Tag Archives: self-publishing

Great Loop 2021: The Log Books

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I create a custom log book to track my time on the water.

One of my goals as I head into my “golden years” is to get charter boat captain certification. The endorsement I’m interested in is commonly known as a “six pack,” meaning that I can take up to six passengers for hire on a boat. While I don’t expect to make charter boating my fourth (or fifth?) career, I’d like the ability to be able to cover my boating costs by occasionally taking paying passengers on day or overnight trips.

(And yes, I know I don’t have an appropriate boat yet. I’m working on that, too.)

About the Six Pack

The official name for the captain’s certification I’m looking for is National Operator of Uninspected Passenger Vessel (OUPV) of Less Than 100 GRT. The common abbreviation is OUPV 6-pack. According to the US Coast Guard, which oversees these certifications:

This officer endorsement is most appropriate for uninspected passenger vessels which by law are limited to six or less passengers for hire. These are usually smaller vessels and normally engage in charter fishing, whale watching, SCUBA diving, and tour cruises.

OUPV Near Coastal endorsements may be limited to 100 miles offshore, Inland or Great Lakes in accordance with 46 CFR 11.467 and the service provided. No OUPV endorsement is valid for International voyages.

There are a number of requirements to get this certification. Here’s a simplified list; you can download a more detailed list here:

  • U.S. Citizienship
  • 18 Years or age or older
  • Medical certificate
  • Drug testing compliance
  • Mariner fees paid
  • Sea service accumulated – 360 days
  • Sea service recency – 90 days in past 3 years
  • First aid course
  • CPR course
  • Exam or course completion certificate

Sea Service

The sea service requirement will be the toughest to meet and since it must be documented on the application, I’m motivated to keep track of it.

I’ve spoken to numerous people who have told me a variety of things about what constitutes “sea service.” One person I spoke to said that because he’d grown up boating with his family, all of those day trips could be logged as sea service. He said that even though he didn’t have a record of all of those days, he could make a reasonable estimate.

I’m in the same boat — no pun intended. My family had a boat that we’d often take on day trips on the Hudson River near New York City. In fact, a common outing would be a ride around Manhattan Island or down to the Statue of Liberty or up as far north as West Point. Later, when my family moved to Long Island, my family boated out in Long Island Sound. I have no idea how many outings we did as I was growing up, but I don’t think that 50 is an unreasonable estimate.

I also have boating experience as an adult on a variety of inland bodies of water including Lake George, Lake Powell, Lake Mead, Lake Pleasant, the Colorado River, the Columbia River, Lake Chelan, and Lake Roosevelt (in WA). Some of these trips involved overnight stays on the boat. Added up, I’m sure that would account for another 50 days.

And then there’s the Learn to Navigate the Inside Passage cruise that I went on back in 2019. This was the real deal: I was one of four people on a 65-foot, 90-year-old wooden boat that cruised at the breakneck speed of 6 knots up the Inside Passage between Bellingham, WA and Ketchikan, AK. For 12 days, I was a “crew member” while we learned about navigation and piloting from Captains Jeffrey and Christine. The following year, I joined them again for another 4 days on the water in the San Juan Islands. According to Captain Jeffrey, all this time could be logged.

David B at Garrison Bay
The David B at anchor in Garrison Bay.

It’s that time that was most valuable given that of the 360 days I needed on the water, 90 days of service had to be on Ocean, Near Coastal, or Great Lakes waters, depending on the kind of charter services I wanted to offer. Because I wanted to offer Near Coastal charter services in the San Juan Islands and possibly on portions of the Great Loop, I needed that Near Coastal time.

And my upcoming trip would be a huge addition to my sea service time. After all, I expected to be on the boat for about two months. That’s a lot of days of near coastal and Great Lakes time.

Finding a Book to Log Time

Of course, the best way to keep track of the time I could include in my sea service submission to the Coast Guard was to log it — much like I already log the time I fly to maintain a record of currency for my pilot certificate. With that in mind, I started looking for a “captain’s log” or “crew log” book.

And I found a lot of books that I just couldn’t see working for me.

