Create Book Samples

Samples are smaller versions of your asset files. You can make a sample of your book available to customers before your official release date.

Apple Books automatically creates samples for all books except Read Aloud and Multi-Touch books. The percentage of content used for the sample is determined by how the book is formatted.

Apple-generated samples

To ensure that your sample is the correct size, create your EPUB file according to our specifications:

Custom samples

If you use Pages or iBooks Author to create your book, you can specify the chapter or page range you want to display as your sample during the publishing workflow within the app.

If you don’t want the sample to be cut automatically, you can create a separate, custom EPUB file and deliver it for use as the sample on Apple Books. The file formats for the sample and complete book must be the same. For example, if your book is an EPUB file (.epub), the custom sample must also be an EPUB file.

Note: Book creation is moving to Pages. As of July 1, 2020, iBooks Author will no longer be available to new users. iBooks Author can still be used on macOS 10.15 and earlier, but there will be no new updates. Learn more.

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