Here's a quick guide to creating a course in the GitHub writing mode on Leanpub:

1. Go here on GitHub and click "Use this template" to create a new repo with Leanpub's default course content

2. Clone the new repo locally

3. Create a new course on Leanpub and select the GitHub writing mode here

4. At this stage, you may need to validate your email address; in the end, you will be taken to the "Getting Started" page on Leanpub for your new course

5. Add Leanpub as a collaborator on the repo on GitHub

8. On the "Getting Started" page for your course on Leanpub, click on "Versions", and click the button to create a preview

9. When the preview is complete, click on "View the latest preview of your course"

10. At this point, we suggest you open the manuscript folder for the course in your local repo, and inspect the preview ebook files (PDF, EPUB, and MOBI) side-by-side with the .txt files you'll find in the manuscript folder, to see how everything works

11. Finally, please note that your course previews will be generated using the files listed in the Book.txt file in the manuscript folder. Changing the files listed there will change the files used to generate your previews

That's it for the TL;DR tutorial!

As a next step, at some point you may want to jump to this point in the full tutorial to learn about how courses work, writing in your course, uploading a cover image, etc.

If you have any feedback or questions about this article, please email the Leanpub team about it at hello@leanpub.com!

If you have any questions or thoughts on writing and self-publishing with Leanpub, please join our global community of authors in our Authors Forum here!

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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