User:Lenepp/sandbox

=Leanpub=

Leanpub is a startup focused on self-publishing in-progress ebooks. It is the product of Ruboss Technology Corporation, a software consulting company which exists in order to bootstrap the development of Leanpub.


 * 1) Company

Leanpub was launched in April 2010 by cofounders Peter Armstrong and Scott Patten in Vancouver, Canada. It is a platform designed primarily for authors to self-publish ebooks while they are writing them. It is also designed as a channel for selling finished books and for self-publishing blogs as ebooks [ref: Time article].

The first book published using Leanpub was _Startup Lessons Learned_ [ref: SLL] by Eric Ries [link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Ries]. The first version was published on April 21, 2010.


 * 1) Markdown

Leanpub books are written in Markdown [link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown], a lightweight markup language [link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightweight_markup_language] developed to make writing HTML [link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML] easier. The company has written a number of extensions to the core Markdown language, allowing its authors to apply Markdown's focus on simplicity to writing ebooks in addition to writing HTML.


 * 1) Variable Pricing

Leanpub's DRM-free [link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management], in-progress self-publishing philosophy is reflected in its "variable pricing" model. Essentially, customers choose what price they want to pay for any given book, within the minimum price constraint that is set by the book's author.


 * 1) The Lean Publishing Manifesto


 * 1) Technical Books

Leanpub is a popular platform for technical authors. It has been used to


 * 1) Issue-Based Books

Leanpub's instant-updating feature, which lets authors publish new versions of their books and make them immediately available to all their readers, has been used by authors to address a number of political issues. _Uncensored: A Charitable Project to Support The Open Internet_ was launched to address the SOPA [link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act] and PIPA [link: none? ref needed?] controversy and independetly to raise funds for the Electronic Frontier Foundation [link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Frontier_Foundation]. Leanpub was also used to publish a book called _Beyond Kony2012_ that included work from a number of activists addressing the Kony2012 controversy [link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kony2012].

[ref: Time article].http://techland.time.com/2011/06/23/how-to-turn-your-blog-into-an-instant-e-book/

[ref: SLL] https://leanpub.com/startuplessonslearned