02-02-2010, 04:10 PM | #16 | |
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Everyone wants their meat, but doesn't want to have to eat their vegetables. Ads are vegetables: They serve a purpose, and even if you aren't fond of them, you should understand why it's important to eat them. That's just plain wrong, as it is not the consumer's transaction that created those ads... it was a transaction between the advertiser and the TV studio. Now, if a TV studio refused to run an ad that had paid for a show, or a DVD refused to include an ad that paid for a movie... that would be stealing. A consumer's failing to watch an ad is simply a failure of the advertiser to get and hold their attention. |
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02-02-2010, 04:11 PM | #17 |
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I would have no problem with ebooks that contained ads for other books (either by the same author or by different authors but in the same genre) as long as they were at the beginning or end of the book. However, if the ads were inserted within the pages of the narrative, I would be very unreceptive regardless of the price of the book.
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02-02-2010, 04:15 PM | #18 |
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Look at the ads on this site. How bright, annoying and "in your face" are they? Not very, I daresay. And it's not as if this site just sprung up yesterday. As you said, the web's been around awhile... and there are still plenty of understated ads on long-standing sites. I reiterate: Assuming all ads will eventually become horribly annoying is an overreaction, and doesn't fit the evidence of the progression of ads on the web.
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02-02-2010, 04:16 PM | #19 |
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Ads in ebooks have several problems.
1) Portable ebook readers with small screens don't allow for non-annoying ads. Doesn't matter if they're text-based or not; a business-card sized ad is almost half a page on a 6" reader's screen, and that drastically disrupts the flow of the book. (Unless, of course, you put it at the beginning or end, where it'll be ignored.) 2) Different viewing technology means advertisers have no choice/control over how their ads are seen. I read on a PRS-505--color ads are wasted on me, and blinkies won't work. But people reading on an iPad could see full-color animations embedded in their ePubs. 3) The connection between "advertisement" and "sales" is always a bit thin, and you'd need some really impressive marketing to get ads in books to lead to sales of anything that's not other books. And the demographics for people who read ebooks, other than the romance/erotica genre, is too diverse to target for most ad companies. People who read ebooks of Twilight and Dan Brown aren't the same people who read the pbooks; ads aimed at the pbook crowd aren't as likely to work. 4) That ad-stripping script will go active about eight minutes after the first ad-laden books hits the digital shelves, and publishers and advertisers will scream themselves blue about how *that* is what's killing all their profits... not the fact that most people are going to ignore the ads they see in books. |
02-02-2010, 04:16 PM | #20 | |
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02-02-2010, 04:17 PM | #21 |
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This is fun. It is like throwing a match into a hay barn.
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02-02-2010, 04:27 PM | #22 | ||||
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Last edited by paulckennedy; 02-02-2010 at 04:42 PM. Reason: corrected grammar |
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02-02-2010, 04:29 PM | #23 | |
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I just see it coming like an Avalanche. |
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02-02-2010, 04:32 PM | #24 |
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I'm against ads in novels, except maybe discreet notices about similar titles, placed in the end pages. A German publisher once inserted a text ad in the middle of one of my books, using the characters from the story and saying it was time for them to take a break and have a warming cup of XXXX soup! The first I knew about it was when the UK publisher sent me the complimentary copies. The UK publisher didn't want to take up the cudgels on my behalf, so I hired a lawyer and got the German edition pulped (they were in breach of contract), plus a bit of compensation. Then we sold the German language rights to another firm.
Novels are a special case. You don't want to have the world of the book shattered by some intrusive message. Nonfiction might be different. As nonfiction ebooks become more sophisticated, with hypertext, the temptation for publishers will be to include sponsored links. This should be resisted! |
02-02-2010, 04:39 PM | #25 |
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Is the inclusion of advertising part of an Author's contract with his publisher?
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02-02-2010, 04:41 PM | #26 |
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context aware advertising would be pretty humorous in some cases.
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02-02-2010, 04:42 PM | #27 |
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02-02-2010, 04:43 PM | #28 |
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And advertisers will try more and more extreme measures in order to get and hold the consumer's attention. If you are relying on the restraint of advertisers to keep eBook ads understated, then you have a lot more faith in the advertising industry than I do.
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02-02-2010, 04:45 PM | #29 | |
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Solution: Self-publish and make your own advertiser deals. |
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02-02-2010, 04:47 PM | #30 |
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This came up ages ago, iirc Amazon got some patent for interactive ebook ads. The media and some posters got into a big hizzy, imagining that ebooks would have ads every 3 paragraphs and be sold for free.
Unsurprisingly, it hasn't happened yet. And since the economics of web-based advertising are pretty crappy, I doubt it will. What's more likely is that the publisher might put an unobtrusive ad or two at the end of an ebook, similar to what they do with mass-market paperbacks. |
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