Marketers Test Ads In E-Books

[ManosHandsOfFate]

Yeah, as long as they make pay versions without ads, I'm all for discounted/free versions with ads. It might actually be a good way to try out a new series without a financial commitment.

[DMcCunney]

I'm actually rather amused.

Ads in books were tried back when in mass market paperbacks. In some cases they were house ads for popular series issued by the same publisher. In other cases they were inserts, mostly from tobacco companies. As I recall, they didn't last all that long.

I see this as a tough sell on several levels. Aside from reader reaction, what will interest an advertiser?

Advertisers are increasingly focused on results. They want ads that sell the product or service, and ads that are carefully targeted at the intended market.

And the pool of ad dollars is finite, and carefully expended. Advertising is all about CPM - the cost per thousand views of the ad by the people the ad is aimed at.

People trying to do this will have fun trying to address the demographics the advertisers will want at a CPM they'll be willing to pay. And I don't see it working at all unless the reader is viewing the ad laden book on a connected device where click through to get more info or make a purchase is possible.

Personally, I'll pay more for the ad free version. I have more books than I have time to read now. I don't need to be subjected to ads just to get a lower price on books I'll have fun finding time to read at all.
______
Dennis

[ebusinesstutor]

Interesting how the consensus is that no one wants their reading pleasure interrupted by ads.

But why do we then tolerate it in our television viewing and radio listening? Our whole broadcasting model is based on it.

Magazine and newspaper print publications also work this way, even when you pay for them.

[ManosHandsOfFate]

I hope companies continue to advertise heavily to me. Otherwise I'll be completely lost, never knowing what to purchase.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by ebusinesstutor

Interesting how the consensus is that no one wants their reading pleasure interrupted by ads.

But why do we then tolerate it in our television viewing and radio listening? Our whole broadcasting model is based on it.

Magazine and newspaper print publications also work this way, even when you pay for them.

Magazines and newspapers have pretty much always worked that way. The cover price or subscription price may not even cover the direct costs. Ads are where they make money. (And there's been continual tension between editorial and advertising over keeping the distinction between them clear. Any hint that ads influenced editorial content could be deadly, and there were internal battles over placement of ads. Until recently, for example, the front page of a newspaper was off limits for ads. The increasing move of advertising to online sources finally broached that barrier as newspapers grew more desperate to attract ads.)

And the deal in radio and TV has been "free, but ad supported" all along.

This has not been the case with books, and the type of content is one good reason. Radio, TV, magazines, and newspapers tend to mixes of shorter content (and scripts for radio and TV are written to provide convenient places for ad breaks). The ad isn't that great an interruption.

Books require a longer attention span and greater concentration. Depending on the book, you may not want to be interrupted, and being so may be jarring. (My SO becomes totally absorbed while reading, and reacts with a startled "What? Who?" if an external event breaks her concentration.)

If books had ads from the beginning, it would not be seen as an issue, but they haven't, and it is.
______
Dennis

[K-Thom]

Originally Posted by ebusinesstutor

Interesting how the consensus is that no one wants their reading pleasure interrupted by ads.

But why do we then tolerate it in our television viewing and radio listening? Our whole broadcasting model is based on it.

Magazine and newspaper print publications also work this way, even when you pay for them.

You can't compare this to reading a book.

You can casually listen to the radio, watch TV or even read a magazine article. But you cannot casually read a novel. Not if you want to truly appreciate the content.

The attention necessary to convert the abstract structure of letters into a fictional reality and stay in this fiction as long as you are reading would be totally interrupted by advertisement (or any other means of information). edit: whoops, DMcCunney beat me on this.

I wouldn't fear eBook ads, though. Companies which are running ads are interested in one aspect in advance: circulation.
Since there aren't any circulation numbers for eBooks before copy one is sold, the price for ads would have to be so much speculative that publishers couldn't charge much for the ads. Which will make them unattractive to consider.

[bgalbrecht]

Back before Wowio.com changed their business model, they gave away PDFs with advertising embedded on the book cover, a page or two in the beginning of the book and at the end of the book. I didn't find that particularly objectionable. However, I certainly wouldn't be happy buying a full-price ebook to find that there were a number of ads embedded randomly in the middle of the ebook. If that happened, I'd probably stop buying books from that publisher.

