Im März 2009 hat die Marketing-Abteilung des kanadischen Verlags D&M Publishers ein Experiment gewagt und das Buch Tar Sands – Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent als kostenloses PDF zum Download bereitgestellt. Damit verband der Verlag folgende vier Ziele:
- To have as many people as possible download the book
- To increase traffic on our site
- To increase sales
- To establish Greystone Books as a leading environmental publisher through the development of relationships with environmental bloggers and websites
Die interessanten Ergebnisse des Experiments wurden im April 2009 in einem Bericht zusammengefasst, der hier abrufbar ist:
► Tar Sands Online Marketing Campaign – Report (PDF, 180 KB)
Am Ende konnte folgendes Fazit gezogen werden:
To conclude, we’ve deemed that all goals were successfully met to the degree that we were able to measure them. Overall, the campaign was an experiment in providing free content and the knowledge, contacts and web presence we gained from that has proven extremely valuable.
Eine argumentative Reaktion auf Kritikpunkte aufgebrachter Buchhändler lieferte der Verlag auch:
We are hoping that this U.S. promotion (a free PDF of Tar Sands) will help raise the profile of the book south of the border where it just released. It is limited in time to only 5 days, but it should, we hope, increase the profile of the book, especially in the blogosphere. This is a marketing experiment that has been tried by a number of publishers and we think it could create an extra buzz for Andrew’s book. I can understand why a bookseller might be nervous about it, but we too make our living selling books, so that’s our ultimate goal – to keep Tar Sands front-and-centre in the mind of the public, and to sell more copies in the U.S. and in Canada through bookstores like yours. Most people will prefer to read Tar Sands in book-form rather than in a large PDF, especially since the book is inexpensive.
via: So Misguided