The trouble is, most books were designed for either commercial boat captains or pleasure boaters:

  • The commercial captains’ logs had lots of form fields for entering daily boat and engine check information, weather, departure, destination, and miscellaneous paperwork information. This is the information you’d expect to be part of a legal record of every single day or trip on a commercial vessel. I simply didn’t need all of those form fields.
  • The pleasure boaters captains’ logs had less detailed forms but not much space for including a narrative of the trip. They didn’t seem concerned with logging time as much as logging where the boat went and who was on board.

I wanted something that combined features from both flavors of books, something where I could log each day of the journey and take notes for blog posts or other written accounts. And rather than enter detailed vessel information on each page — after all, I expected to be on the same handful of boats as I built my time — I wanted vessel details listed separately. I also wanted pages that summarized the days logged by month and by vessel.

So I designed my own book.

My Captain/Crew Log Book

Creating my own book pages wasn’t a big deal once I knew what I wanted on each page. After all, from about 1995 to 2012, I did layout of about half the books I wrote using a variety (over the years) of desktop publishing software: QuarkExpress, PageMaker, FrameMaker, and InDesign.

I’ve had a love/hate relationship with desktop publishing software for a while now. In my later days of writing books, I used Adobe InDesign to do page layout and then to generate PDFs and ebook format files for publishing. But when InDesign went from a pay once software package to a subscription software package, I simply stopped using it. I couldn’t see paying monthly for a software package that I only used a few times a year.

Just before I began tackling this design project, however, I got my hands on Affinity Publisher, a desktop publishing package that was inexpensive and didn’t require a subscription to use. I decided to try my hand at using it while doing this project.

It went remarkably well. Affinity Publisher was similar enough to InDesign that the learning curve was relatively easy for me. When I got stumped, I used its online help feature to figure out how to do what I needed to do. Little by little, I built up the master page styles that would make up my book. Then it was just a matter of adding pages.

Some of the design choices I made include:

  • 8.5 x 5.5 page size. This is half a standard “letter size” sheet of paper. It makes the book relatively small.
  • Spiral binding. This makes it easy to lay the book open and, if necessary, to remove pages.
  • Double sided log pages. The recto (right side) page has the form to detail the entry and it’s followed by half a page of lines for notes. The back of each page has more room for notes. Again, I wanted to be able to include a lot of notes for each logged day. I chose this format instead of spreads — where the start of each entry would be on the verso (left) side and the rest on the recto side — because I wanted to be able to remove pages if necessary. I’m still not 100% sure about this decision; I think it would work either way.

    Log Book Pages
    A log page spread. The entry starts on the recto page and ends on the following verso page.

  • Simple summaries at the beginning of the book. I could add entries here as time went on.

  • Vessel Info
    There are three double-sided Vessel Info pages that I can use to enter details about up to 12 boats.

    Vessel details at the beginning of the book. Each vessel could be listed on a half-page form at the beginning of the book. This keeps those details off the log pages. I write the vessel name in the log page and then can cross reference it to details in the vessel list.

Log Book Cover
Here’s the book’s cover, with a nice photo of Nano on it.

I got a high-res photo of the boat I’ll be on this summer, Nano, to put on the cover.

I used a service called Printivity to print my books. I submitted a properly prepared PDF, made my payment, and waited. At my request, a representative got back to me to answer some questions and, with the information she provided, I fine-tuned some options.

Although the books were affordable to print, shipping was costly. To get the most bang for my buck, I ordered four copies. I figured I’d give the extras away to my fellow crew members, if they’re interested.

The books arrived two weeks after I submitted the PDF and paid for them. They looked pretty darn good for a first effort. I’m looking forward to making entries in mine during the trip.

Self-Publishing a Paperback with Amazon KDP

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Easy enough, but not ideal.

Part 107 Explained
Want to become a commercial drone pilot? Start by learning all about the FAA’s Part 107. This book will help. Buy the ebook edition on Amazon or from Apple. Or buy the paperback edition on Amazon.

