You need to establish a Publisher (Developer) account in order to distribute magazines or any other digital publications on Apple or Android devices. Also for distribution inside of AppStore you need Publisher Apple ID and for Android devices Developer registration on Google Play. What else does it involve?
Apple AppStore publisher’s registration
Will cost you 99 US dollars per year (paid directly with your credit card to Apple). Remember that this is a publisher’s registration not a title registration – ie. with one Apple ID, you can distribute an unlimited number of titles and applications. You can file a registration request on Apple website, and approval process usually takes several days with approximate time of one week.
The registration is relatively simple if you are a freelancer. You must primarily have credit card issued in your name, which is a condition for approval. Be aware that you have authorized option for Internet payments on your card.
In case you are a company (with legal entity), you’ll need so called DUNS number. It is available free after completing a simple form on the internet. DUNS number will be sent to you by mail, usually within one or two days.
Once you have a DUNS for your company, you can start filing application for registration with Apple. It is highly recommended that you as a publisher provide universal contact email address (typically publisher@company.com) instead of email to specific employee, you may get into trouble when that person leaves your company.
As part of your registration process you will also need to file a specific name and contact details of a person who is authorized to act on behalf of your company. This person will receive verification call from Apple within few days after application filing. If you choose that the contact person is anyone other than authorized person, be aware that Apple may require later a power of attorney for that employee.
As far as the payment for developer’s account is concerned, you can use any credit card with company developer account, of course, again with authorized option of Internet payments.
WARNING: unless you have fully functional Apple developer ID, we can’t send your magazine Reader to Apple for approval or any other application as a matter of fact on your behalf. The approval process for Apple application takes another 3 days, be aware of this delay when making your schedule.
Google Play publisher’s registration for Android
Will cost you a one time payment of 25 USD and is valid throughout the existence of your publishing activities. The fee is paid directly to Google with your credit card. Similarly as with Apple it is obvious that Google’s registration is to the publisher, not the title – therefore you can publish and distribute an unlimited number of titles and applications under one account.
The good news is that the Google Play registration has NO approval process, therefore registration is a matter of few minutes. To register we again recommend using universal email publisher@company.com (may be the same email address that you use with Apple). Registration of publisher’s account is arranged on Google website, all you need is a credit card with authorized option of internet payments.