LeanPub – Book buying tips

This isn’t a post against LeanPub as a company or a service. I wanted to take this time to remind potential book buyers about some pitfalls of the LeanPub process.

LeanPub allows books to go on sale before they are complete which does have some positives and negatives. From an author standpoint I see the benefit in this as you can get early feedback which will help you shape the rest of the book. From a buyer standpoint you do need to trust that the author is indeed going to actually finish the book.

From the date of purchase you only have a 45 day money back guarantee and that is not a lot of time for a book to be completed. If you are not familiar with the author wait until the book is at least 80/90% complete so you know it will be finished. Do your homework before buying anything, trust your instincts, and read reviews

I have purchased a few books from LeanPub and I think it’s an awesome service. I love the simplicity of it from an author perspective and how it supports markdown. From a buyer standpoint I hate that it’s PayPal only, but sending books to an e-reader is great.

I want to see this service succeed and I’m asking you to spend some time doing your due diligence.