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Author Quickstart: Get Started with Leanpub, Guided Personally by a Leanpub Expert, and Get a $349 Service Credit

CourseAI: Create a Course from Your Leanpub Book with AI-created Quizzes and Exercises and optional Video Interviews, and Unlock Corporate Training Budget Revenue

Who is Author Quickstart For?

Leanpub is free to use as an author, but it has so many features it can be a bit overwhelming at first.

So, we have a helpful service just for you.

For just $249 USD, you’ll get a 1 hour, 1-on-1 onboarding session with a Leanpub expert!

The session helps you understand how to get up and running with Leanpub, the options for importing your manuscript (if you have one), and learn how and when to publish.

The best part?

Your $249 session fee comes back to you as a $349 service credit!

It's like you get paid to have a personalized 1 hour onboarding from a Leanpub expert.

This session is a Zoom call, which you schedule when signing up.

Get Expert Help and a $349 Service Credit
You can apply your $349 service credit toward the cost of any combination of Leanpub services, including:
  • 💡 A Lifetime Standard Membership ($349) or Lifetime Pro Membership ($549) for more features and benefits above our Free author membership.
  • 📈 A 1-month spot on The Shelf ($179) on the Leanpub homepage, which includes being featured in a monthly newsletter (sent to 150,000+ readers) and a weekly newsletter (sent to 100,000+ readers)
  • 📚 ImportAI (price varies), a concierge import service where we do the work of importing your manuscript from Word, EPUB file or other formats for you.
  • 🌍 TranslateAI ($149 for 3 languages), which can translate your book into up to 31 languages.
  • 🎓 CourseAI ($1499 / $1999 / $2499), which can create a course based on your book.
  • 📖 Publish on Amazon ($1499), which can handle all the Amazon KDP stuff for you.

(A Lifetime Standard Membership costs exactly $349, so if you apply your service credit to this, it will fully cover the cost — meaning if you were going to buy a Lifetime Standard Membership, the session is effectively better than free: you actually save $100 by attending it!)

This is a unique opportunity to get hands-on help, and ensure your publishing journey starts strong.

Get Expert Help and a $349 Service Credit
How It Works:
  1. Reserve your spot: Sign up for Author Quickstart for $249.
  2. Meet with a Leanpub expert: Spend 60 minutes on Zoom getting expert guidance on how to get up and running on Leanpub, and why everything works the way it does.
  3. Apply your credit: Within 30 days, use your $349 credit toward marketing packages, AI services (including our new ImportAI service), or a Leanpub membership. (The Lifetime Standard Membership costs exactly $349, so if you apply your service credit to this, it will fully cover the cost.)
Author Quickstart is ideal for:
  • Authors with Word documents, Substack newsletters or WordPress blogs ready to import into Leanpub, and who need guidance about how to use our free import jobs or our concierge ImportAI service.
  • Writers who want expert guidance to publish their first version.
  • Educators and trainers who want to create books or courses.
  • Anyone who wants to skip the Leanpub learning curve and publish with confidence.
Get started the right way. Invest in your publishing journey today.
Get Expert Help and a $349 Service Credit

Leanpub puts authors first.

80%
Earn an 80% royalty per sale.
Publish to PDF, iPad and Kindle from one manuscript. (We make PDF and EPUB versions for you).
Write using your favorite tools. Preview or publish new book versions with one click.
Write on your own computer and sync using GitHub or Dropbox.
Publish your book early to get reader feedback, and publish new versions as often as you like.
Choose your own minimum and suggested prices, from $0 or $7.99 to $500.

($9 to $29 is typical.)

