Ryan Bigg
Who are you?
I primarily write books about Ruby. I started off with Rails 3 in Action (now Rails 4 in Action) for Manning Publications and found the writing process frustrating. I started a new book, Mutlitenancy with Rails, using Leanpub instead and I found it a joy to work with. Put the files on Dropbox and then hit “Publish”. Genius.
Can you describe your Leanpub books? Are they in-progress or complete? What types of books are they?
The books I’ve written are technical books that vary anywhere from 600 pages to the little one I’m working on at the moment that’s about to cross 50 pages.
What do you think about Leanpub?
Leanpub is to book publishing as Apple is to computer hardware. Clean, beautiful and it works terifically.
Why do you use Leanpub?
My last experience writing for a large publisher left a sour taste in my mouth. I had to use SVN and then a system that was written in the early 90s that had no care in the world about user experience. Here’s a typical flow in that old system:
- Commit to SVN.
- Log in to web site
- Find book in list of all books by all authors.
- Click little gear icon.
- Find the chapter that was just updated.
- Scroll down list of all revisions ever committed for that chapter.
- Click tiny radio button to select latest revision.
- Click “Update”.
Leanpub is:
- Copy files to Dropbox.
- Sign in to Leanpub (optional)
- Hit “Publish”.
Smooth as.
How did you discover Leanpub?
I called out to the Universe (read: put a message on Twitter) and the Universe (read: some random on Twitter) answered back. The rest is history.
What’s your favorite Leanpub feature?
I know it’s going to sound greedy, but this is it: the part where I get a decent royalty pay. 90% - 50c is great. Other than that, the interface is clean and extremely easy to use.
How have you reached out to potential and existing readers of your books?
I get emails from them occasionally submitting feedback from the book and we primarily communicate through that.
How long was your first Leanpub book when you first clicked the publish button? Would you publish earlier or later next time?
I think that was about 50 pages long at the time. I think it was at the right stage to publish… the groundwork was laid, a chapter outline was present and it was clear where we were going with the book. The second time I published was way earlier, about 20 pages of content. Someone actually emailed me and complained that the book was too short! I replied and told him it was in beta and they haven’t yet got a refund, so I guess they were happy with the reply.
How can we improve Leanpub?
Amass a huge amount of money and buy out the other publishers. Replace their systems with yours. TAKE OVER THE WORLD.