Bestselling author Tim Ferriss took an unorthodox route this month, using the file-sharing site BitTorrent to promote his new book. For the last seven days, BitTorrent members had exclusive access to excerpts, unpublished writing and multimedia materials related to The 4-Hour Chef.

Today, BitTorrent revealed some statistics: “The Tim Ferriss 4-Hour Chef Bundle has now been downloaded 211,000 times. From BitTorrent, 85,000 visitors clicked to check out the book in the Amazon store, a huge number for the category. The audience has been highly engaged as well: 13% of visitors to the featured content page on BitTorrent clicked out of the site to watch the YouTube trailer, contributing to 1.4MM views16% clicked to the 4-Hour Chef site.”

In 2010, Ferriss hit the Amazon bestseller list with The 4-Hour Body, a book traditionally published through Crown Archetype. A number of bookstores have said they will not stock his new book since it is published by Amazon.

Like many publications whose readers are looking for both digital and print options, The Economist has been experimenting with different ways to package its content to subscribers.

The magazine offers subscribers content through its weekly print magazine, app editions of the magazine, as well as online access. For readers who commit to a two-year subscription, a print subscription is  $2.19 a week; a digital subscription is 2.19 a week; and a subscrition to both is $2.74 a week. Full app access used to be free with a print subscription.

In an interview published today by Ad Age, Michael Brunt, SVP of circulation for the Americas and global head of marketing at Economist Digital, explains why the magazine stopped giving away app access with a print subscription.

He told AdAge: “Our subscribers really value our content, and we wanted to create a pricing structure that made sense for the way that people wanted to buy our subscription. People think it’s reasonable to pay a little more for both and to give them a choice for a lower cost if they just want print or they just want digital.”

The 99-cent Writer Rumble video game for iOS devices lets you play a famous writer and battle with word games. Characters include H. P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe and Jane Austen.

We’ve embedded the Joystiq video about the game above–what do you think? The game includes options to challenge your friends to a game or play with other players online, use split screen on the iPad and share your scores on Facebook and Game Center. Check it out:

Words will never hurt you – until now! With Writer Rumble, you can take on your friends in a game of speed spelling madness or battle against enemies in single player mode. Use your board to find the most damaging words and watch as your enemies take a beating. Unleash special powers to increase damage, get new letters, or save yourself from dying. (link via Eric Smith)

iPhone app downloads increased by 33 percent in October, according to new metrics from Fiksu. The dramatic increase followed the release of the iPhone 5 in late September. According to Fiksu’s App Store competitive index, which looks at the average aggregate daily download volume of the top 200 free U.S. iPhone apps, average daily downloads in October reached  5.4 million. Interestingly, in October 2011, when Apple released the iPhone 4S, Fiksu saw iPhone app downloads increase by  29 percent.

According to Fiksu’s latest monthly report, which also looks at mobile app loyalty, it costs $1.06 to maintain a loyal app user, which was down seven cents or 6 percent from September’s $1.13. Fiksu’s press release explains the change: “Significant increases in organic searches and app discovery – driven by the arrival of the iPhone 5 and users’ natural enthusiasm for downloading apps on to new devices – pushed costs down and created a huge opportunity for mobile app marketers to very cost-efficiently acquire loyal users in October.”

Random House has released a companion app for George R. R. Martin‘s Game of Thrones books series.

The app, which is called A World of Ice and Fire, is an official guide to the series and includes biographical profiles of the epic’s 540 characters, descriptions of the 380 locations from the stories, as well as interactive world maps.

The app is designed with anti-spoiler shields, so that readers can customize where they are in the book and only explore the worlds that have been revealed to that point. Elio M. García Jr. and Linda Antonsson, the founders of fan site Westeros.org have written original text for the app.

Apple has it available for free with in-app purchases available. The free edition includes eight character profiles from A Game of Thrones, as well as interactive maps for the North and South. Readers can buy additional InfoPacks based on each book for $.99-$1.99, depending on the title, or the entire pack for $4.99. Nook is offering the entire app for $4.99.

Apple announced that it will begin selling iPhone 5s, fourth generation iPads and iPad Minis display in China. The company will be selling the iPads beginning on Friday December 7th, and the iPhone 5s on Friday, December 14th. The devices will be available online and in Apple stores, as well as through authorized resellers in China.

These devices are already available in 47 countries around the globe, including the U.S., Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and the U.K.

The iPad Mini is a 7.9-inch tablet with a 1,024 x 768 resolution screen that sells for $329.  The fourth generation iPad is a 10-inch tablet with a retina display and an A6 chip. It retails for $499. The iPhone 5 is the lightest iPhone to date. It features a 4-inch retina display and is powered with an A6 chip.

Want to use your iPhone or iPad as a remote control for music in your house? Download Apple’s free Remote app and sync it to iTunes on your laptop or desktop and you are in business. (This requires you to login in to your Apple account and to turn on “Home Sharing” on your computer, an option under the drop down menu “Advanced” in iTunes).

The app lets you control iTunes from anywhere in your home. You can browse your library and choose playlists, shuffle, skip and listen.

Today, Apple has updated the app to support the release of iTunes 11. The Version 3 update includes iTunes’ new “Up Next” tool, which you can use to see a list of upcoming songs and edit what comes next. The update also includes new search and browsing capabilities such as letting iPad users view all songs in an album with the “expanded view” tool.

The Main Line Murder by Donna Huston Murray is today’s free eBook of the day.

The mystery novel takes place in Philadelphia. Here is more about it from the book’s description: “Cultivating a reputation for her do-it-yourself skills as the wife to Bryn Derwyn Academy’s new headmaster, Ginger Struve Barnes finds the school in sad disrepair, a situation that pales when a corpse is found on campus.”

Amazon has the free download available today only.

For more free eBooks, check out our Free eBook of the Day archive.

After announcing a new version back in September, Apple has finally released iTunes 11. The updated store includes new browsing tools, new playlist tools and a tool called, “Up Next,”  which you can use to see a list of upcoming songs and edit what comes next via a drop down box.

The update also makes it easier to sync devices with your computer. When you plug your iPhone or iPad into your computer, an icon for the device will appear in the upper corner of iTunes and you can use this icon to manually add content. The new update also includes a new mini player. This mini player is a small window that you can move around your homescreen. It’s small, but you can use it to skip songs, search for a new song and view what is next.

Apple has also added a history tool to browsing in iTunes, so that you can go back and purchase a movie or album that you were looking at but didn’t buy the first time around without having to search again. (Via Mashable).

It’s not really a big surprise, but today App Annie reported that Apple’s revenues from digital content is 4x that of revenues from Google Play.

Still Google can’t be ignored. According to App Annie’s monthly index report, which looks at global app downloads and revenues, Google Play’s revenue grew 17.9 percent in the last month, while iOS revenue dropped 0.7 percent in the same time period. The report also revealed that Japanese consumers are now spending more on apps from Google Play than are U.S. consumers for the first time. Read more