Rumors have been flying about Apple hosting a press conference this month. While no one knows when exactly this event will take place, many tech blogs are speculating that this press conference will be about software, not hardware. This would be out of character for the company who is normally hosting events to show off new devices and computers.
One report suggests that at the event, Apple will unveil a new self-publishing platform for iBooks. Mark Coker, the CEO of self-publishing platform Smashwords, is not convinced.
Coker, whose company lets writers self-publish to the iBookstore, told eBookNewser that Apple’s already got self-pub tools and it’s easier for Apple to use partners anyway. He said: “Unlike others, Apple actively encourages authors and publishers to deliver books through their aggregators. Apple realizes that they’re going to earn a 30% commission whether they source the book from an aggregator or from their own platform, and books sourced from aggregators are more profitable for Apple because they can be sourced at lower cost (no need to invest millions of long term dollars to maintain and staff their own platform) and greater scalability than from one’s own platform.”