Back in April, I wrote and published a short guide to FAR Part 107, which are the regulations governing commercial small UAS (drone) pilot operations. In the U.S., a pilot who wants to fly a drone for hire must get some training on these rules and then prove they know them by taking a test. If you’re not already a pilot, there’s additional certification and training that must be done. The FAA has recognized that a small UAS is an aircraft and must be regulated as such. As a helicopter pilot sharing airspace with drone pilots, I’m pretty happy about that, although I’m not happy about the folks who operate with little or no regard for the rules.

In preparing for the test and later answering people’s questions about the regulations, I looked for a guide that explained everything in plain English. When I couldn’t find one, I wrote one. It was my first book project in about four years and it wasn’t very tough for me. When it came time to publish it, I did it the easy way: I created ebook files in the correct formats and published them in the Apple bookstore and on Amazon.com.

Understand that I’m a big proponent of ebooks and very rarely buy printed books anymore. It’s a lot more convenient for me to read on my iPad and I get the added benefit of taking as many books as I want with me on trips without adding any weight to my luggage. I assumed that the folks who wanted a book like this would be on the same page as me.

But apparently that isn’t so. Lots of people seem to really like printed books, even for something as short as this one.

I normally use a print on demand publisher for my paperback book publishing needs: Lightning Source. They are affiliated with Ingram, so any book I publish using their service is automatically listed in Books in Print and appears in bookstore book catalogs, including Amazon and Barnes and Noble. The service isn’t difficult to use if you have the ability to create a PDF in the correct format. I usually write my books in InDesign, which can spit out documents in the formats I need. I fill out a few online forms, I upload the content and cover files, I pay a nominal fee, and I wait. The books are usually available within a week or so.

But yesterday, while checking the sales for the Part 107 book on Amazon, I saw a link for creating a paperback using Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). I did some research on how it worked, what it cost, and how royalties were calculated. It seemed straightforward enough so I thought I’d give it a try. I figured that if I didn’t like the results, I could cancel publication and get the paperback printed through Lightning Source.

I spent about five hours yesterday prepping the manuscript for print publication. The trouble was, the manuscript I’d published as an ebook was absolutely filled with links to references on the web and cross-references to book content. In the ebook, you could tap a link to go right to that source — another benefit of ebooks over printed books. I had to manually convert all of the references to URLs in footnotes or page references in parentheses. I also had to remove all of the URL formatting that had been applied to link text. And because many of the URLs were really long, I had to use a URL shortener — I prefer bit.ly — to give each link a short, custom URL.

When I was done, I tried creating a PDF but didn’t like the results. I was working with Microsoft Word 2011 — I never did go to the Office 365 suite — and it doesn’t offer many options for PDF files. And, for some reason, it was spitting out a separate PDF for each section of the document. (I used sections to add custom headers for each chapter of the book.)

Since the KDP system accepted Word documents, I uploaded in that format. I then spent another half hour recreating the book cover for print.

When I was all finished, I previewed the book. That’s when I discovered that KDP had changed pagination for some reason that wasn’t immediately apparent, thus making my table of contents incorrect. Great.

I was offered the option of downloading a “corrected” Word document, so I did. When I opened it up, I discovered that the “correction” included changing the margins for the document. I knew what they said the margins should be, but I thought that was a suggestion. Apparently, it was a requirement. So I opened my “uncorrected” file, changed the margins, updated the table of contents and cross-references page numbers, and made a few other minor tweaks. Then I saved the file, uploaded it again, and previewed the results. It was fine.

Ready for Publishing
Here’s the dialog that appeared when I clicked Publish.

I clicked the buttons that needed clicking and eventually saw a dialog box telling me that my paperback had been submitted. Although one message had told me it could take 72 hours, this one said 12 hours. Whoa.

I shut down my computer for the day and went about my business. It was only 3 PM. I think I spent a total of 6 or 7 hours on the conversion process.

This morning, a little black dog who will remain nameless in this discussion decided she needed to bark at the coyotes howling off in the distance at 3:15 AM. That was all I needed to wake me up.