You keep the rights to your book, not us. You can do a deal with a publisher at any time.
Produce a print-ready PDF or InDesign export of your finished book with one click.
Get Expert Help and a $349 Service Credit

Write

  • Write your book in simple plain text using our great writing features
  • Create ebooks in multiple formats with one click from a single source text
  • You can also write using your own plain text writing tool
  • You can also upload a book if you prefer your own process to ours

Publish

  • Publish instantly with one click
  • Easily update your published book any time
  • Publish early and serially using our in-progress publishing features
  • Interact with readers to improve your book and find out what they think

Sell

  • Instantly put your book up for sale
  • Earn a royalty of 80% per sale
  • Customize a great-looking web page to help sell your book
  • Set your own prices using our amazing variable pricing model
  • Easily share your royalties with co-authors or good causes
  • You can also sell your book elsewhere if you want to!
Get Expert Help and a $349 Service Credit

Testimonials

Leanpub authors love Leanpub

“As an academic, I like Leanpub because it lets me write and get my ideas out there quickly. Leanpub is simply the best place for publishing my books. ”

Roger D. Peng
Associate Professor of Biostatistics at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

“Leanpub's book-creation tools allowed me to focus on creating the types of books I wanted to write instead of worrying how to create my own book publishing toolchain. I have never regretted using Leanpub to publish my ebooks.”

Chris Hartjes
The Grumpy Programmer

“Leanpub takes the pain out of publishing. They provide the tools, you provide the books and then magic happens.”

Ryan Bigg
Author, Multitenancy with Rails

“I love using Leanpub because I can write my book using simple Markdown notation. Leanpub let's me focus on my content and they handle the rest.”

Taylor Otwell
Creator Of Laravel

“Leanpub is a game changer for independent authors, removing the hassles associated with formatting, book production, and electronic sales, freeing up the time to do what we do best: write.”

W. Jason Gilmore
Author, Easy Laravel 5

“Leanpub helped me achieve my goal of publishing a book. Its simple, easy to use interface got my book up and making money within weeks, I love Leanpub!”

Samantha Laing
Growing Agile

“Leanpub helped me gauge interest in my book, get payments early on when it was only a few chapters, and has got me a bunch of sales just from people browsing around the site.”

Phil Sturgeon
Author, Build APIs You Won't Hate

“Leanpub helps me see my books as I write them. Even better, I can find readers early, to read my books and offer suggestions. I can pivot, if I see the need.”

Johanna Rothman
Author of 8 Leanpub books and counting…

“Leanpub made it simple for me to run with my book idea and build my reputation in the Ruby community. I went from first draft to first sale in days, not months or years.”

Aaron Sumner
Author, Everyday Rails Testing with RSpec

“Four years ago, I joined Leanpub to just give it a try. Today, over 28,000 book sales later, I cannot help but say that I'm the biggest Leanpub fan on this planet!”

Manuel Kiessling
Author, The Node Beginner Book

“Leanpub makes publishing your own book super easy. The fact that you can release updates continually helps with the mindset of getting a minimum version out ASAP and then iterating to improve. ”

Karen Greaves
Growing Agile

“I earn more royalties from my books on Leanpub than I do with well established publishers or through Amazon (which I publish on thanks to Leanpub's mobi conversion).”

Paul Bradshaw
Paul runs the MA in Online Journalism at Birmingham City University

“Leanpub allows me focus on content, takes care everything else and offers an amazing author royalty. It’s a fantastic platform for writing and publishing books.”

Simon Brown
Author, Software Architecture for Developers

“I love that Leanpub makes writing and publishing a beautiful book so simple. I no longer spin my wheels with layouts and formats - Leanpub gets out of the way when it's time to write, and then automates everything when it's time to publish.”

Daniel Root
Author, Trello Dojo

“With Leanpub, the first person who purchased my book for $9.99 almost two years ago (and only received a preface, and two short intro chapters) has had access to almost every bit of knowledge I've gained in those two years, and *that's* the value.”

Jeff Geerling
Author, Ansible for DevOps

“Simple and lean, forces me to focus on writing and marketing, and pays excellent royalties.”

Reg "Raganwald" Braithwaite
Author, JavaScript Allongé, the "Six" Edition

“Leanpub forces you to focus on writing and gives you immediate feedback. Allowing Leanpub to take care of the curation and delivery helped me focus on shipping my book.”

