Apple’s iBooks is notoriously slow for self-publishing so it’s a real turn-up that Smashwords seem to have reached an agreement with iBooks where deliveries and listings have become much faster.
Some authors have reported that their books have appeared for sale at iBooks on the same day they upload to Smashwords. Updates such as changes to price and metadata made in the Smashwords Dashboard for Premium Catalog-approved books are also often being reflected within hours at iBooks.
Smashwords says it is now shipping to iBooks five times daily and seven days a week to iBooks and is aiming to increase the frequency.
It says the faster listings at iBooks are due in great part to iBooks recognizing the continuous improvements of the Smashwords vetting team in efficiency and accuracy..
The vetting team manually inspects thousands of new titles and updates each week to ensure they meet the requirements of our retail partners and the expectations of readers. Erotica titles go through an additional manual review by Apple, so they won’t list as quickly.
Many Smashwords authors have built massive readership at iBooks over the last year, helped by the power of preorders and the enhanced series listings enabled by Series Manager,
Smashwords has made pre-order distribution one of its biggest developmental priorities over the last 12 months and the efforts have paid off, with numerous Smashwords authors topping the charts at iBooks and elsewhere.
The Smashwords Series Manager tool was launched last September with iBooks expressly in mind.