I lay in bed for a while with my iPad, checking weather, doing a word puzzle I do every morning, and checking in on Twitter. Then I decided to check Amazon to see if my paperback book appeared. I was very surprised to see that it did.

Book Listing
Here’s my book, all ready for purchase. I think it might be #1 in New Release and #11 in in Books > Arts & Photography > Photography & Video > Aerial because I bought two copies this morning.

Of course, I bought two copies right away: one for me and one for my friend Jim, who got me into drones. The only way I’m going to see the book is by buying it. At least I earn royalties on the purchase.

I guess what blows me away is just how quickly the book was made available. When they said 12 hours, they weren’t kidding. I used standard Prime shipping; my book will arrive Monday because today is a holiday and they don’t deliver on weekends. Still, that means they’ll print and ship the book tomorrow.

If the book looks as good as the ones I get through Lightning Source, I might have a new provider for my limited audience paperbacks. Let’s face it: Amazon sells more books than anyone else. For a book that normally would not appear in a brick and mortar bookstore, there isn’t much of a reason to get it in that Ingram catalog. And although I need to run the numbers, I suspect I might actually make more money publishing through Amazon; I’ll have to do a cost analysis to see.

As for ease of publishing, well, if you don’t try to get fancy and you use the Word template Amazon provides, it’s pretty darn easy to publish a book. So easy that I’m thinking of doing it again this month. The only thing I miss is the flexibility of getting my manuscript just the way I like it. Maybe it’s time to fire up InDesign and use that to create PDFs that KDP can’t change.

When Readers Think Their $4 Investment in Your Book Buys You

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A rant.

iBooks Author Cover
The third of three books I self-published in 2012 as an experiment. Of the three, it did best.

Yesterday, I got an email from a guy who apparently bought my 2012 book, “iBooks Author: Publishing Your First Ebook.”

This book was one of three I self-published in early 2012 and it was available in a variety of ebook formats, as well as in print. It was the first book out about iBooks Author software and sold very well for the first year or so. Then, as most computer books do, it aged and pretty much died. I lost interest in writing for a while and never bothered to revise it.

I should mention here that it was the 84th book I’d written since 1991, so it wasn’t exactly my first rodeo.

The reader — who has the word “author” in his email address — sent his first message at 3:03 PM using the contact form on this website:

Hello,
Just spoke with Apple about how and where to publish iBook Author books and discovered that they can be viewed (read) not only on the iPad, but MacBooks and Mac Desktops and the iPhone. Your statement that iBook Author books can be viewed ONLY on the iPad is incorrect;

(Apparently some “authors” don’t realize that you end a sentence with a period (full stop, if you’re in the UK) and not a semicolon.)

First, I have to admit that I was surprised that anyone was still buying a five year old computer book. Second, I was surprised that anyone who would buy a computer book that old might think it had up-to-date information in it. I don’t know what version iBooks Author is up to — I don’t use it anymore — but I have to assume it’s past version 2.0. I wrote about 1.0 and my book was available less than a month after the software was released, when the only way to read an iBooks Author book was on an iPad. (The Mac OS app came later.) I responded:

That book was written for version 1 way back in 2012. That’s FIVE years ago. Things change. The book was not updated for changes.

Maria

Was I being rude? I don’t think so. But with all the time I spend on Twitter, I can’t even tell anymore. I deal with trolls daily and I half suspected I was being trolled. So I was only partially surprised when he replied 12 minutes later with:

Poor excuses. Doesn’t give you a whole lot of credibility

What the actual fuck? Seriously? This guy buys a 5-year-old book and thinks I don’t have credibility because the book is out of date?

I started to write a nasty response but deleted it. I went with sarcasm:

Whatever you say.

Maria

Eye RollingIt doesn’t appear in the message here, but I inserted the eye rolling emoji. I like that one. It sums up my thoughts about people who complain about things that they really have no right to complain about. Or when I encounter sheer stupidity. (I rolled my eyes a lot in the last few years of my marriage. Half the time, I didn’t even realize I was doing it, but it drove my wasband crazy.) I use it a lot on Twitter.

