If you want to release a book you have written you either have to go through a publisher or release it on the Internet or fund it yourself. Now writers will be able to publish their own books to Apple’s iBook store via a couple of companies called Smashwords and Lulu.
All you need to do to get your book published on Apple’s iBook store is submit it to these companies in word format, and add a photograph of the cover, the companies will do the rest of the work for you and publish your book to the iBook store.
Smashwords will take a small percentage of the royalties made from the book sales, probably a lot less than a traditional publisher would and you get the opportunity to sell your book to a huge market of people who own the iPhone and will also own the Apple iPad.
This could be great news for authors who can’t get their books published through publishers and also don’t want to pay to have it published themselves. Authors will get 60% of all books sales through the Apple iBook store, with Apple taking 30% and Smashwords taking 10%.
via Ars Technica