e-Book Design Tips
track e-book circulation

 
Home Design Tips Scripts Templates/Translations


 
Note: Ideas in this article describe a method of embedding obtaining limited tracking information from E-Books that you create. This potentially allows you to collect some information (example: IP address) about your users. It is generally considered good practice to disclose your privacy and data-collection policies.

In some countries, this type of disclosure may be required by law.

We are not attorneys or lawyers, so can not offer you legal advice (and nothing in this article is, nor should be construed as, legal advice). If you need legal advice, please consult with a lawyer.
 

Track E-Book Circulation
First published in E-Book Compiler Newsletter

If you release a free e-book which you allow others to distribute and pass on ("viral marketing"), is there a way to tell how many people are opening your e-book?

Yes! Although it is going to be an approximate number rather than totally accurate...

Here's how:

Make a small 1 pixel X 1 pixel image on your web site. A transparent GIF image would be ideal.

In the main page of your e-book, put in HTML code something like this in an inconspicuous location:

<IMG SRC="http://www.yoursite.com/smallimage.gif" WIDTH="1" HEIGHT="1">
What will now happen, is that every time somebody opens the e-book, the image will be loaded from your web site. Provided your web host provides logging facilities, this will appear in your web site logs...

Some important points:
  1. If you have more than one e-book, make sure that you use a different image in each of your e-books.

  2. It's not 100% accurate because it won't count if the user is not connected to the Internet when they open the page.

  3. If you want, you could even add different images to each page, and you could track which pages of your e-book are most popular. This could be very helpful information if you want to know which parts of your e-book are most popular, for example, because your e-book includes advertising links or banners.
 
Follow up Article:

Lane Williams kindly contributed 2 follow-up articles which expand on the techniques described above. See "Track E-Book Circulation Using ASP" and "Track E-Book Circulation Using ASP + Access Database".
 






 

Home: eBook Code



Other Sites about eBooks

EBookApprentice.com
Learn about eBook publishing

EBookCompiler.com
Software to create your own eBooks

CoverFactory.com
Create eBook Covers with ease

EBookPower.com
Add multimedia to your eBooks

EBookFriends.com
Discuss eBooks

EBookInterviews.com
Read about other eBook authors' experiences

EBookSubmit.com
Learn about eBook marketing

EBookJungle.com
Searchable directory of eBooks



Related Links

Internet Marketing
 Learn Marketing
 Marketing Tactics

Promotion Links
 Email Marketing
 Increase Traffic
 Press Releases
 Search Engines
 SEO Downloads

Web Site Building
 Accept Credit Cards
 Affiliate Programs
 Domain Names
 Setup Internet Store
 Web Design Software
 Web Design Tutorial
 Web Hosting
 Webmaster Tools

 

 
Disclosure: Advertising Link(s): Our company may receive a payment if you purchase a product/service after following this link.

Disclosure: Our company's websites' content (including this website's content) includes advertisements for our own company's websites, products, and services, and for other organization's websites, products, and services. In the case of links to other organization's websites, our company may receive a payment, (1) if you purchase products or services, or (2) if you sign-up for third party offers, after following links from this website. Unless specifically otherwise stated, information about other organization's products and services, is based on information provided by that organization, the product/service vendor, and/or publicly available information - and should not be taken to mean that we have used the product/service in question. Additionally, our company's websites contain some adverts which we are paid to display, but whose content is not selected by us, such as Google AdSense ads. For more detailed information, please see Advertising/Endorsements Disclosures

About/Terms Of Use     Privacy     Site Map     Advertising/Endorsements Disclosures

Copyright © 2002-2009, Answers 2000 Limited