If you’re an indie author hoping to get your book put on Apple Books before Christmas, there are some key dates to keep in mind.

Update: Christmas is done and dusted for another year. We'll update this page ahead of Christmas 2021 with the ne dates as soon as they are announced.

It makes sense to have your book available before Christmas. After all, it’s the biggest buying frenzy of the year. You have millions of households all over the globe looking for last minute Christmas presents. Not to mention people on holidays with time to unwind and relax with a book. Or alternatively, parents looking for easily portable entertainment solutions for their kids.

In short, eBooks. And digital books have been booming since COVID-19.

If you’ve ever experienced the process of uploading an ePub to a digital storefront before, you’ll know it can by frustrating. It can become much more complicated than you think.

First, there’s any number of computer-generated errors that will block your efforts at the door. Then you must survive the review process. A process which gets longer leading into Christmas due to the sheer demand put on the staff resources of stores like Amazon and iTunes by indie authors.

As a result, you don’t want to leave your run too late. To make the review process as transparent as possible, Apple has released its 2020 deadline delivery dates for books.

Apple books Christmas delivery dates

If you hit the below dates, your book will be available for sale in time for Christmas. In general, you will need a two-week lead time. You don’t have long, but we can help you hit those delivery dates – see more details further below.

Release Date: November 27, 2020
Deliver by: November 13, 2020

Release Date: December 4, 2020
Deliver by: November 20, 2020

Release Date: December 11, 2020
Deliver by: November 27, 2020

Release Date: December 18, 2020
Deliver by: December 4, 2020

Release Date: December 25, 2020
Deliver by: December 11, 2020

Release Date: January 1, 2020
Deliver by: December 18, 2020

Print to ePub conversions in time for Christmas

Apple Books offers the highest end digital book experience in the market. The store is fully compatible with the ePub 3.0 format and all the benefits it offers. This includes hyperlinks, animations, music, video and more.

Not that you need all that to successfully release a book. However, you may want to adapt your print book design in order to capitalise on the digital experience (in particular the screen size). Otherwise your readers will have a bad experience and reviews will reflect that.

At Old Mate Media, we specialise in helping indie authors achieve their publishing dreams. Wherever you need us in the journey from forming an idea to successfully going on sale, we’ll be there. This includes converting print books into ePubs.

If you need your print book turned into an ePub, and/or help with your app store descriptions and the upload process, get in contact. We’ll do our best to make sure you can hit the Apple Store delivery dates above.