Reader Memberships


A Reader Membership is a great deal, and it's a great way to support Leanpub authors and Leanpub. We hope you'll join us!

First, a Leanpub Reader Membership gives you you free access to about 2000 books on Leanpub that are only free with membership. This includes hundreds of books about computer programming, data science, software architecture and more!

Half the money from Reader Memberships goes directly to the authors of the books that you get for free with your membership. The other half helps us build a better Leanpub for our authors and our readers.

If you want a monthly, annual or lifetime Reader Membership, click this blue button!

It's important to note that not all Leanpub books are free with membership: the books which are free with membership all show a minimum price of "Free! With Membership". You can buy these books for $7.99 without a Reader Membership, and you do not need a Reader Membership to make any paid purchases. (You can learn more at our Help Center.)

Also, we have some books which are free for everyone, regardless of whether you have a Reader Membership. When an author chooses for their book or course to have a free minimum price, they can also choose whether it requires a Reader Membership to be purchased for free. (This is edited by a checkbox on the pricing page: Leanpub tries really hard to make things easy for authors.)

However, even omitting the books which are free for everyone, it would cost you over $15,000 to buy all the books that are only free with a Reader Membership! Like we said, a Leanpub Reader Membership is a great deal!



Besides being a great deal, Reader Memberships support Leanpub authors! Specifically, exactly 50% of the money from Reader Memberships is paid as royalties to Leanpub authors. (This is $9.50 on a $19 Annual Membership, and $49.50 on a $99 Lifetime Membership.)

Here's how it works: If a book or course requires a Reader Membership to be purchased for free, this book or course participates in the Reader Membership Revenue Pool. Half of the money from each Reader Membership is put into this pool. Then, on a per-membership basis, this revenue is shared with the authors of the only-free-with-membership books or courses which were purchased for free by a particular reader. So, if a given reader purchases only one such book or course, that author gets all of the Reader Membership Pool revenue from that membership. If a reader purchases two or more such books or courses, it's shared on a weighted basis.

We launched Reader Memberships in summer 2022, and our Reader Membership Revenue Pool already has thousands of dollars in it. We're excited to see how it grows, and we're thrilled that we've found yet another way to help Leanpub readers to support Leanpub authors!



Leanpub Authors Love Leanpub


Matthew guay
Matthew Guay

Content Marketer at Zapier

“While most eBook exporter apps today can generate PDF files and many support ePub, there's one tool we recommend above all after trying 8 of the most popular: Leanpub.”
Paul redmond
Paul Redmond

Author of Writing APIs With Lumen

“Leanpub forces you to focus on writing and gives you immediate feedback. Allowing Leanpub to take care of the curation and delivery helped me focus on shipping my book.”
Reg
Reg "Raganwald" Braithwaite

Author, JavaScript Allongé, the "Six" Edition

“Simple and lean, forces me to focus on writing and marketing, and pays excellent royalties.”
Geerling
Jeff Geerling

Author, Ansible for DevOps

“With Leanpub, the first person who purchased my book for $9.99 almost two years ago (and only received a preface, and two short intro chapters) has had access to almost every bit of knowledge I've gained in those two years, and *that's* the value.”
Daniel root
Daniel Root

Author, Trello Dojo

“I love that Leanpub makes writing and publishing a beautiful book so simple. I no longer spin my wheels with layouts and formats - Leanpub gets out of the way when it's time to write, and then automates everything when it's time to publish.”
Simonbrown
Simon Brown

Author, Software Architecture for Developers

“Leanpub allows me focus on content, takes care everything else and offers an amazing author royalty. It’s a fantastic platform for writing and publishing books.”
Paulbradshaw amsterdam
Paul Bradshaw

Paul runs the MA in Online Journalism at Birmingham City University

“I earn more royalties from my books on Leanpub than I do with well established publishers or through Amazon (which I publish on thanks to Leanpub's mobi conversion).”
Karen
Karen Greaves

Growing Agile

“Leanpub makes publishing your own book super easy. The fact that you can release updates continually helps with the mindset of getting a minimum version out ASAP and then iterating to improve. ”
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Manuel Kiessling

Author, The Node Beginner Book

“Four years ago, I joined Leanpub to just give it a try. Today, over 28,000 book sales later, I cannot help but say that I'm the biggest Leanpub fan on this planet!”
Aaron
Aaron Sumner

Author, Everyday Rails Testing with RSpec

“Leanpub made it simple for me to run with my book idea and build my reputation in the Ruby community. I went from first draft to first sale in days, not months or years.”
Johanna
Johanna Rothman

Author of 8 Leanpub books and counting…

“Leanpub helps me see my books as I write them. Even better, I can find readers early, to read my books and offer suggestions. I can pivot, if I see the need.”
Phil
Phil Sturgeon

Author, Build APIs You Won't Hate

“Leanpub helped me gauge interest in my book, get payments early on when it was only a few chapters, and has got me a bunch of sales just from people browsing around the site.”
Sam leanpub
Samantha Laing

Growing Agile

“Leanpub helped me achieve my goal of publishing a book. Its simple, easy to use interface got my book up and making money within weeks, I love Leanpub!”
Jason
W. Jason Gilmore

Author, Easy Laravel 5

“Leanpub is a game changer for independent authors, removing the hassles associated with formatting, book production, and electronic sales, freeing up the time to do what we do best: write.”
Taylo
Taylor Otwell

Creator Of Laravel

“I love using Leanpub because I can write my book using simple Markdown notation. Leanpub let's me focus on my content and they handle the rest.”
Ryan
Ryan Bigg

Author, Multitenancy with Rails

“Leanpub takes the pain out of publishing. They provide the tools, you provide the books and then magic happens.”
Chris
Chris Hartjes

The Grumpy Programmer

“Leanpub's book-creation tools allowed me to focus on creating the types of books I wanted to write instead of worrying how to create my own book publishing toolchain. I have never regretted using Leanpub to publish my ebooks.”
Roger
Roger D. Peng

Associate Professor of Biostatistics at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

“As an academic, I like Leanpub because it lets me write and get my ideas out there quickly. Leanpub is simply the best place for publishing my books. ”