Leanpub announces a new pricing model

Leanpub is home to many books on Laravel including Easy E-Commerce that I co-authored. Today they have announced a pricing change for all publishers using the service. Creating a book with Leanpub is now $100 per book.

Today we are changing the pricing of Leanpub. Until now, Leanpub has been totally free for authors to use. We have earned all of our money from our portion of the storefront revenue. (After the author royalties, PayPal fees and chargeback costs, our gross margin on the storefront is about 8% – for every $100 of book sales on Leanpub, we earn about $8.)

They are also keeping the existing fee structure of keeping 10% and 50 cents per paid sale. However, you are not required to use them as a selling agent. All books created with the service can be sold through your own site. Plus they are also giving discounts to existing authors:

We want to reward loyal authors who support Leanpub through their storefront sales. So, we have two discounts based on lifetime royalties earned across all your Leanpub books. Once you’ve earned at least $1,000 in royalties, creating a new book costs $49 per book. Once you’ve earned at least $10,000 in royalties, creating a new book is free. Hundreds of Leanpub authors will immediately qualify for one of these discounts, and we hope thousands more do in future.

I imagine this move will dampen free book authors from using the service but I think this is a good change because I’ve seen some write their books with the Leanpub system and then sell it completely through other sites.