To be able able to distribute your interactive book app as a free or paid app, it needs to be in the Apple App Store. Demibooks Printshop is a service that allows you to publish your Composer books. We compile them into standalone books apps, provide you with software builds for testing, and then submit to Apple under your own brand or Seller account.

The Printshop is open now! Contact us at printshop@demibooks.com. We are also building infrastructure to automate this process as and will have more details on that soon. Until then, we are ready to fulfil Printshop requests, just drop us a line.

Composer creates a DCB file that needs to be finalised (into a binary file) before it can be submitted to Apple. The DCB file itself cannot be submitted to Apple. Printshop takes your DCB file, performs some basic optimization to the book, creates standalone test builds for you to test and handles submission of the final build to Apple.

If you’re an experienced iOS developer, then the Do It Yourself plan (see DIY under Pricing) is perfect for you. We’ll provide a Certificate Signing Request that you can use to you generate the Dev Certificate and PP files from the iOS Dev Portal. Once you submit your DCB file to us, we’ll compile it and send it back to you for submission to Apple.

Our Pro or Pro+ plans will be suitable if you need more help in the publishing process than what the DIY level offers. You can submit the book to us directly for publishing. The steps are as follows.

1. Purchase an iOS Developer license from Apple at: http://developer.apple.com/programs/which-program

2. Create your interactive book using Composer. If you haven't already installed Composer on your iPad, you can get it here (http://bit.ly/getcomposer/).

3. When your book is finished, export it as a .DCB file using Dropbox or iTunes. This step is detailed in our User Guide here (http://bit.ly/dcGUIDEv1)

4. Review the pricing levels.

5. Contact us on printshop@demibooks.com. We'll walk you through the process from there.

6. We'll take care of the rest.

The Printshop pricing for self-publishing to the App Store has three levels. You will publish under your own brand, ie you will be listed as the Seller on the App Store.

1. The DIY plan | $499. If you are keen on doing most of this yourself, get your own Apple Developer certificates so we can build the standalone app for you. We’ll give you a couple of test builds for you test your book app on the iPad. You can upload the final compiled app to Apple yourself.

2. The Pro plan | $699. You’ll provide us your Apple iOS developer account details and we’ll do the work of obtaining developer certificates, compile the standalone app and give you a couple of test builds for you test your book app on the iPad. We’ll submit to Apple on your behalf.

3. Pro+ plan | $999. Want the support? Let us help you out. You get everything offered in the Pro plan plus a creative review we carry out on your book and additional marketing support.

*Please note: these prices are for EACH submission to Printshop. Prices are listed in USD.

Demibooks provides consultation services to help in this instance. You can use our a la carte pricing to also modify your app in the event of new iOS releases breaking your app. Examples post-release support for existing book apps could include inclusion of minor new features in your book and re-submission. In this case, you would use Composer to update your app and submit to us again using Printshop.

These services are arranged on an hourly basis and we will evaluate your changes on an individual basis. Email us at printshop@demibooks.com. Please note, this feature is meant to give you a path to make minor updates if needed, not to publish an entirely new book!

Although most features should generally work for future iOS and hardware releases, we cannot guarantee it. If your book is released now and certain functions stop working in the future, you can request our a la carte services to update the book’s compatibility.

We are building a community of creative people who are adept at creating interactive books on our platform. We may be able to point you in the right direction and connect you with others who can help to create your book. For example, if you are an author looking for an illustrator to work with, we may be able to make a connection. For custom development of your book app, we may be able to assist via Demibooks Studios on a selective basis. Please contact us at info@demibooks.com for more information.

You keep all of the download revenue from the self-published plans outlined here. Apple keeps 30% of every transaction, and your share is 70%. Demibooks does not take any download revenue share from when you publish to the App Store under your own brand.

In order to get an iOS Developer Account, head over to http://developer.apple.com/programs/which-program/, and follow the steps outlined. You must have an Intel-based Mac running Mac OS X Snow Leopard or later to submit iOS apps to the App Store. Individual developer accounts cost $99 in the US (and fairly similar prices elsewhere). Company accounts are the same price, and enable you to publish apps to the App Store under your company name (rather than your personal name).

Apple usually approves new Individual account signups within a few hours (up to 24), but be warned that a Company account can sometimes take weeks to be approved, as Apple will require you to fax relevant documents as evidence that you are in fact authorized to represent your company. For this reason, we recommend anyone looking to publish under a Company account begin the iOS Developer account signup process immediately.

