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Ask HN: What do you think of Leanpub, Softcover, etc?

8 pointsby thecooluseralmost 11 years ago
I&#x27;m working on a short technical book at the moment and I&#x27;m having a hard time picking the perfect approach to take.<p>Leanpub is one of the easiest to get started with.<p>Softcover provides a better interface for readers (and a lot of nifty features specifically for technical books).<p>But I&#x27;m also half-tempted to just go solo, publish the thing online for free and sell access to the PDF&#x2F;screencasts via Gumroad.<p>Would love to hear people&#x27;s opinions about the best way to go both in terms of the best way of writing, the best experience for readers, and also financial results — does being on Leanpub actually put you in front of a sizeable, willing-to-buy audience? Or do you still need to still give your book that initial marketing push?<p>Thanks.<p>:)

2 comments

jcralmost 11 years ago
For your sake, I hope this submission generates some discussion from people who know (I don&#x27;t know but it would be interesting to read).<p>If not, HN Search (from algolia.com) should really be able to help you find both previous discussions and fellow authors who you might want to contact:<p><a href="https://hn.algolia.com/?q=ebook" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hn.algolia.com&#x2F;?q=ebook</a><p>There are a lot of &quot;How I made $X with my ebook&quot; submissions as well as other interesting ebook related stuff. I don&#x27;t have the answers for you but that&#x27;s how I&#x27;d try to find them. Good Luck.
helen842000almost 11 years ago
I&#x27;ve had good results with Gumroad. They make it a lot of fun to use!<p>I think it&#x27;s fair to say on any platform you&#x27;ll need to give it the same marketing push.<p>Why not compare prices for each based on different levels of sales.<p>You could use something like <a href="http://standtomake.com" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;standtomake.com</a> and get an idea of revenue numbers.