Eleven minutes later — this guy must have been sitting at his computer waiting for me to email him — he responds with a silly threat:

Perhaps I’ll simply return the book to Amazon and complain that it’s 5 years out of date and the so-called author doesn’t care.

This really cracks me up. Does he honestly think I care if he returns the book to Amazon? If he bought the $3.99 Kindle version, I only made $2.79 on it. I can’t even buy a cup of coffee for that, so it certainly isn’t going to break me. If he bought the $14.35 print version, the joke’s on him. I self published using print on demand and my printer does not allow returns. So Amazon has to keep the book and I don’t lose a dime.

And if he does tell them he’s returning it because the author doesn’t care, they’ll likely think the same thing I think: why the hell should the author care about someone dumb enough to buy a 5-year-old computer book and expect it to be completely accurate with the current version of the software?

Again, I started writing something nasty and deleted it. Instead, I went with this:

What do you expect me to do? Write you a special copy? Get real. You bought a 5 year old computer book and you expect it to cover the current software?

Return it.

Not exactly friendly, but who cares? I don’t make my living writing computer books anymore. I don’t know too many people who do. Did he honestly think his threat would get any action out of me? What kind of an idiot is he?

Anyway, that was the last I heard from him yesterday. I thought I was done with him. But in the morning, a new nasty-gram appeared in my email inbox:

You are so very typical of the slapdash, irresponsible, third-rate scribbler who never gets it quite right, doesn’t care, makes excuses and then plays stupid. Who was to know that the book was five years old and out of date? Why didn’t you update it? I would have. Sloppy.

Book Details
“Who was to know the book was five years old and out of date?” Anyone who read the book details on Amazon. Duh.

The sheer stupidity and obnoxiousness of this troll was beyond belief. He needed to be schooled and I was ready to do the schooling.

The kid gloves came off. I responded by saying exactly what I thought:

Wow! Your level of cluelessness is amazing. I’m trying to figure out why you include the word “author” in your email address. You can’t possibly be a real author.

For your information, I have written 86 books since 1991. I’ve worked with over a dozen publishers, including Random House, McGraw Hill, and Macmillan. (Ever hear of them?) I’ve had numerous bestsellers since 1998 — enough to finance the launching of a third career as a helicopter pilot. Yeah, the red helicopter that appears on my website is actually mine. How do you think I bought that? By being a “third-rate scribbler” selling “slapdash” books?

And now a dose of reality: publishers decide whether or not to update books based on sales potential. The book you bought sold relatively well in 2012 but as additional titles covering the same topic came out on the market, I determined that potential future sales for a new edition would not be sufficient to make the project worthwhile. If you were a REAL author, you would understand this basic principle of publishing as a business. But apparently, you’re just another writer who is going to lean on self-publishing as a vanity project. While you might be able to spend all of your time writing a book that no one will buy, I have much better things to do with my time. Hence, the book was not updated and is unlikely to be updated in the future.

I’d like to add here that your attitude really sucks and that it’s a good thing you’re exploring the world of self publishing because no real publisher would work with you.

Now return the book and go bother someone else. I’m done with you.

Maria

PS: Thanks so much for participating in this exchange of emails. It’s giving me something to blog about this morning. My readers are not going to believe this shit is real.

And then I blocked his email address so I wouldn’t get any of his crap again.

I can’t wait to see what he comments on this post.

A New Year, A New Book

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A new project to get my year off to a good start.

2013 was the first year since 1991 that I did not publish a new book.

There are several of reasons for this, none of which I want to get into here. That would make interesting fodder for a future blog post. Don’t worry; I won’t leave you hanging for long.

But it isn’t as if I haven’t been writing — I have been. In addition to this blog, which I’ve tended to quite faithfully since I started it in October 2003, I’ve been working on another book project since late 2012, when I found myself with an outrageous personal story to tell. Unfortunately, I’ve had to put that project aside; I hope to finish it when I know the ending.

Papillon HelicopterToday, however, I started work on the book I’ve been thinking about for the past month or so. Tentatively titled Flying the Canyon: My Season as a Grand Canyon Helicopter Tour Pilot, this book will share my experiences from one of the most interesting summers of my life.

