I uploaded my own books to torrent sites

[Veliko]

Not sure if this goes against any rules or not but some people may possibly be interested in this one way or another.

I am a newish indie author who has self-published four books. The other day I uploaded torrents of them to Demonoid, ISOHunt and The Pirate Bay. I posted in the forums of those sites saying so and the response was quite positive.

The mods at ISOHunt kindly 'stickied' my thread. Someone on The Pirate Bay forum is going to interview me for Rant Central. I got general well-wishing on Demonoid. I decided to brave 4Chan and got a couple of encouraging responses (one person called me a 'i love you' at the same time which was quite amusing).

I have a Wordpress blog so I posted on the Wordpress forum about what I had done. Someone who writes for dailydot.com is interested in interviewing me.

My blog itself has had 100+ hits from people searching for things like "Michael Cargill author" on Google.

With regards to the effect on sales, whilst technically I have had a 40% increase in people buying them, when your sales stand at a total of 10 it is hard to make any concrete judgements...!

I am wary of posting any links or screenshots but my sig has some details.

 

[lxskllr]

I'll check them out a little later. I don't really read a much as I used to, but I should get back in to it. Thank you for respecting our rights as readers, and I expect you'll be rewarded by your fans :^)

 

[Red Squirrel]

You'll probably get bashed here over discussions of torrent/sites, but I will go ahead and give a two thumbs up. Good job. 😎

 

[Raizinman]

Perhaps I'm missing something, but why would sales of a book or anything go up when they are distributed freely on a torrent? I'm not aware that people who use torrents will download a book, read it, and then think, heck, I should just go out and buy it now? Sounds like you just shot yourself in the foot.

Torrents hurt the software companies, movie companies, music companies, and publishing companies. Supporting the torrents is supporting criminal activity, which is why most boards will not even allow discussion of torrents.

 

[lxskllr]

Perhaps I'm missing something, but why would sales of a book or anything go up when they are distributed freely on a torrent? I'm not aware that people who use torrents will download a book, read it, and then think, heck, I should just go out and buy it now?

Torrents hurt the software companies, movie companies, music companies, and publishing companies.

Because people support art they appreciate. Torrents don't affect sales significantly one way or the other. For smaller artists, it gets their work out so people can appreciate it, and their fans will support their effort.

 

[Zeze]

Perhaps I'm missing something, but why would sales of a book or anything go up when they are distributed freely on a torrent? I'm not aware that people who use torrents will download a book, read it, and then think, heck, I should just go out and buy it now? Sounds like you just shot yourself in the foot.

Torrents hurt the software companies, movie companies, music companies, and publishing companies. Supporting the torrents is supporting criminal activity, which is why most boards will not even allow discussion of torrents.

1. Torrents 'only hurt' mega greedy record labels, film studios, and book publishers, not the artists, stars, or writers. The companies impose disgusting pricing scheme or DRM on their product while authors see almost a fraction of that profit.

2. If the AUTHOR himself uploaded his work, who cares? There are many links to torrenting = more sales. Why? More visibility, more buzz, more publicity = people who buy them increase whether on purpose to support it or general public who always buy.