Cite a book in APA 7
Books are the simplest source type to cite, but they still trip people up on edition numbers, editor vs author roles, and where the publisher city goes. APA 7 (2020) has clear rules, and once you know them a book reference takes under a minute to format by hand.
APA 7 rules for a book
- Author last name comes first, with initials or first name depending on the style.
- Year of publication goes right after the author block, in parentheses for author-date styles.
- Book title is italicized, sentence case for APA, title case for MLA/Chicago/Harvard.
- Publisher name appears after the title; no need for the publisher city in APA 7.
- Include the edition number in parentheses after the title if it is not the first edition.
- No publisher location is required in APA 7; the city was dropped from APA 6.
Worked example
APA 7 · bookA real book formatted using the APA 7 rules above.
Sagan, C. (1995). *The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark*. Ballantine Books.
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Citation fields
APA 7 book citation guide
The APA 7 book reference, field by field
A book is the source most students think they already know how to cite, which is exactly why book references lose easy marks. The APA 7 pattern is short — Author, A. A. (Year). Title of the book in sentence case and italics. Publisher. — but every one of those four slots has a rule that trips people up. The author block uses surname then initials, with an ampersand before the final author rather than the word and. The year sits in parentheses immediately after the author, and it is the copyright year printed on the title page verso, not the year you happened to borrow the book.
The biggest single change from older APA editions is the publisher line. APA 7 dropped the publisher location entirely, so you no longer write New York, NY: before the publisher name. Many citation tools and older templates still add the city, and markers who know APA 7 will spot it instantly. You also do not repeat the publisher when it is identical to the author, which happens with reports and self-published works. Keep the publisher name as it appears on the title page, including Press or Books, but drop legal suffixes such as Inc. or Ltd.
Editions, editors, translators, and e-books
If the book is not the first edition, the edition number goes in parentheses after the title and before the full stop, written as (3rd ed.) with no italics. An edited book with no single author puts the editor in the author slot followed by (Ed.) or (Eds.), while a translated work names the translator in parentheses after the title as (J. Smith, Trans.). Do not confuse these roles: the person on the cover in the largest type is not always the one APA wants in the author position.
E-books and books read in an app no longer need a format label in APA 7 — there is no [Kindle edition] tag and no requirement to record the device. If the e-book has a DOI, add it as a full https://doi.org/ link at the end; if it came from an academic platform without a DOI, you can add the URL of the database landing page, but never a URL that only works while you are logged in. For an ordinary print or shop-bought e-book with no DOI, the reference simply ends at the publisher.
In-text citations and page numbers
In text, an APA 7 book uses author and year, such as (Sagan, 1995). When you quote directly or paraphrase a specific passage, add the page with p. for one page or pp. for a range, giving (Sagan, 1995, p. 42). For a book with two authors, name both every time joined by an ampersand inside the parentheses; for three or more authors, use the first author followed by et al. from the very first citation, which is another APA 7 change from the older rule of spelling out up to five names initially.
A classic edited collection where you are citing one chapter is a different reference type — see the book chapter page — so do not cite the whole edited book if you only read one chapter. Paste your details into the generator below to assemble the reference automatically, then check three things by hand: that the title is in sentence case, that there is no publisher city, and that an ampersand, not the word and, joins the final two authors in the reference list.