There’s fairly little marketing, it all hangs on the publisher having good connections with distributors, that have good relations with book stores, and then have a pitch and cover design that are convincing enough for these book stores to stock.
As someone often creating digital content, I was impressed by how well these networks function. The book does not have a lot of online presence, yet it still found its way around the world.
When it comes to the digital version, I made it myself, because I figured that it also needed to circulate this way and that it talks to another audience. However, not doing much marketing for it other than posting on social media, there are very little sales. Visits to the website don’t really convert to eBook sales, so I think the audience I have at the moment prefers the physical medium. In posting on Hacker News I was curious if this was going to be different.
When it comes to the license, it permits people sharing the PDF. Ideally for me this means people mailing it to their friends, but I think it includes hosting on a public platform too. Because of the NC clause, to be sure the platform that hosts it should also be non-commercial, so I imagine someone could share it on their personal blog for example. This will probably happen at some point. It’s a bit of an ambiguous feeling, I realise it’s a consequence of the choice I made and that it will help the material reach more people, at the same time it doesn’t feel great to loose control. At least I hope I’ll be good enough at SEO so that people continue to realise it exists for sale :) After all that’s how paying for digital media often works, as a decision to want to support the author rather than a necessity to access the content.