Demibooks will fix platform bugs if you find any that impact your book. You won't have to wait until the next point release of Composer, because we will use the latest Composer internal builds to create your book in the Printshop. If we find platform bugs, we'll fix the bug and update the version of Composer that Printshop uses to create your standalone book app.

For the DIY and Pro plans, you get 2 free test builds. For Pro+ plan, you get 3 test builds.

If there is an identified technical problem with the platform then Demibooks will fix it. If the app is rejected due to beach of Apple's application publication rules, then it is up to author to address these issues, including apps that are unstable due to excessive or weighty content.

The publishing fees for the Pro and Pro+ plans provides 1 submission and 1 re-submission to allow authors to make updates based on Apple's feedback should the app be rejected in the first round.

There are many reasons an iOS app might theoretically be rejected from the App Store, most of which are detailed in Apple's official the App Store Review Guidelines document (for which you must sign up as an iOS Developer to read in full). Many of the reasons listed there are unlikely to apply to most book apps made in Composer, because we've designed our platform with these guidelines already in mind. There are however, some risks remaining - that you should be aware of.

Crashes
The most common reason that any iOS app is rejected by Apple's review process is because it crashes a lot. Any app may crash sometimes, even Apple's native apps do it from time to time. But sometimes an app comes along that is clearly not stable at the best of times - and Apple will usually reject those.

For books apps made with Composer, we've done a lot of work trying to optimize memory usage, and increase responsiveness so book apps don't crash or freeze. So if your book app crashes often, the most likely reason would be that a particular page (or a number of pages) are using up a lot of memory - usually because they are displaying very large images, or a large number of images.

There are a number of ways you can reduce the memory usage of your pages that we've described elsewhere. A quick way to see if your page is using too much memory is to look at the memory gauge in the top left of the Workbench. If the gauge is green or orange, you should be fine, but if the gauge is red - your page may be using too much memory, and may become unstable.

Suitability For iBooks
Another reason that Apple has rejected book apps in the past is due to insufficient functionality - in other words, the app could have easily been a basic iBooks ebook because it didn't have enough animation or interactivity to justify a release on the App Store when Apple's iBookstore would be more appropriate. For a book app to be on the App Store, it has to be app-like enough not to disappoint iPad users, who have come to expect enhanced experiences from their apps. In Apple's words:
Apps that are simply a song or movie should be submitted to the iTunes store. Apps that are simply a book should be submitted to the iBookstore.

Poor Quality
If Apple's review staff judge that your app "looks like it was cobbled together in a few days", then they may reject it on quality grounds, or for "insufficient functionality". Note that nobody says your book can't be cobbled together in a few days - it just shouldn't look that way. Take care with your artwork, sound effects - everything should be the highest quality you can achieve.

Lite Version Policy
Apple have an explicit rule that any app that is "beta", "demo", "trial", or "test" will be rejected - but there is a bit of a grey area around releasing a free version of an app with reduced functionality (like fewer pages in the case of a book app) - typically labelled a "lite" version. In late 2010 we submitted both a full (paid) version and Lite (free) version of Astrojammies for the iPad to the App Store - and both versions were approved. However, more recently Apple have rejected a Lite version of a book app we submitted because, in their words:
Lite eBooks do not provide enough content or features to be useful or entertaining enough to comply with the App Store Review Guidelines.
For this reason we now recommend against authors creating Lite versions of their book apps. It seems that Lite versions of certain kinds of apps are still being accepted, but Apple have started ruling against Lite versions of book apps (referred to as "eBooks" above).

Objectionable Content
Perhaps the most surprising aspect of Apple's review process is this; although they have a "Books" category on the App Store, and gladly sell enhanced book apps - Apple apply much stricter censorship to these book apps than they do to ebooks sold in the iBookstore. So if your app may be rejected if it contains content that Apple deems to be:

1. Defamatory, offensive or mean-spirited against an individual, religion, social or racial group, or corporation

2. Depicting animals or people (particularly children) being maimed, murdered or abused

3. Encouraging illegal or reckless behavior (particularly with regards to weapons or intoxicants)

4. Excessively objectionable or crude (particularly with regards to bodily functions)

5. Pornographic or explicitly erotic

Other Reasons
Although Apple has its official App Store Review Guidelines, it's important to be aware that apps are reviewed subjectively on a case-by-case basis, and new reasons for rejections are being added regularly. Ultimately, Apple reserve the right to reject any app for any reason they see fit - but fortunately there is an appeals process for developers who feel their app was rejected unfairly. For more information, consult Apple's official App Store Resource Center, http://developer.apple.com/appstore.