Canadian Pen Name - how to navigate Apple Books?

[M.J.]

Amazon and Kobo made it easy to maintain anonymity, but Apple legal-eagles require additional proof that your are legally registered to be "doing business as" your pen name. Their examples are US specific and don't work in my part of Canada. I've written to them to see what they accept from us Canucks, but so far no joy. Has anyone successfully navigated this problem? Thanks in advance

[Catherine]

Hi M.J.

I wasn't aware of this issue but I distribute to Apple via Smashwords - this would be one way of getting round your problem.

M.J. wrote: "Amazon and Kobo made it easy to maintain anonymity, but Apple legal-eagles require additional proof that your are legally registered to be "doing business as" your pen name. Their examples are US s..."

[Eldon, Lost on the road to Mordor]

I imagine going through D2D could work as well. As a fellow Canuck, I'm curious, what proof do they require that won't work for us?

[M.J.]

Eldon wrote: "I imagine going through D2D could work as well. As a fellow Canuck, I'm curious, what proof do they require that won't work for us?"

Hi Eldon, the Apple Author help site lists a DBA certificate from the IRS, or in some states, the local authority can issue a certificate. Here in BC, I could obtain a DBA by creating a Sole Proprietorship. I'm not sure if that database is public or not. There is a cost and an overhead to this, and Apple have yet to confirm they would accept it anyway. Likewise I read a document of copywrite might be accepted, but have yet to hear back from them. The cheapest copywrite option I've seen is the government database, but that requires a real postal address, and is searchable by the public, too. I have a PO box, so if Apple confirm that is OK, I might do that. With so many great Canadian authors already on Apple Books, I assumed there is already a well trodden path... it might be D2D/Smashwords…

I will update if I hear back from Apple - thx

[Eldon, Lost on the road to Mordor]

M.J. wrote: "Eldon wrote: "I imagine going through D2D could work as well. As a fellow Canuck, I'm curious, what proof do they require that won't work for us?"

Hi Eldon, the Apple Author help site lists a DBA ..."

Hi M.J., Thanks for the info. Seems like Apple is being difficult for no reason, in my opinion. I'm sure someone on here will have the solution to the problem though :)

[M.J.]

Good news - Apple replied this time, and made it very easy. I put in a DBA application and attached as proof a screen shot of my books selling under my pen name on Amazon, with a pic of my Amazon contract under my real name alongside. They accepted it (to my surprise) and have updated the system already. No idea why they didn’t respond initially, but this time it all took less than 4 hours. Tomorrow, once the change takes effect, I have to resubmit the book content with the DBA name and should be complete at no cost.

[Eldon, Lost on the road to Mordor]

M.J. wrote: "Good news - Apple replied this time, and made it very easy. I put in a DBA application and attached as proof a screen shot of my books selling under my pen name on Amazon, with a pic of my Amazon c..."

Awesome 😁