No, Leanpub doesn't support pre-orders, sorry!
We strongly support in-progress publishing - our motto is "Publish Early, Publish Often" - but that's not quite the same thing as a pre-order.
Pre-orders are a great way for conventionally-published authors to generate revenue in advance of publishing, and of course there's the great Kickstarter model that works for some self-publishing book projects, too.
However, at Leanpub, we want to ensure that readers have enough time to evaluate a book during our 60-day refund period after they make their purchase, which is possible with in-progress books, but unfortunately is not possible with pre-orders.
Please note that when you create a book on Leanpub, you get a free landing page with a form that people can fill out, to be notified when you do publish the first version of your book.
Related Article: How to Market A Book You Haven't Published Yet: Part One
With our platform, you can publish the first version of your book after you finish writing just the first chapter!
Anyone who buys your book at the beginning will get all your future updates for free, as you add new chapters, or make edits, etc.
What We Will Do If An Author Tries to Set Up a Pre-Order
Authors are creative people, and sometimes they get creative with Leanpub!
If an author doesn't know that we we actually don't support pre-orders, they may try to find a customized way to to do this on Leanpub.
For example, they may publish a book that's just one page long, thanking you for your purchase, and explaining it's a pre-order for a book they plan to publish in the future.
If an author finds a way to do this, typically a confused customer will contact us about it, and ask if the author published the book early by accident - that does happen sometimes!
In this case, we will refund purchases of the book, and "unpublish" it, so interested people can still sign up to be notified when the book is published, and buy it then.
Questions or Feedback
If you have any questions or feedback for this article, please email the Leanpub Team at hello@leanpub.com.
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If you have any feedback or questions about this article, please email the Leanpub team about it at hello@leanpub.com!
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Are you interested in self-publishing, and creating your first Leanpub book? Here are some quick tutorials for our most popular writing modes: http://help.leanpub.com/en/articles/3088382-quick-walkthroughs-for-getting-started-on-a-leanpub-book
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