Here, I’ll let the book’s draft introduction tell you more:

In the summer of 2004, I realized one of my dreams: I became a helicopter tour pilot at the Grand Canyon.

I was 42 when I got the job and I worked with a bunch of young people — mostly men — some of whom were young enough to be my kids. I met the challenges of working in a sometimes difficult but usually breathtakingly beautiful flying environment, dealing with the personalities of co-workers and management, and trying to please passengers from all over the world. The work was rewarding, frustrating, and enlightening. The flying experience was something I think every helicopter pilot should have.

I also had a very odd experience on one of my flights — an experience that would leave the lingering scar of PTSD on me for many years to come.

I thoroughly enjoyed the work, but by the end of the summer, the novelty had worn off. Friction inside the company made the job less pleasant than it had been. I realized that I was a square peg in a round hole. My real work as a freelance writer was being neglected and my editors were beginning to lose their patience. I was sad to leave, but it was time.

This book is the story of my season at the Grand Canyon. It begins before the beginning by sharing the stories of when I decided I wanted to learn how to fly and the things that I did to gain the skills I’d need to be a tour pilot. It then goes on to tell about my experiences as a pilot at the Canyon — including the unusual occurrence on June 10, 2004 — and my direct interactions with fellow pilots, management, and passengers. Finally, it shares how my feelings about being a Canyon tour pilot changed as the summer came to a close and the events that affected my decision to leave.

Because I’d blogged many of my experiences soon after they happened, much of what I share in these pages is rich with details. But rather than just restate my blog posts, I’ve filled in the gaps between them with the behind-the-scenes stories that I couldn’t make public at the time.

Ever wonder what it’s like to be a helicopter tour pilot at the Grand Canyon? Here’s what it was like for me.

As I write, I’ll be pulling a lot of my blog posts about those days offline, probably for good. In a way, my blog has acted as a temporary archive for these stories. Once the book is complete and published, the book will be the permanent archive. I hope to do this with much of the contents of my blog.

Captain MariaToday, I churned out over 4,000 words, completing the introduction (which I just shared here), a Prologue, and Chapter 1, which briefly covers my experiences learning to fly and getting my commercial pilot rating. My goal is to have the entire book finished by month-end — a goal I know I can reach if I can stay focused on my work. (With little else do do this winter, it shouldn’t be much of a problem to find time!)

I’ve toyed with the idea of shopping it around to a mainstream publishing house but will likely self-publish under the Flying M Productions “Real-Life Flying” imprint. The book will be available in print and as an ebook in Kindle, Nook, and iBooks formats. I had quite a bit of success with one of my three self-publishing projects back in 2012, so I’m pretty confident I’ll meet or beat that success with this book.

Of course, since I need to work on the book each morning, that might cut into my blogging time. So expect to see fewer posts here over the next month or so as I write, edit, lay out, and publish this book. More information on where to buy it will be available before month-end.

Comments? You know where to put them!

Apple iBookstore: Understanding Payment Requirements

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It’s a royalty agreement, folks.

The other day, I received an unusual email on my Flying M Productions email account. Flying M Productions is my little publishing company, the one I use to publish Maria’s Guides and other books. Its website isn’t much to look at; just a lot of promotional material for the items it publishes and sells. There’s no support for any book there; all support for Maria’s Guides can be found on the Maria’s Guides website.

The Question

Here’s the message, in its entirety; I’ve only omitted the sender name:

I am looking for understanding of this financial requirement for ibooks author:
(Apple does not pay partners until they meet payment requirements and earning thresholds in each territory. You should consider this before applying to work directly with Apple as you may receive payments faster by working with an Apple-approved aggregator.)
Apple was not able to explain this and said I had to contact you.
Please explain.

This is obviously a lie — or a big misunderstanding — I seriously doubt whether Apple even knows of the existence of Flying M Productions — especially since I’ve been waiting over a month for it to approve two titles for the iBookstore. The idea that Apple would refer someone to me about one of their policies is truly laughable. The idea that a tiny publisher with just four titles in 20 years would provide support for the most valuable company in the world is a real joke.

