Peter Armstrong (Leanpub)
In this talk, Peter Armstrong will present the ideas of Lean Publishing.
Lean Publishing is the act of publishing an in-progress ebook using lightweight tools and many iterations to get reader feedback, pivot until you have the right book and build traction once you do. This talk does a deep dive into each of the elements of that definition, understanding the origin and meaning of all its parts.
Lean Publishing
The general idea is to publish in-progress book. According to Peter, there is a similar path between a startup and a book: risk, creative, stealth, funding… One of the consequences is a waste of time.
The idea of lean publishing actually come to Charles Dickens and Seymour. He was writing a story and based on the feedback he got, he wrote the following episode. The serial publishing was born.
Definition of lean publishing
The top 3 bestselling books published last year were first published as serial fiction.
IT publishers (like O’Reilly) need to adapt to the curve of technology adoption, so they are publishing early version (like beta version). You can finish it later.