News
Well, there are a couple hours left in the year, so it’s time for the monthly Leanpub Author Update email!
Normally in this newsletter there’s news about what we’re doing, and a sale, and some podcast links. This one is going to be a bit different, in that it’s going to talk about New Year’s resolutions and how that relates to Leanpub books and courses.
Or, if you don't feel like reading it, you could just go buy a discounted Lifetime Standard Plan or Lifetime Pro Plan instead!
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Anyway, some typical New Year’s resolutions are to lose weight, exercise more, read more, look at your phone less, blah, blah, blah.
Boring.
Vapid.
Who cares?
Really, do you?
When I make these types of resolutions I like to think I do.
But, I don’t.
Not really.
They're too small. Given the amount of effort or lifestyle change involved, they're not exciting enough. So I usually stop.
Ironically, many things that I have accomplished over the years which would have been good New Year’s resolutions (quitting smoking, quitting drinking, losing weight, drinking more water, writing a book, starting a company) never coincided with New Year’s Eve. They did, however, coincide with a quiet commitment and without drama. (Usually, the more drama I would attach to starting things meant there would be less chance of actually finishing them.)
So, what are some good things to commit to in 2020?
Well, since you've subscribed to this newsletter, here are three good candidates for goals:
- Write a(nother) book.
- Create a course out of that book.
- Do the work to market that book and course.
At Leanpub, we give you the tools for #1 and #2, and we give you the encouragement for #3 :) We also give you attractive book and course landing pages for #3, of course. But you still need to do the work!
Supporting these goals, here are some good candidates for habits:
- Write at least 30 minutes a day (either every day, or every weekday).
- Do marketing at least 30 minutes a week.
- If your book or course is done, consider switching the time lengths of #1 and #2.
Now, in this newsletter, we’re going to give you one more thing:
A discounted Lifetime Standard Plan or Lifetime Pro Plan!
You can go to https://leanpub.com/shelf/buy and see the choices.
(Yes, we really hid this on the shelf spot purchase page, but no, you don’t actually get a shelf spot with the purchase!)
You can buy a Lifetime Standard Plan for $199 or a Lifetime Pro Plan for $299.
We also have monthly subscriptions still, of course, and we even have a free plan. However, nothing says New Year’s Resolution like spending actual money on an up-front commitment. Like a gym membership.
A Leanpub Pro Plan is a lifetime gym membership for your mind. For about the price of a gym membership for a year.
It won’t do the work for you, but it will be there for you. All you need is the motivation.
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By the way, speaking of marketing and courses: when we launched courses, we totally screwed up. We focused on all the features, especially on the fact that you could add video and audio to courses.
What we should have done is emphasized that you can make a course out of an existing book really easily.
I’ve said this before, and this email is long enough as it is, but it’s true. So, to emphasize this, today I made my Programming for Kids book and course have a public GitHub repository (book branch, course branch) and free minimum prices.
So, if you want to see how easy it is to make a course out of a book, take a look at the repositories above. If you want to see a Leanpub course in action, just buy it for free and take it! You can test your Ruby skills too :)
Or, if you want to look at something smaller than that, we also have an example course here.
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