Quote:
Originally Posted by stonetools
One of the things I'm arguing is that you should have the OPTION , ( should the company offer it) to have a version of your book supported by such an ad. Some of the folks seem to be saying you shouldn't have that option-at all.
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And more people are saying that it doesn't matter what options people "should" have; ads in ebooks are not economically viable, because the level of advertising that would get returns to justify their price, would require a nuisance level that would kill the product in the open market.
Geocities went under because "pay per click" ads were not a long-term viable way to support the costs of webhosting.
Most people don't mind unobtrusive text ads... but the reason they don't mind them is that they don't *notice* them. No notice = no purchase = no return on the ad price investment.
You've still not mention how many ads it would take to get the $1-3
per ebook purchase that the advertiser would be paying for. This is not like paying for web hosting, in which the "cost per use" is effectively zero. When asked for effective similar examples, you point to a dying industry: the serialized novels of the pulps.
Saying "I don't work in marketing, but I'm sure the people who do can do it" is meaningless--or rather, is no more accurate than the people who say "no, it can't be done." Your opinion that it can't is not founded on anything other than your wish for it to be true.
My claim that it can't, is founded on number-crunching and a connection to cost-per-unit service industries. I can believe some marketing firm will *attempt* ads in ebooks, and announce a tremendous success... right up to the moment they file for bankruptcy or otherwise vanish.