As I have mentioned before, I have been delving into epub format for the last month or two, so as to extend the number of places where I can offer some of my writing. Kindle is great, and has been a very good place to start, but a little while ago I decided it was time to branch out.

So following a recommendation from the Finnish author Petteri Hannila, I went to the Leanpub site and got to grips with that. They accept a variety of original formats, of which the most interesting to me was html, since I already had that!

Leanpub was originally geared up to present books on computer languages and coding. So parts of their site were not relevant to my project, but the level of help and support is excellent. Whatever input format you choose, it is internally converted to a text layout they call “markdown” (by way of a rather geeky joke on the computer term “markup”, I think). It looks a bit like Wiki formatting for those who have met that. From markdown it goes straight into an epub file. Kindle and pdf versions are thrown in for good measure, though I did not in fact need them.

The Man in the Cistern ended up at https://leanpub.com/TheManInTheCistern. This is the first place this story is available in epub format, though I’m sure I will add more places in time.

You have a whole bunch of settings to grapple with, some of which go into the book file itself and some into the web site listing. Along the way you even get to specify a section as a short sample preview. The link for this goes onto your page listing. I must admit that this bit caught me out slightly, as I had expected it to be optional. As a result, my first attempt ended up with the default sample, which has standard text having nothing to do with your own book. But one of the very cool features of Leanpub came to my rescue – you can upload a revised version whenever you like. Previous buyers are notified and get the update for free, just like an update to a mobile phone app. So last night I hastily put together a quick sample version – if it turns out I don’t like it I can just rework the sample and leave the main content as is.

All very handy, and once you get your head around their terminology it is easy to use. I’m happy to recommend this site as an alternative point of sale. They are totally non-exclusive in their approach so don’t mind where else you sell your books – though other arrangements you might have made like Kindle Select might interfere with this. The terms and conditions are very straightforward and not at all hard to find. Great stuff.