• Overview
• Introduction
• Files & Metadata Overview
• Title Submission Overview
• Submission Processes
• Metadata
• Upload via SCM
• Upload via FTP
• Upload via CoreSource
• Offline Reading Options
• Companion Content / Extras
• Companion Content / Extras
• Interactivity on Safari
• Interactivity on Safari
• Video
• Video
• Title Acceptance
• Title Acceptance / Safari QA
• Title Removals
• Troubleshooting
• Troubleshooting

Introduction

Welcome to Safari Books Online’s Content Submissions Documentation. This information is for SBO’s publishing partners, and content distribution agencies delivering content on behalf of our publishing partners.

Whether you’re a publishing partner that's new to SBO or a longstanding partner, we will keep you informed of the latest updates to our title submission options in this documentation. In the constantly evolving technological landscape that is today’s reality, we strive to adapt and update our processes to accommodate your workflows and toolchains and make it easier for you to get your content to an ever-growing audience.

Safari Books Online is different than many other distribution channels. We don’t offer your titles for sale; we offer businesses and individuals subscriptions to the cloud library. Different subscription packages offer different access options (including variations in the number of titles or categories of titles that can be accessed). Publishers are compensated by the page views, so the more the titles are read (or the more minutes viewed, for video), the more compensation the publisher will receive. To maximize revenue, many publishers aim to publish titles on Safari on or before the print publication date.

To publish your books on Safari Books Online, you’ll need a source file, metadata, and a cover image. For videos, you'll need the source clips, metadata, and a cover image. All of our requirements are outlined in this documentation, with the opening chapters providing overviews and later chapters getting more into the details.

It’s important to keep in mind that there are two viewing modes for reading books on Safari: HTML view and print-fidelity view.

EPUB source files are used to create HTML view on Safari. HTML is 508-compliant and is the primary display on mobile devices. Mobile readership has become increasingly widespread and accounts for a significant portion of page views, therefore, you'll get more readership if you provide EPUB files (which create HTML view) as the default for your titles on SBO.

Print-fidelity view is faithful to the print-page layout, and is generated from PDF source files. Print-fidelity view is most appropriate to design-centric titles that do not translate well to reflowable format.

Video content comprises some of the most frequently-accessed content on Safari. Safari’s video content delivery network transcodes your video clips into a variety of formats and bitrates to provide intelligent streaming and deliver the best quality video for a user’s device and bandwidth. You can structure your video content as stand-alone titles, or you can blend text and video to create multimedia books. In other words, you can add links to your content that allow the user to access video clips directly from the pages of the book.

Welcome to Safari Books Online!

Other Resources

Here are a few books on Safari that may prove helpful to our publishing partners.