Advertisements in Ebooks-Good Idea?

[howyoudoin]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

When I read the Swedish version (Män som hatar kvinnor) the description of Salander's Air MacBook was already outdated, can't imagine what it must read like in translation a year later.

I read the book this year, and it made Apple look like a company stuck in the stone age

[Kumabjorn]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

Finally, given his political proclivities, I'm not sure that he would be in favor of product placement anyway.

I notice you have little experience with Swedish Lefties.
They have a tendency to stoop over themselves in order to make a buck or two. Don't know if Jan Guilou is available in English (he predates Larsson) he is a very well known radical that lives the most exquisite bourgeois life style you can imagine. His books are also filled with famous (especially American) brands.

[carpetmojo]

In answer to the thread, NO, I would not want ad's for anything, it's a rubbish idea.

I want to read what I choose, not what an outside agency does.

Rant over.

For now......

On this subject......

[caleb72]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Then the consumers would obviously reject that. However, they didn't reject the ad-supported KSO. In the contrary, the KSO was a huge success. My recollection when the KSO came out was that many naysayers proclaimed it DOA because consumers would reject any ads associated withthe ebook reading experience. The naysayers were dead wrong then, and they will most likely be proved wrong again.

I tend to agree. I think of this crew here as hardcore and I wouldn't expect any answer other than "No effing way!". But I think in reality, if the model was right, it could be quite successful.

I have no idea what the right model would be, by the way. The day I study marketing or advertising is the day I swan dive into a meat grinder.

[carpetmojo]

Originally Posted by caleb72

............I have no idea what the right model would be, by the way. The day I study marketing or advertising is the day I swan dive into a meat grinder.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Then the consumers would obviously reject that. However, they didn't reject the ad-supported KSO. In the contrary, the KSO was a huge success. My recollection when the KSO came out was that many naysayers proclaimed it DOA because consumers would reject any ads associated withthe ebook reading experience. The naysayers were dead wrong then, and they will most likely be proved wrong again.

I really believe that if the ads had been inside the book instead of only on certain "menu" pages, I think it would have been DoA. Why do you think VCR's became so popular? They were used (massively!) to tape shows on TV to watch them back later and you could fastforward through the commercials. These days, the ability to pause the program you're watching is hot, because, hey, you can fastforward through the commercials...


Would I buy (or download it for free) a book that contains ads? Hell no. Would I buy book that collects demographics information? When hell freezes over, and probably not even then. I'll buy DVD's of series that I want to see without commercials, why then would I want to read a book that contains those commercials again (in the form of ads)?

[greencat]

It depends on the book. I'd be quite happy to read non-fiction with an ad at the end of each chapter if the book was free (or very nearly). Fiction, not a chance.

http://bookboon.com do something similar already.

[MrsJoseph]

No way, no how. Well, maybe if it was for work and at the end of the chapter.


I would be totally ok with the book excerpts in the back of the book - this is basicly standard in romances - but I have a lot of concern about book excerpts, too.

Dear Author had an article about "bloated ebook files" and how publishers were placing more ads for other books inside of newly published ebooks than actual content.

[SNIP]
In the past month or so, I’ve fielded several complaints from readers, primarily directed at a couple of publishers, for the bloated nature of the ebook file. It’s not the file size that is the problem. Instead, it is the way in which additives to the main content is ruining the reader experience. If there is one thing that you want to stay away from if you are a publisher, it is messing with the reader experience.

How much is left in a book can affect the reader experience. Paper readers know how far they are from the end of the book by a glance at the physical pages left. When a reader is reading a digital book, she usually can tell how far she is, either by page number or percentage, or both. More and more often, the reader experience is being impinged upon because of additives, mostly excerpts from other books, that are giving a false expectation of when the book is to be completed.

For instance, Lightning That Lingers from Sharon and Tom Curtis ends at the 56% mark. The remainder of the contents of the file are excerpts from other Loveswept titles. Legends by Deborah Smith ends at the 60% mark. The remainder of the contents of the file are excerpts. Every Loveswept title that is being re-released in digital format has the same problem. The percentage or page indicator leads the reader to believe that they are only a little more than half way through the book and the end is upon you.

Samhain has this problem, although it is much less dramatic. Many of its books end around the 80-90% mark due to ebook promotional matter. Self published authors are also taking this to extremes. A reader reported that Shoshanna Ever’s self published short story “Overheated” ends at the 38% mark and includes a long preview chapter of her other works. The reader was indignant that 62% of the book she paid for was advertisement. The reader shared “ it was the fact that so much of Ms. Evers book was preview material that I paid for that infuriated me.”


[SNIP]

These HarperCollins ebook editions end around 90% with 10% being the “bonus” materials.

For the most part, readers did not like promotional material and most admitted to not reading it, although Holly from Bookbinge admitted that she ordinarily didn’t like it but occasionally would be lured into buying a book from an excerpt at the end (which is, of course, why publishers include them). One of the problems is that the inclusion of excerpts is scattershot. Oftentimes you will get 5-6 excerpts with no discernable relation to the book you just read. Another person said that the publishers should only promote 1 or 2 books at the end instead of several by all different authors. The goal is that the promotional items should be targeted rather than scattershot. An “if you like X, you’ll like Y” sort of listing. A small inclusion with links to more excerpts makes sense or even an additional download. Robin shared that with Big Fish Games, you can be invited to download more content as you move through the game. A book should work like that as well, downloading additional content with the reader’s permission.

