[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by stonetools

For even more decades novels were serialized in magazines that had ads in them.

The magazine industry is flailing. The ads aren't working like they used to, and advertisers are cutting back.

Why would they move to an untested venue where they'd have less control over how their content is viewed? (An ad that's effective on a Kindle is not necessarily effective on the iPhone Kindle app.)

Most great SF novels published before 1950 were serialized in magazines. Again, people tend to have this rosy-colored view of the past that doesn't stand up to historical analysis.

The issue isn't, "were ads used effectively to subsidize novel sales sixty-five years ago?" Technology was different. Culture was different--buyers of a specific magazine could be reasonably assumed to fall into a known demographic range.

The issue at hand is, "can ads be used effectively today, to cut reader costs for ebooks while bringing enough revenue to the subsidizers?" It's a nice idea, and I can see advertisers, publishers, authors & readers (most of them) all wanting to find a way to make it work--but I can't think of any way of inserting ads in ebooks that (1) won't annoy readers enough to just send them pirating for ad-stripped versions AND (2) will bring enough revenue to advertisers to be worth the effort.

Mentioning vague claims of other types of advertising that have been successful in different media is useless. We know how ebooks work, how they're designed, how they're delivered; ads need to work within that framework, not "oh, someone will think of something."

Can't put an ad at the top corner of every page of an epub without rewriting the firmware in the reading devices. *Can* have a one-page ad at every chapter break... but unlike ads in magazines, it'll get seen once, for a second or two, while the person flips the page; unlike magazines, they don't have to flip past the ad every time they re-open the book. Can't expect ads to be seen in color. *Can* have dynamic ads based on user demographic info, inserted at time of purchase (or at time of reading)--if the reader is using a certain device range. Then there's the hassle of "Kindle version of ebook: $9. Kindlefire Ad-enhanced version: $6." Or, "this book is only available for download through the Kindle Fire." Riiight; that'll make authors happy.

Novels aren't the only type of ebook there can be, either. There are also short story or essay collections.

And I can see a case for "ad at every story break." But I still can't see how that'll reliably bring in enough money to make it worth the advertisers' efforts.

The KSO shows its ads when the books are *closed.* Screensaver ads means they're seen several times, in different settings, when a person isn't focused on the story. Ads inside ebooks are just a page to flip past and never see again. If a person's concentrating on reading, they may not even be able to find the ad again if they want to. (Unless it's built into the TOC/bookmarks. Which means more costs in ebook setup; see thread on proofreading ebooks to note how much extra effort publishers are willing to put in this direction.)