The increasing usage of BitTorrent services has been a living nightmare for big industry publishers. The RIAA is one of the most notable opponents of BitTorrent sites due to most users using the service to pirate music among other things. Some of these opponents fail to see the upside to using BitTorrent technology as a great marketing tool. However, a Program Director at the University of Seattle has chosen to use BitTorrent to generate buzz and spread his latest eBook to the masses.
Pirate My Book Please
In an extensive guest post on TorrentFreak, a well known BitTorrent blog, Dan Morrill told his experience with offering his latest eBook, ‘Selling Books On Amazon, Tips and Secrets‘ on popular BitTorrent tracker Mininova. Dan explains that his initial reason for releasing his eBook using BitTorrent was not for marketing purposes, but “to control the release and gather good stats on the process.” We don’t think he could’ve picked a better service. Within the first 24 hours, Morrill’s eBook had been downloaded close to 700 times.
Based on the stats he received from Mininova, Morrill was also able to pinpoint the countries in which the eBook was being downloaded the most. Africa ranked high on the list, which is understandable because of the relatively large amount of e-commerce businesses that are set-up in Africa. Morrill was surprised to see India contributing to 5.2% of the overall downloads.
Operation BitTorrent a Success
Morrill rated his overall experience as highly satisfying and recommends using BitTorrent as a great content distribution channel for those that don’t mind. The expansion of the BitTorrent network will only increase in the next few years. In doing so, we think this may be a tool that publishers will eventually start taking a lot more seriously than they do now. It’s undeniable that BitTorrent can prove to be an effective marketing tool for a cheap price when used correctly. Nine Inch Nails concluded the same in March of this year when they uploaded part 1 of their 4 part album Ghosts I-IV to numerous BitTorrent sites. It became the #1 most downloaded album on The Pirate Bay, which helped to increase their sales tremendously for the rest of the album.
We can only wonder when others will catch on to the effectiveness of using BitTorrent sites to market and distribute content. You can download Dan Morrill’s eBook ‘Selling Books On Amazon, Tips and Secrets‘ here.
