How to cite a book in APA format (with examples)

Quick answer. An APA book citation is built from four things in a fixed order: author, year, title, publisher — Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Seabury Press. In the reference list you give those four; in the text you give author and year only — (Freire, 1970) or Freire (1970) argues…. The edition, volume or translator is added only when your reader needs it to find the exact copy you used.

Key takeaways

• Reference list: Author, A. A. (Year). Title of the book. Publisher.
• In-text (parenthetical): (Author, Year) — page number only for a direct quote: (Author, Year, p. 42).
• In-text (narrative): Author (Year) found… — the name sits in the sentence, the year in brackets.
• Italicise the book title; capitalise only the first word of the title, the first word after a colon, and proper nouns.
• Name the publisher, not the printer, the distributor or the store. If the author and publisher are the same organisation, the publisher is omitted.
• Editions and translators get a bracketed note after the title: Title (2nd ed.) or Title (J. Smith, Trans.).
• Everything ends with a full stop after the publisher and a hanging indent in the reference list.

The reference-list shape, field by field

Order: Author → (Year) → Title → Publisher. The four slots never swap. The full construction is: Author, A. A. (Year). Title of the book. Publisher.

Worked examples

One author — Fitzgerald, F. S. (1925). The great Gatsby. Scribner.

Two authors — join with an ampersand, and never the word "and": Egan, J., & Moore, A. (2018). The dive. Penguin.

Three to twenty authors — list every author, ampersands between the last two: Aardvark, A., Bear, B., & Cat, C. (2020). Title. Press. Twenty-one or more: give the first nineteen, then an ellipsis, then the final author.

An edited book — the editor takes the author slot, with (Ed.) after the name: Bloom, H. (Ed.). (2000). The anthology. Chelsea House.

A chapter in an edited book — the chapter is not italicised; the book it sits in is, and the editor's name follows it: Ngozi, C. (2019). Reading as a craft. In R. Teacher (Ed.), Essays on books (pp. 55–70). Scholar Press.

A translated book — after the title, name the translator; the year is the translation's year: Kafka, F. (1996). The metamorphosis (S. Corngold, Trans.). Norton. (Original work published 1915)

A later edition — bracketed, after the title: Strunk, W., & White, E. B. (2000). The elements of style (4th ed.). Longman.

A corporate or organisation author — the body is the author: American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/…

In-text citations, the two forms

• Parenthetical — everything in brackets at the end: The novel resists a single reading (Adichie, 2013).
• Narrative — the name in the sentence, the year in brackets: Adichie (2013) resists a single reading.

A direct quotation adds the page: (Adichie, 2013, p. 27). A paraphrase needs no page number. For a source you are citing as a whole — naming the book rather than a passage — no page is needed either.

The mistakes that actually happen

• Putting the year in the wrong place in the reference. It goes in brackets immediately after the author, never at the end of the entry.
• Capitalising the whole title. APA uses sentence case, so The Great Gatsby is written The great Gatsby — capitalise only the first word, the first word after a colon, and proper nouns.
• Italicising the chapter but not the book. In a chapter citation it is the reverse: the chapter is plain, the book is italic.
• "Retrieved from" for a print book. That phrase is for sources that change. A print book needs no retrieval date and no URL.
• Naming the store or the printer. Online retailers and print-on-demand services are not publishers. Use the imprint on the title page.
• Missing the hanging indent. The reference list is alphabetised by author surname and every entry after the first line is indented.
• Mixing 6th- and 7th-edition rules. In the 7th edition the publisher's location is dropped (the old "New York, NY: Penguin" form is gone) and the publisher is named as printed.

A five-step check before you submit

1. Author, (Year), Title, Publisher — all four present, in that order.
2. Title in sentence case and italics.
3. In-text gives author and year; a quote adds the page.
4. Any edition, translator or volume noted in brackets after the title.
5. Reference list alphabetised with a hanging indent, and no stray URL for a print book.

If you are citing your own manuscript, the rules are the same once it is published — and getting the title, edition and publisher right is part of what a good publishing package handles for you. Our self-publishing packages cover the ISBN, the title page and the listing, so your first citation is correct.

Related guides

Keep going: how to write a book, the types of book editing, book editing services and proofreading services. For the official guidance, see APA book reference examples.

Disclosure: Harmony Publishing is a self-publishing company and links to its own services where they match a step. The language guidance here is practical, not a rule for every style guide.