[J. Strnad]

Originally Posted by ebusinesstutor

Interesting how the consensus is that no one wants their reading pleasure interrupted by ads.

But why do we then tolerate it in our television viewing and radio listening? Our whole broadcasting model is based on it.

Magazine and newspaper print publications also work this way, even when you pay for them.

We don't, unless we get the program for free. Then we put up with ads that we skip through because we've DVR'd the show, which still leaves us stuck with the ads in the corners or along the bottom of the screen, which I friggin' hate.

The screen ads and network buttons test my interest in a show. If my interest is marginal, they can literally make me quit watching. If I love the show, I'll put up with them. I have never, ever, checked out another show advertised on the bottom of my screen.

With ebooks, if I have the choice of getting a free version with ads or a paid version, I'll apply the same criteria: Am I willing to pay for it (high interest) and get it ad-free, or is my interest marginal so I'll put up with ads?

BTW, I remember the cigarette ads in paperbacks. I always ripped out the ad immediately so it didn't interrupt the flow when I read the book.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by ebusinesstutor

Interesting how the consensus is that no one wants their reading pleasure interrupted by ads.

But why do we then tolerate it in our television viewing and radio listening? Our whole broadcasting model is based on it.

Magazine and newspaper print publications also work this way, even when you pay for them.

We tolerate it in TV and radio, because we don't pay for them; and in magazines and newspapers, because it's "always" been that way.

Books otoh, aren't that way and if they're going to implement it now, then they had better give us a discount.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by bgalbrecht

Back before Wowio.com changed their business model, they gave away PDFs with advertising embedded on the book cover, a page or two in the beginning of the book and at the end of the book. I didn't find that particularly objectionable.

The key question: Did you make any purchases based on those ads?

I collected lots of Wowio books before they changed models; I skipped the ads. (I remember most of them being for charities? Maybe?) I certainly never gave anyone money based on those ads.

The problem with ad-supported ebooks isn't making them non-objectionable; it's convincing the advertisers that they're getting something for their money. In order to make it worth their while to pay $1 of the cost of the ebook, they have to believe they're getting more than a dollar per sale, on the average.

If they only cover ten cents of the cost of the book, those ads are going to need to be *very* inoffensive for people to buy the next one. If they make the book free, people will put up with a great range of advertising copy... but those book sales have to return $7-15 per sale to whoever's paying for the book. Somehow, I don't think "this ebook is free, and we expect you to buy a couple of cases of Pepsi--not Coke, and certainly not Jones Soda Co--after buying it," is going to work.

[Format C:]

IMHO, the future will bring us different kinds of ads in ebooks.

Ads of the first kind: best seller fiction will always make explicit the brand of every item appearing in the book (like, "Capt. Kirk gave the order to ignite his brand new Mercedes antimatter reactor, which he just received with a special Fed-Ex shuttle directly from Earth...")

Ads of the second kind: regular ads at the beginning and at the end of the ebook, no difference with the "from the same author" page we see now.

Ads of the third kind: small ads in the body of the ebook, maybe in headers, footers or between chapters.

Ads of the fourth kind: they will appear - unskippable - while turning on and off the device, when changing the ebook, when opening menus when changing confgiuration and while downloading something...

The second and fourth kind will be personalized basing on customer profiling, like Apple, Google and Facebook usually do.

And they won't be free.

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by ebusinesstutor

Interesting how the consensus is that no one wants their reading pleasure interrupted by ads.

But why do we then tolerate it in our television viewing and radio listening? Our whole broadcasting model is based on it.

Magazine and newspaper print publications also work this way, even when you pay for them.

For movies, i usually for get the coffee, or anything else during the ads. Or switching the TV to mute when i have noting else to do.
Switching off the radio because of an annoying ad is something i do every now and then.
The why i mostly use DVD, no ads during move / tv show.

[queentess]

Originally Posted by J. Strnad

The screen ads and network buttons test my interest in a show. If my interest is marginal, they can literally make me quit watching. If I love the show, I'll put up with them. I have never, ever, checked out another show advertised on the bottom of my screen.

