Advertising in eBooks

[Ben Thornton]

If the ads are too intrusive, the effort of stripping them becomes worthwhile, so let's hope that sanity prevails, and they allow you to get on with reading the book - limiting advertising to the beginning and end (as has long been the case in many books anyway).

[queentess]

Actually, a couple of my ebooks already have "ads", though they're not really the type that everyone fears. I've had a couple Tor-published ebooks that, at the end of the book, include a few chapters from the next book in a series or a list of books by the author that I may also enjoy. Essentially a "suggested reading" list if you liked the book you just finished. If that's not an ad to sell more books, I don't know what is. But it's not intrusive and it's not unlike the typical pbook experience now.

[HamsterRage]

There you. Targeted ads for books you might be interested in purchasing since you just got to the end a book make a lot of sense. They also might actually be welcome.

[Mitchi]

One of my textbooks from my college accounting class had these...it was a free etextbook (our teacher was very thrifty from her job, and didn't want her students to have to pay $100+ for a book they would only use one semester) but it had ads every few pages. as long as it makes the books cheap (or free) then I don't mind it.

[GeoffC]

yep targeted ads for the next book by the same author, or similar genre are fine - that's what we're used to ....

consider

a novel subject .....

detective ..... ads for PI, Police Dept in your city, gun suppliers
erotica ..... ads for condoms, STI clinics, :coughs:
fantasy .... ads for psychiatry

[Lady Fitzgerald]

My objection to advertising in e-books has to do with what has happened with website advertising. At first, website adevertising was just there; you could choose to look at it or not. Then they started to put the ads in the middle of the text of the site. Inconvenient but one could still just skip over it. Then came the pop-ups, blocking the content, and the video ads that have to be endured before moving on. Same with advertising at theaters. I can understand them pushing the snack bar and showing trailers (I actually appreciate the latter). I don't have a problem with the advertising slide shows and videos that run before a movie's scheduled showtime; those can be watched or ignored as one chooses. But once the house lights go down and it's time to see the movie, forcing me to first watch an ad about products and/or service I have no interest in is unacceptable.

Many videos now have ads that can't be bypassed (like the FBI anti-copy notices I'm so sick and tired of repeatedly seeing). I also feel those are unacceptable, especially when the ads are time sensitive. Why should I have to watch an ad about a product/service that is not available a year or two down the road?

In short, once advertising appears in e-books, I fear it will quickly be abused.

[Ben Thornton]

Originally Posted by Lady Fitzgerald

In short, once advertising appears in e-books, I fear it will quickly be abused.

You may be right. The good thing about ebooks is that we should have the opportunity to do something about it (to reformat them, strip adverts or whatever).

[calvin-c]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

For me, at least, it would ensure that I would never again purchase an ebook, and would from then on get every book from the "darknet", where it will be available with all that garbage stripped off days or hours after publication.

And replaced with worse garbage (such as viruses) when the posters bother to modify the books at all.

Of course there are many sites out there. Some are pretty much dominated by posters who scan & OCR pbooks-and those probably do omit the garbage. But a site that posts pirated copies of books already available as ebooks is not one I'd trust-any more than I trust pirate music sites.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by calvin-c

And replaced with worse garbage (such as viruses) when the posters bother to modify the books at all.

Yes, because the world is FILLED with .txt, .html, and .pdf viruses. (Okay, there has been some .pdf malware, but Adobe has closed loopholes since then.) Malware works only in files that contain executable code-- a virus in an .rtf file (for example) would show up just as a jumble of nonsense characters.

And, sites that publish pirated copies of ebooks (or anything else) are self-policing, and the "legit" ones have some moderation-- if there is malware in something, it is reported in comments by downloaders on the site, and removed by sites that have moderators.

Your post is pure ignorant FUD.

[jhempel24]

Could you just imagine product placement things with the digital media? It's all over movies and books, but lets say some teenager downloads a book that has the protagonist using some Eye shadow color, and then after 20,000 downloads or whatever, the text changes to the new color they want advertised or something? LOL

[theducks]

Originally Posted by jhempel24

Could you just imagine product placement things with the digital media? It's all over movies and books, but lets say some teenager downloads a book that has the protagonist using some Eye shadow color, and then after 20,000 downloads or whatever, the text changes to the new color they want advertised or something? LOL

What do you think "Google metrics" does?
I visit a advertisers web site, and the I see my ISP "home page" display ads for that product (bias that way untill I visit another Google partner )

[speakingtohe]

If it is intrusive then many people won't buy the product. If it is non intrusive than it will not affect most people as we are already so used to advertising that we tune most of them out.
Advertisng has been in place in print media for well over 100 years. Remember those comic book ads for junk foods and cereals, sea-babies and become an artist courses? Those were pretty effective actually.
I have very old cookbookss over with advertising for baker's cocoa etc.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

If it is intrusive then many people won't buy the product. If it is non intrusive than it will not affect most people as we are already so used to advertising that we tune most of them out.

Yes, but the OP was explicit in the idea that the ads be intrusive:

"I'm thinking that a 10 second ad being put at the start of the book when you open it might be coming in the next few years."

[speakingtohe]

That would be annoying perhaps but not much worse than the little whirring round arrow on the Sony PRS 600

[Bateman]

One word: boycott.