Paul Redmond
Author of Writing APIs With Lumen

“While most eBook exporter apps today can generate PDF files and many support ePub, there's one tool we recommend above all after trying 8 of the most popular: Leanpub.”

Matthew Guay
Content Marketer at Zapier
Get Expert Help and a $349 Service Credit

Finally, a royalty rate that puts authors first.

When you publish your book with Leanpub,
you earn an 80% royalty.

Why is this royalty rate important? It means you earn $16.00 on the sale of a $20.00 book. If you worked with a conventional publisher who sold your book for $32.00, you'd typically make just $1.60! (The publisher would usually get about $16.00, and you would get about 10% of that.) With royalty rates this high, people will actually choose to pay more since they can see how much you will earn as an author.

You are free to publish your book elsewhere at the same time as you publish it on Leanpub. However, other platforms may not allow you to publish in two places at once. If you want to try an exclusive service, you can "retire" your book on Leanpub any time, and you can also come back and "unretire" your book if you conclude you were making more money on Leanpub.

You set your own prices using our variable pricing model and you can change them anytime. This means you can instantly change your prices in response to audience feedback or special events. It also means you can increase the price of your book over time, as you add more content, which is a great deal for people who buy your book early on.

If you publish your book on Leanpub, we will not get in the way if you later want to publish with a conventional publisher. In fact, this is a great outcome and it is one of the reasons Leanpub exists. We want unknown writers to be able to publish their books before they're finished, build an audience while they're writing, and then optionally go after a publishing contract. Some publishers may even let you publish your book on Leanpub until you finish it, and then take up the book into their own process when the time is right. That's exactly what happened with this book. (If you're worried that a publisher won't accept a book that's already been published on Leanpub, then you should make sure to ask them before you publish here!)

Get Expert Help and a $349 Service Credit

Introduction to Lean Publishing

In this video from TOC 2013 in New York, Leanpub cofounder Peter Armstrong explains the definition, origins and practice of Lean Publishing, which is the idea behind Leanpub.

Introduction to Markdown and Markua

In this video from Books in Browsers 2014, Peter Armstrong explains why Markdown is a great way to write ebooks and why Leanpub is specifying Markua, its Markdown dialect.

The Leanpub 60 Day 100% Happiness Guarantee

Within 60 days of purchase you can get a 100% refund on any Leanpub purchase, in two clicks.

Now, this is technically risky for us, since you'll have the book or course files either way. But we're so confident in our products and services, and in our authors and readers, that we're happy to offer a full money back guarantee for everything we sell.

You can only find out how good something is by trying it, and because of our 100% money back guarantee there's literally no risk to do so!

So, there's no reason not to click the Add to Cart button, is there?

See full terms...

Earn $8 on a $10 Purchase, and $16 on a $20 Purchase

We pay 80% royalties on purchases of $7.99 or more, and 80% royalties minus a 50 cent flat fee on purchases between $0.99 and $7.98. You earn $8 on a $10 sale, and $16 on a $20 sale. So, if we sell 5000 non-refunded copies of your book for $20, you'll earn $80,000.

(Yes, some authors have already earned much more than that on Leanpub.)

In fact, authors have earned over $14 million writing, publishing and selling on Leanpub.

Learn more about writing on Leanpub

Write and Publish on Leanpub

You can use Leanpub to easily write, publish and sell in-progress and completed ebooks and online courses!

Leanpub is a powerful platform for serious authors, combining a simple, elegant writing and publishing workflow with a store focused on selling in-progress ebooks.

Leanpub is a magical typewriter for authors: just write in plain text, and to publish your ebook, just click a button. (Or, if you are producing your ebook your own way, you can even upload your own PDF and/or EPUB files and then publish with one click!) It really is that easy.

Learn more about writing on Leanpub

If You're Still Reading This, You'll Love Our Newsletters

This page has a lot of words on it. Our newsletters have a lot of words in them. Clearly, you're a person who likes words!

Our weekly and monthly sale newsletters also have amazing deals on books, bundles and courses.

Learn more about our weekly and monthly newsletters here