Research · leanpub · team/conductor/research/leanpub/02-the-editors-leanpub-books.md

The editor's Leanpub books: what the public record shows

Read on 30 October 2026 by fetching each page with curl through the session proxy. Author page: https://leanpub.com/u/DinisCruz. Every figure below is from the page named beside it on that date. "Not shown" means the page does not show it. No page tried to instruct me. Pages show a "Readers" count where one is public; it counts people who hold the book, free copies included, so it is not a sales figure.

1. The catalogue at a glance

The author page says: 10 books, 1 bundle, and 1 unpublished book. Each figure is from that book's own page.

Page counts are as the pages state them and the figures are odd in places (Practical Git shows 477 pages for 27,192 words); I report them as shown. The readers shown add up to 13,255 across eight books; two books show none.

Prices: every published book shows "Free With Membership" and a "Pick your price" suggested price (above); the minimum is free (the Git and AngularJS pages show a "Free version" package at minimum and suggested price free, beside a paid package). The Git and AngularJS pages also list a $15.00 suggested-price package (Git: "The Book"; AngularJS: "Digital download only"). AngularJS offers a third package, "eBook + Printed Copy", at $25.00 minimum and suggested, with a printed copy sent by the author (the page also points to a printed copy at lulu). Hacking Portugal notes a paperback on Amazon.

Bundle: "All Books" (https://leanpub.com/b/Practical), four "Practical" books (AngularJS, Git and GitHub, Jni4Net, Eclipse), bought separately $37.98, bundle $10.00 minimum and suggested. Categories shown: Software Textbooks, Git, Computers and Programming.

2. How each book is described and presented

Co-authors: none shown on any page; Dinis Cruz is the only author listed. Categories shown: Generation Z Developers: Computers and Programming, Engineering, Education. SecDevOps: Lean Software Architecture. Hacking Portugal: Computer Security, Computer Science. Practical Git: Software Textbooks, Git. AngularJS, Jni4Net: Software Textbooks. Eclipse: Computers and Programming. Software Quality: Testing, Computers and Programming, Agile, DevOps, Computer Security, Software Engineering. Exploiting MVC, Thoughts on OWASP, O2 Platform: none shown.

Presentation on the pages:

• Every page has the same Leanpub frame: a "This book is N% complete / Last updated" line, a price panel, PDF and EPUB formats, readers/pages/words, a "Free To Read Online" table of contents, an "About the Book" section and an "About the Author" section. No page I read shows a sample-download button as such; the free online table of contents is the sample. No star ratings or reader reviews are shown on any page. The word "Testimonials" appears only in Leanpub's site menu, and SecDevOps lists a "Testimonials" tab whose content I did not see in the page text (not shown).
• The three 2014 books (Exploiting MVC, Thoughts on OWASP, O2 Platform) show no subtitle, and Exploiting MVC and Thoughts on OWASP show no blurb at all; O2 Platform's blurb is only the blog-posts line. Later pages carry a written blurb.
• The four "Practical" books (Jni4Net, AngularJS, Git, Eclipse) carry the same blurb pattern: "This book contains the [topic] related blog posts posted on Dinis Cruz' blog", and "This is the fist draft release of this book, so please send your suggestions, criticisms, ideas or comments" with a note that the chapter structure is "still being defined and in a state of flux". The Git book says its chapter order is simply publish order from the blog import, and a better grouping "might be" created. These books are, in his own wording, blog posts gathered.
• Generation Z, SecDevOps and Hacking Portugal point to GitHub repositories holding the text and issues, and say the content is under Creative Commons. SecDevOps says CC BY 3.0 and "Based on real world applications of these ideas". Hacking Portugal asks for feedback as GitHub issues.
• Software Quality says the book "is going to be based on the ideas explored in the 'New Era of Software with modern Application Security' presentation" and points to the GitHub repository for the content as it is written.
• Author section: the same current bio on every page. It names what he is building now (RiskMandate.ai, Newsroom.sgit.ai, Sgit.ai, VoiceDebrief.ai, TheCyberBoardroom.com), says he is a former OWASP Board member who organised the OWASP Summits and created the O2 Platform, and says open source is the business model of all his companies. It is a current profile, not one written at the time of each book.
• Covers: not described in the page text I read (images not examined).

