Don Jones

If you’ve purchased any of my Leanpub ebooks, I’ve an important notice for you.

Most of my books published there are either in-progress, or are ongoing “Forever Edition” titles. That means I and my co-authors routinely publish updates.

But you may be missing out on the updates due to a recent Leanpub change. 

In order to comply with GDPR, Leanpub needed to obtain explicit permission to email you about book updates. Their prior opt-in wasn’t explicit enough for GDPR requirements, and so in an abundance of caution, they disabled notifications for many readers.

Now look, I’m an IT guy. I hate opting into emails as much as all of you. I go out of my way not to opt into emails, even when I probably should. Be here’s what Leanpub has done. Start by logging into the site, going to your account menu on the upper-right, and selecting Email:

Then scroll down, and you’ll see the book-related email section:

This lets you receive “Hey, the book has been updated!” emails on a per-book basis. Importantly:

• The author (me) doesn’t get your email address.
• You’re not subscribed to a newsletter (those options are higher on the page)
• You will only get an email if:
  • I publish a new version of the book AND
  • I indicate it’s a significant enough release to email readers

A lot of my readers are missing out and possibly not realizing it. I’ve updated most of my books in the recent month since notifications were disabled, and a lot of folks haven’t re-enabled them (I can see what percentage of my readers are being notified of new released; it used to be 98-99%, and now it’s closer to 40% on most books).

Anyway, if you don’t want these emails, cool – but do check back often (monthly should be fine) for updates. The little Alert icon in the upper-right of Leanpub’s site (when you’re logged in) will let you know if there are new builds.

Thanks, and have a great weekend!