Most importantly, though, the promotional material should never interfere with a reader’s experience with the main content. If it does, the promotional material works against the publisher by leaving the reader with a negative rather than a positive reading experience.

[RDaneel54]

As a Kindle with Special Offers user, I don't mind the ads an special offers for the screensaver or the small, non-blinking, banner at the bottom of the Kindle's contents screens.

However, I would absolutely abhor any kind of advertising in the book. Advertising in a book takes you out of the story.

As MrsJoseph said, I really don't want to see those long excerpts from other books in the file either. I've also ran into the 40% of the file is an excerpt situation. It totally mesed up the reading experience as I thought there was a lot more of the story yet to read.

[stonetools]

So I am surely feeling my age, because I remember they had ads in comics when I was a young 'un. (Remember Charles Atlas and the "The Insult that made a man out of Mac?"). These ads did not detract from my enjoyment of the story at all. I also remember that there were ads in the SF magazines that I read. Those ads didn't slow me down either.
Now I understand the conceptv of people not liking the possibility of ads where they were'nt before. Hiowevetr, so long as there is an ad-free option available at full price and so long as the ad-supported version offers benefits to those who are OK with ads, I can't understand why people would object to the idea.

Actually, in the case of the KSO , its the other way around, I hear. There are people who buy the ad-free Kindles who envy the deals KSO owners get , according to the Amazon Kindle forums. People are different and there are the hardcore no ads people andthe "Why not ads" people. So long as there options for both, no big deal.

[allinhi/]

Originally Posted by ekster

I could live with it if they did ads comicbook style. Throw in a random page of adds every now and then. But I'd expect the price to be significantly lower and have a non-ads ebook available for realistic prices.

But if this happens, I'd hate to see them implement this, say an ebook with ads costs $4.99-9.99, and then justify that an ebook with no ads costs $9.99-19.99 all of a sudden. Unfortunately, companies love this tactic. :/

I think you nailed it. The gouging to read non ad books would force everyone to read books with ads, in the long run no consumer benefit, just a less attractive product. Besides ads in books would mostly reach people who actually read and would inevitably be inneffective.

[howyoudoin]

Originally Posted by stonetools

So I am surely feeling my age, because I remember they had ads in comics when I was a young 'un. (Remember Charles Atlas and the "The Insult that made a man out of Mac?"). These ads did not detract from my enjoyment of the story at all. I also remember that there were ads in the SF magazines that I read. Those ads didn't slow me down either.
Now I understand the conceptv of people not liking the possibility of ads where they were'nt before. Hiowevetr, so long as there is an ad-free option available at full price and so long as the ad-supported version offers benefits to those who are OK with ads, I can't understand why people would object to the idea.

Actually, in the case of the KSO , its the other way around, I hear. There are people who buy the ad-free Kindles who envy the deals KSO owners get , according to the Amazon Kindle forums. People are different and there are the hardcore no ads people andthe "Why not ads" people. So long as there options for both, no big deal.

Comics and magazines are an entirely different beast to novels. They tried placing ads into novels, and the concept failed miserably. It never took off. You can't argue against decades of publishing experience. Magazines and comics would be the only formats that readers will be willing to see ads in, and they'd expect the price to reflect the decision.

I don't understand why you also insist on holding up the KSO as a supporting argument. It's not the same. A KSO is like ads on the flap of the dust jacket, or ads at the end of the book. They do not impede the actual reading experience once you've opened up a book. Ads within ebooks are a different concept and not at all comparable to the KSO model.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by MrsJoseph

Dear Author had an article about "bloated ebook files" and how publishers were placing more ads for other books inside of newly published ebooks than actual content.

A page of ads for every page of the book is too much. But saying that you pay for the advertisements is also strange. You pay for the story, not for each page of text.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

A page of ads for every page of the book is too much. But saying that you pay for the advertisements is also strange. You pay for the story, not for each page of text.

In the case of the bloated ebooks, you're being misled about how much story you're paying for.

I'm willing to pay $4 on impulse for an 80,000 word novel. Sometimes, for a 50,000 word novel. I'm not willing to pay $4 on impulse for a 35,000 word novella and three 10,000 word excerpts from other novels, and all that does is convince me not to buy from that publisher/indie author again.

I suspect that, if people complained to Amazon, they could get the books yanked under their "bad user experience" rule, which covers spam books and books with misleading titles. (Not things like, "it said 'Murder by Memory' and I thought it was a psychic powers story and instead it was about repressed memories of a serial killer." Rather, things like "title was 'Murder by Memory' and it was a collection of Wikipedia articles beginning with 'M'.")

Advertising 150 pages of book, or 265kb of ebook, and half of that is advertisements, is misleading the customers. The easy way around that is to include the main story's word count in the description.

[Hellmark]

Ads in the book, I am generally against. The only way that I would really accept them, is if they were before or after the story. Having an ad midstream prevents me from staying immersed in the book. If an ad free version was available, I'd buy that exclusively, unless the version with ads was free (and even then I'd still prefer to buy). If no ad free version was available, I'd remove the ads from any copy I purchased.