And that explains why I didn’t reply.

What’s This About?

But I wanted to know what she was talking about so I did a little search. I wanted to see whether the text she’d included in parentheses was actually present in any Apple agreement. I picked “payment requirements” and “Apple-approved aggregator” as my search phrases.

First I searched the most recent version of the 37-page Ebook Agency/Commissionaire Distribution Agreement that I’m required to sign to create books for sale on the iBookstore. No joy.

Then I searched the license agreement for the current version of iBooks Author. No joy.

Then I went online, and followed a bunch of links on the Apple and iTunesConnect websites. I eventually wound up on the requirements page for the Paid Books Account. And there, in the third bullet under the heading “Financial Requirements,” was the full text she’d put in parentheses in her email message.

Apple’s Stand on This

Before I go on, you need to understand two things:

  • Apple does not want everyone capable of typing a sentence and turning it into an epub or iBooks Author document to publish on the iBookstore. Think I’m kidding? Why else would they require ISBNs for every title sold on the iBookstore? That’s just another hurdle for authors/publishers to jump. Why does Apple take this stand? Because Apple (1) doesn’t want to publish crap and (2) doesn’t want to hold the hands of hundreds or thousands of author/publisher wannabes to walk them through the publication process.
  • “Apple-approved aggregators” exist primarily as a support mechanism for Apple. If an author/publisher is too clueless to publish on the iBookstore, Apple wants a way to graciously hand them off to someone else. Thus, they approve aggregators who apparently don’t mind holding hands with clueless authors/publishers in exchange for a fee.

The Requirements page linked to above is another hurdle for authors/publisher to jump. It lists requirements to further weed out the folks they don’t want to deal with. Hell, you have to have a relatively new Mac to publish on the iBookstore — if that doesn’t weed out a bunch of people, nothing will.

What are the Payment Requirements?

But what the person who contacted Flying M Productions was concerned with was the “payment requirements.” Of all the requirements, this is the least onerous. All this means is that Apple won’t pay royalties until you’ve reached certain minimum sales amounts. Why? Well, Apple doesn’t want to deal with thousands of tiny payments every month. Instead, it holds your royalties on account until you’ve earned enough for them to make it worthwhile to pay.

This, by the way, is common. Google has always done this with Adsense. Amazon.com does it for the Kindle Direct Publishing program.

While this may seem to suggest that you need to reach a threshold for each individual territory to get payment for that territory, that’s not what I’m seeing. In fact, I was just paid today for February’s sales. My royalty earnings on sales in each of six territories ranged from a low of $38.73 to a high of $659.40, and I was paid for the total amount earned.

Paragraph 5(c) of the Ebook Agency/Commissionaire Distribution Agreement states (in part):

After deducting Apple’s commission from eBook Proceeds, Apple shall either remit to Publisher, or issue a credit in Publisher’s favor, subject to Apple’s standard business practices, including minimum monthly remittance amount thresholds determined by Apple (e.g., $150), the remaining balance by electronic funds transfer (“EFT”) no later than forty-five (45) days following the close of the previous monthly sales period.

This tells me that you need to earn a certain amount of royalties before Apple will pay you and they’re required to pay within 45 days of the close of the period. That’s why I didn’t get my February earnings until April 5 — which is still a hell of a lot better than I get from my traditional print publisher contracts.

The $150 is an example. In looking at my past statements, for periods when I only had one title listed in the iBookstore, I was paid $28 one month and $31 another. Clearly Apple is not waiting for me to earn $150 before it pays me.

How Apple-Approved Aggregators Fit In

In re-reading this Requirements page, I’m thinking that Apple is using this scary sounding “requirement” as a way to encourage authors/publishers to use aggregators. But will aggregators pay more quickly? I can’t see how. Unless Apple uses different thresholds for different publishers? Or aggregators are willing to make payments for very small amounts? Or aggregators are willing to pay before the 45-day period has gone by?

Either way, it’s nothing to get all hot and bothered about.

But I do agree with Apple: if you can’t meet their requirements, use an aggregator.