Are any iBooks Author books coming out?

Question

We all hear about the seemingly difficult process of getting an iBooks Author book through Apple's gates. It would be nice to see what is emerging as finally published books. We've seen a few mentioned here but where are the new titles coming out this week? Are free books arriving faster than paid books? I've scanned the new releases listed in iTunes and the iBooks Store but see little that resembles an iBooks Author publication, certainly few showcasing screenshots and enhanced features.
I've been waiting for Maria Langer's new 'enhanced' book on iBooks Author but saw this disheartening paragraph on here blog:
April 7, 2012 Update: One of the two tickets on my book has disappeared, but the other remains. Despite several attempts to contact Apple, it’s still unclear whether they realize that I have resolved this ticket. I keep getting canned responses that do not indicate whether they are following up on my problem. It seems to me as if they’re just sending out a response without even looking up the situation. I’m frustrated beyond belief at this point and angry about potential lost sales. And there’s no one at Apple who I can contact to get a definitive answer. Clearly, the iBooks Author publishing experience is broken and Apple is uninterested in fixing it.
I'm hoping for some good news from this Forum.

Answer 1

Sputnik Slim wrote:
Is it possible that there are a good many really crappy books being submitted via IBA and they are wading thru them?
It wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that a large proporption of books is of poor quality, with spelling, grammar, editing, typography, and layout problems. Having worked as both an editor and author on and off for many years, I know first-hand that, what some people consider quality writing in fact isn't…
A big danger with any publishing program or word processor is that, even though the program is capable of producing professional output, the professional output doesn't come from the tool, but the author. I still need to know about typography, about design (partially taken care of by IBA with its templates), about style and grammar, about presenting material with proper logical flow, etc…
Just because I have tool doesn't mean that I can produce publishable material. That's where the whole process is flawed, in my opinion. Publishers normally provide services to authors that ensure some level of quality, such as copy editing, proof reading, layout design, and so on. With the iBookstore process, none of these services are provided by Apple, who merely acts in a distributor role. Many authors are not capable of doing all the things that publishers traditionally do, so a big chunk of what makes a book a good book has gone missing. Traditional publishers actually do add value for their share of the revenue.
Sputnik Slim wrote:
These "long" waits people are complaining of should be encouraging that you are submitting your books to an entity that is exercising quality control rather than just publishing them all, like a blog... I wonder what the rejection rate is for IBA? I can't imagine Apple would fill their bookstore with poorly edited books.
We can only speculate what the reasons for the long wait are. Could be under-resourcing by Apple, could be that they are swamped, could be a combination of both.
It is striking though that submissions to the Appstore seem to go through so much quicker even though, arguably, applications are harder to test than books. As other people here have reported, they get a book as an app improved within a week, whereas no such thing seems currently possible with an eBook. Either apps are not reviewed as thoroughly as books, or the app review process is much better resourced.
Sputnik Slim wrote:
I wonder what the rejection rate is for IBA? I can't imagine Apple would fill their bookstore with poorly edited books.
No way to know what the rejection rate is, unless Apple decide to publish that (which I doubt the will). Having a bookstore full of junk or poorly written material is certainly not in Apple's interest. On the other hand, neither is having an appstore full of buggy and poorly written applications.
I think an initial wait time of four weeks would be tolerable for new submissions, if only the process were streamlined more. For example, telling people that something is wrong with their book without providing the detail needed for them to fix the problem is truly useless: it wastes the author's time as much as Apple's. And, once minor fixes are made, having the book go back to the end of the queue is simply bad process.
Michi.