How Does Leanpub Compare to Writebook?

Jason Fried from 37Signals announced a new ONCE product called Workbook, which has since been renamed Writebook:

We think it's actually really easy to write and publish books on Leanpub in HTML, PDF, and EPUB format, and it has been for a very long time; but "nice, cohesive, tight, easy-to-navigate" will mean different things to different people!

The Big Difference Between Leanpub and Writebook

There are lots of differences between Leanpub and Writebook:

• The Leanpub platform includes not just a way to write and publish ebooks, but also way to sell them in our online bookstore, that is deeply integrated with the writing process. You make 80% on every sale, you can easily update your book any time for all your readers, and we do all the customer support for you.
• Leanpub readers get a nice library where they can access all their Leanpub books.
• Leanpub has a global community of authors who have published thousands of books and are constantly publishing more: this helps people discover your books in our bookstore, because we have a big and growing audience of book readers.
• If you write a book on Leanpub you can get it translated into 31 languages using our TranslateAI service.
• Leanpub has a ton of features to help you market your book and get discovered,  from creating discount coupon links, to social posts that offer people deals on your books, a podcast, free book launch videos you can apply for, and more.

Since Leanpub's been doing this since 2010 and we're both a store and a writing platform, there are lots of other differences between what we offer and Writebook.

But from Writebook's perspective, the biggest difference between Writebook and Leanpub is right there at the top of the ONCE page:

Something happened to business software.

You used to pay for it once, install it, and run it. Whether on someone’s computer, or a server for everyone, it felt like you owned it. And you did.

Today, most software is a service. Not owned, but rented. Buying it enters you into a perpetual landlord–tenant agreement. Every month you pay for essentially the same thing you had last month. And if you stop paying, the software stops working. Boom, you’re evicted.

Basically, what Writebook offers is open software you can download and operate yourself, on your computer:

System requirements & installation

Since Writebook is software you install and host yourself, you’ll need a few things before you begin:

Your own domain name. You’ll need to point the DNS to the IP address of the machine that’ll be hosting Writebook.

A web server connected to the internet. This could be your own hardware or something hosted in the cloud like AWS, DigitalOcean, etc. All you need is 2GB RAM/1CPU.

Some basic technical know-how. We’ll give you a single command to run from the terminal on your server that’ll be hosting Writebook. It’ll set everything up for you from there, including the SSL certificate.

So, from Writebook's perspective, that's the biggest difference between their product and Leanpub: while Leanpub's free to use in our Browser and Upload writing modes, you can't download Leanpub's book generation software and run it on your computer.