibility".
• Promo codes: every directly-published e-book gets up to 250 free promo codes. They can be made as soon as the book is approved, including during pre-order. Each batch expires four weeks after it is requested, and codes only redeem in territories where the book is on sale. The button shows only for books "On Store" or "Ready for Store". Codes are a direct-publisher perk; books sent via an aggregator ask the aggregator.
• Marketing assets: official "Available on Apple Books" badges and generated Apple-branded art at authors.apple.com The Apple Services Performance Partners affiliate programme gives trackable links (commission rates not checked here).
• Not pursued: aggregators take a cut on top of Apple's 30% (Chapter puts it at 10-15%), and Draft2Digital is never used (activation fee; zero-spend rule).

How to do it

1. Owner step: create or sign in to an Apple Account, accept the Apple Books agreement in iTunes Connect, and add UK bank and tax details (W-8BEN for a UK individual). Only the owner can do this. No card or payment is needed.
2. Validate each EPUB first with our existing epub_lint / epubcheck routine (epub-editions-sphinx-epubcheck.md). Apple rejects files that fail EPUBCheck.
3. Upload via the web portal: title, series name (so volumes link together), language per edition (cy / en / es as separate books), BISAC History > Europe > Great Britain / Latin America > South America, price in GBP. Keep Apple's price in line with /ebooks/ so direct buyers are not undercut.
4. Set the sample: Apple's sample is the opening of the book, so put the strongest record page (the 1824 survey entry, or the object register opener) in the first 10%, ahead of long front matter.
5. For the next volume, open a pre-order 6-12 weeks ahead and send the Apple link with the /ebooks/ link in the newsletter.
6. Promo codes: request only what you will hand out within 4 weeks (e.g. 20). Give them to reviewers, librarians, local history societies, Welsh-Patagonian societies and podcast hosts after the owner OKs each batch. Log code, recipient and date in the project workspace Ask each reader for an Apple Books rating.
7. Add the Apple badge beside the buy button on /ebooks/ (marked as an alternative store) and in e-book back matter. Track with UTM on our own links; Apple reports units by territory in iTunes Connect.

How we apply it to Cedwyn

• Order: list the English edition of the first e-book and the free/cheapest title first. That tests Apple's review and payment set-up before adding the cy/es editions and the Enwau names e-book.
• Why it suits Cedwyn: promo codes give a zero-cost way to put real copies in front of the archivists and societies we already contact, without sending files around.
• To check at upload: whether Apple accepts Welsh (cy) as a book language in the portal's list. If not, list the cy edition with its Welsh title and note the language in the description.
• Owner steps (only he can do): Apple account and agreement, banking/tax form, and a GO on each promo-code batch. Nothing is published or sent without that.

Sources

• authors.apple.com
• authors.apple.com
• authors.apple.com
• authors.apple.com
• itunespartner.apple.com
• writtenwordmedia.com
• blog.chapter.pub (May 2026)
• kboards.com (practitioner report of the web portal)

Raw Markdown: apple-books-direct-promo-codes-preorders.md · version and changes: changelog · machine index: agents.json