Ever see this episode of Family Guy?
http://www.casttv.com/video/jrucxe1/...lack-man-video

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

For movies, i usually for get the coffee, or anything else during the ads. Or switching the TV to mute when i have noting else to do.
Switching off the radio because of an annoying ad is something i do every now and then.
The why i mostly use DVD, no ads during move / tv show.

I rarely watch anything that hasn't been dvr'ed; I have little-to-no patience for the obnoxious ads, and it seems like 90% of them are unbearable. The only time I just flip on the tv and watch it real-time is when I'm knitting and just want some background noise, and I'm not really paying attention to whatever is on.

I frequently turn off the radio or switch stations because of ads. They go on for 5 minutes at a time (a long time when I'm in my car) and they annoy the crap out of me. Heard a commercial yesterday for Coit Cleaning, and they repeated the phrase "30% off everything that Coit cleans!" about 10 times in a row. Guess who I'll never buy from?

There is one station in my area, Radio 92.3, that plays alt rock (my favorite) and also does limited commercial breaks and has no talking dj's. The station is WONDERFUL. Why, yes, I will listen to your 1 minute of ads so I can hear more music. I don't mind hearing 1 minute of ads off and on so I can listen for free.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Format C:

IMHO, the future will bring us different kinds of ads in ebooks.

Perhaps in DRM'd ebooks. Annoying ads in non-DRM'd ebooks will be stripped out.

Ads of the first kind: best seller fiction will always make explicit the brand of every item appearing in the book (like, "Capt. Kirk gave the order to ignite his brand new Mercedes antimatter reactor, which he just received with a special Fed-Ex shuttle directly from Earth...")

That's a matter of trademark contract between the author & the product owner; they'll want to control how the product is displayed in the book. Also, that's not likely to sell a lot of Mercedes antimatter reactors, or even Mercedes cars. It'd have to be a top-line bestseller for Mercedes to think it'll reach enough readers to bother with the contract negotiations.

Ads of the second kind: regular ads at the beginning and at the end of the ebook, no difference with the "from the same author" page we see now.

These, I expect to see more of, although I'm not sure what products other than books would find them effective. Maybe food & drink.

Ads of the third kind: small ads in the body of the ebook, maybe in headers, footers or between chapters.

If they're tiny, they're forgettable; if they're not tiny, they'll be removed.

Ads of the fourth kind: they will appear - unskippable - while turning on and off the device, when changing the ebook, when opening menus when changing confgiuration and while downloading something...

There's no way to put an "unskippable" ad into my PRS-505. Nor, I think, into Kindles as they exist now. Ads that depend on a wireless connection and special programming in the device, especially *annoying* ads with those limitations, will just fuel the sales of "ad-free" devices.

The second and fourth kind will be personalized basing on customer profiling, like Apple, Google and Facebook usually do.

So... they'll make the book cost *more*, because extra programming is required to deliver it?

Where are they going to get this customer profiling... from my nonexistent Facebook page? From my Amazon profile--I think I've spent $60 at Amazon over the last ten years or so. Half of that was a gift card. From Google, perhaps? While I'm sure Google has plenty of info about me, I have doubts that much of it's useful to advertisers; what I talk about online doesn't have a lot of connection to what I buy. (This is because Pagan religious supply shops are crammed with kitsch and jewelry instead of actual religious supplies, and because there are no commercial products associated with copyfight activism. I suppose the fanfic could be taken as an interest in buying movies/books of the original source--except I usually already have those; that's how I got into the fanfic.)

And they won't be free.

My devotion to non-DRM'd ebooks from small and indie publishers grows.

Books aren't like television, where production costs are high and absolutely won't be directly met by the receivers. Books don't *need* ads; there's several hundred years of history showing this. Ads are an alternative method of partial funding--but they'll only work if people don't just buy the competition, or find ways to make them not show up.

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

The key question: Did you make any purchases based on those ads?

I collected lots of Wowio books before they changed models; I skipped the ads. (I remember most of them being for charities? Maybe?) I certainly never gave anyone money based on those ads.

I didn't either, but it seemed like they only had about 5-6 advertisers. Vonage, an identity theft management company, at least one financial advisory firm, and a few others I don't remember off-hand. If they had a lot more advertisers, I might have bought something, but none of their advertisers were selling product I wanted to buy.