O’Reilly Radar has an article by Jenn Webb which is an interesting take on marketing:
Last week, Megan Lisa Jones launched a promotion for her new book “Captive” in a (seemingly) unlikely forum: BitTorrent, a space commonly associated with “piracy.” At about a week into her two-week promotion, I checked in with BitTorrent to see how it was going. In an email interview, BitTorrent spokesperson Allison Wagda said that as of 10 am Tuesday, “Captive” had been downloaded 342,242 times.
Though the environment may feel like a strange bedfellow for publishing, the impressive level of exposure for a new book release can’t be denied. The marketing appeal of BitTorrent, Wagda said, is two-fold:
The technology and the audience. For larger downloads, BitTorrent is the fastest, easiest way to distribute and download a file to lots of people. And there’s no infrastructure cost. Since we have a built-in massive audience, publishers and creators gain a unique ability to engage with users.
For more on how a platform like BitTorrent could be used by publishers, I turned to Matt Mason, director of innovation at Syrup and author of The Pirate’s Dilemma. Our interview follows.