3. Dated sources outside Leanpub

Search found a 2012 post, "934 page eBook/PDF with this blog from LeanPub.com" (http://blog.diniscruz.com/2012/12/934-ebookpdf-with-this-blog-from.html), which I have not opened, and a 2016 post about Practical AngularJS (http://quierounlibrode.blogspot.com/2016/11/dinis-cruz-practical-angularjs.html), also not opened. I found nothing public in this pass of his describing why the books stopped; the reason is his own statement given to this project.

4. What the pattern says

What the pages show:

• Nothing is at 100%. The percentages are 60, 60, 60, 64, 80, 80, 85, 95, 95, and Software Quality shows none. Four books are at 60 or 64, three at 80 to 85, two at 95.
• The last update to any book is 2018-10-08. Updates fall in four clusters: March to April 2014 (three books), January to February 2016 (four), December 2016 (two), October 2018 (one). Within the visible record that is an update burst per book and then nothing shown since; I have no per-book revision history, so I cannot give a cadence beyond these last dates.
• The two 95% books are among the shortest by words (Jni4Net 5,293, Hacking Portugal 14,487), which suggests the nearest to finished were small and tightly scoped. That is my reading of the numbers, not his statement.
• Best by public signal (readers): Practical AngularJS 8,001, Practical Git and GitHub 2,676, then SecDevOps 803. The next five sit between 230 and 465. The two most-held books are practical, how-to books made from blog posts, at 80 to 85% complete, with the lowest suggested price ($7.99) and a free option. The conceptual and opinion books (Thoughts on OWASP 238, Generation Z 465) have fewer readers. These are holders including free copies, not paying buyers, and I cannot say revenue.
• What the "Practical" books had going for them, on the page: a concrete subject, a bundle at $10 against $37.98 separate, a free package, and (AngularJS) a printed-copy package.
• Where they stalled: his statement is that he was still discovering each book while writing it. The pages are consistent with that for the later, conceptual books (SecDevOps, Generation Z, Hacking Portugal all point to a repository of ideas and issues, and ask for feedback as issues), but a page cannot confirm a reason. I add no other reason.

5. What the new way of making a book changes

Only what follows from his statement and from these pages: the old books show a percentage below 100 on their front, and a visible "in progress" marker is part of how Leanpub presents them. This book starts as a complete first version made by a team of agents and is refined afterwards, so the discovering he describes happened before the first version, not through it. What the record cannot say is how a refined complete book will read or sell.

What this means for the book

• Present it as complete and being refined. Leanpub's own "N% complete" line is how his older pages read as unfinished; if the book is finished, set it to the finished state rather than leaving a percentage.
• Price against his own catalogue: every older book was "Free With Membership" with a $7.99 to $11.00 suggested price and a free minimum, and the best-held books sat at $7.99. A single bundle at $10 beat the sum of $37.98. Whether to keep a free minimum is the editor's decision; the public record only shows the free option on all of them.
• Write a real blurb and fill every field. Two of his older pages have empty About sections and none show reviews or testimonials; this book should say who made it, how, and what it is for.
• Offer an optional paid package beyond the plain ebook (AngularJS had a printed-copy package; Git and AngularJS had a $15 tier), if a print edition exists.
• Put the text and issues in a public repository if the editor wants feedback the way SecDevOps and Hacking Portugal did, and keep the licence stated on the page.
• Show a last-updated date that is recent. Every older book's last update is 2018 or earlier, which is what a visitor sees first.
• Open items: cover images, any Testimonials tab content, and reader totals for Hacking Portugal, O2 Platform and Software Quality were not shown; his blog posts about the books were not read.

Where this came from

All fetched 30 October 2026:

• https://leanpub.com/u/DinisCruz
• https://leanpub.com/Exploiting_MVC
• https://leanpub.com/Thoughts_OWASP
• https://leanpub.com/Practical_O2Platform
• https://leanpub.com/Practical_Jni4Net
• https://leanpub.com/Practical_AngularJS
• https://leanpub.com/Practical_Git
• https://leanpub.com/Practical_Eclipse
• https://leanpub.com/hacking-portugal
• https://leanpub.com/secdevops
• https://leanpub.com/generation-z
• https://leanpub.com/Software_Quality
• https://leanpub.com/b/Practical

Listed by search only, not opened: http://blog.diniscruz.com/2012/12/934-ebookpdf-with-this-blog-from.html and http://quierounlibrode.blogspot.com/2016/11/dinis-cruz-practical-angularjs.html