eBook Advertising

[TallMomof2]

What's next? Product placement?

[kjk]

Originally Posted by TallMomof2

What's next? Product placement?

"What are these?" asked Pippin.
"Nilla wafers, made by Nabisco", replied the elf gravely, "one small bite is enough to fill a grown man."
"How many did you eat?" whispered Merry.
"Two boxes-they were two for one at Safeway, this week only" replied Pippin.

[HansTWN]

I do fear that piracy concerns will lead us down the road to free but advertising infested books. Just imagine what they could do to users on a device like the ipad --- you cannot turn the page until you have watched this 30 seconds ad.

[Guns4Hire]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Advertising can still be reasonable if it keeps prices from rising... though, if you're going to do that, you'd better be able to show your readers why it was necessary.

Basic economics suggests that a one-time payment from an advertiser to an author, for a product that costs virtually nothing to distribute worldwide in an instant, would result in high distribution of the ads, in turn resulting in a higher return on investment. Any number of products could be sold that way, with a modest payout to the writer.

I would trust an author, well most of them anyway to bring some type of non craptastic advertising (like you mention above). And that money go directly to the author. But the problem is the publishers. And thats what I am referring to when I say "once they put in advertising...the price won't come down". They have these big meetings where they talk about "how great ..." etc etc. Never taking into account their customer. They are not far down the totem poll from politicians.

What these CEO's need for the digital world is a twenty something year old geek who does nothing but stands behind them and whispers in the ear (ala Caesar/Rome).
"nope thats a bad idea, your customers will hate you for it". "yep thats a great idea, your customers will love you for it and throw money at you".

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Guns4Hire

What these CEO's need for the digital world is a twenty something year old geek who does nothing but stands behind them and whispers in the ear (ala Caesar/Rome).
"nope thats a bad idea, your customers will hate you for it". "yep thats a great idea, your customers will love you for it and throw money at you".

"Beware the ides of ads," eh?

Well, I don't think publishers are going to stick their necks out too far: They've already realized they are no longer in the driver's seat with the control they once had, and they are already learning to tread gently in the digital realm.

And as ad-supported books could very well make for a way for authors to make a living without working with publishers, we could see more self-published books, cutting out the publishing houses as authors take on more of the traditional duties of a publisher for themselves. This is something else publishers are aware of, and another incentive for them to tread lightly, lest they lose authors and product.

[paulckennedy]

I see the ads being added by the Agents such as Amazon. They have the information needed to target the customer, such as ereader model, buying habits, etc. They have access to genre information outside of the specific publisher.

The only thing that would be necessary for this to occur would be the right contracts between the publishers and the agents and a sufficient standardization to the ePub format. The standardization of the ePub format would allow the Publishers and Authors to determine the type and location of inserted ads ( if any) to be included in the eBooks. The Agents would be given access to apply ads to the pre-formatted locations according to their Publishing Contract. The agents would use the Point Of Sale to personalize which set of ads to apply before delivery according to eReader, likes, etc.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

It might not need to be as complicated as that.

Basic image-based ads with alt-text copy could be inserted into, say, an ePub document, and the reader being used could be set to display the ad or the text, and the link to the product. Size the ad so that it can be read on the smallest screens without overwhelming them (say, a 240-pixel window), or sized larger but allowing the reading device to scale it down appropriately (many devices do this with art automatically now, and you can click on the art to expand it), and you have a single ad that all devices can display or show alt text for.

As e-books aren't always consumed when online, and often on small-memory devices, you don't want anything too bloated or involved creating the ads. Doing the targeting research up-front, choosing appropriate ads and inserting them once during initial formatting would work best without much fuss.

[paulckennedy]

That is best when the advertising is static but an eBook can be for sale for years. I would expect the advertising to be timed to the point of sale. I could see Amazon and others enabling ads to be inserted by the device at the time of reading. In that event, the ereader would keep an inventory of ads for insertion at the time of reading. The eBook purchase would have as part of the DRM the ability to turn on/off ad insertion depending on the type of sale. The ads would be rotated in to the book according to the rules applied during the initial formatting as to type, kind, etc.

[Pardoz]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

"Beware the ides of ads," eh?

Given the timing of other disruptive changes in e-books, perhaps that should be "Beware the Ads of March"?

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by paulckennedy

That is best when the advertising is static but an eBook can be for sale for years...

Point taken. I suppose with your formula, authors could then be put on a royalty system based on ad rotation and projected sales.

But in advertising, it is the now moment which is important, and which is being paid for... not the moment a few years from now. No one worries that a product placed in a 1960 movie isn't for sale in 2010... it's already paid for the movie, and its success is measured by sales collected after the initial release in 1960.

Once the e-book's author/producer is paid by the initial ads, is there a reason to pay them again? I suppose if an e-book is still selling years down the line, a new set of ads could be inserted into an up-to-date version (do a text revision, to justify it)... then you'd essentially be paying the artist a second time, for basically the same content.

I'm not saying it shouldn't be an author's prerogative to set up such a deal, and it may be the way major authors are distinguished from lesser ones, but I'm not sure it will be considered the way for advertisers to go. More likely they will try to coax new books out of successful authors, in order to put their fresh ads inside, and not bother with rotating ads through older e-books.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by paulckennedy

Does ePub support floating text ads which could say occupy the bottom 2 lines of the display? Maybe with a text highlight color where supported?

EPub: Sort of. (WTF is "bottom two lines" of a display? ePub can't tell how big a screen you're using to read. But it can probably place a floating box that follows the scroll down the screen.)

Sony's ePub rendering software: no. Not floating, and not "text highlight color;" e-ink screens have your choice of about half-a-dozen shades of gray for text backgrounds. It's always very noticeable; there isn't any subtle, non-obtrusive highlighting.

One of the current problem with ePub is that, while the spec itself supports a great deal of flexibility in layout & features, not all ePub readers support all those.

[paulckennedy]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Point taken. I suppose with your formula, authors could then be put on a royalty system based on ad rotation and projected sales.

But in advertising, it is the now moment which is important, and which is being paid for... not the moment a few years from now. No one worries that a product placed in a 1960 movie isn't for sale in 2010... it's already paid for the movie, and its success is measured by sales collected after the initial release in 1960.

Once the e-book's author/producer is paid by the initial ads, is there a reason to pay them again? I suppose if an e-book is still selling years down the line, a new set of ads could be inserted into an up-to-date version (do a text revision, to justify it)... then you'd essentially be paying the artist a second time, for basically the same content.

I'm not saying it shouldn't be an author's prerogative to set up such a deal, and it may be the way major authors are distinguished from lesser ones, but I'm not sure it will be considered the way for advertisers to go. More likely they will try to coax new books out of successful authors, in order to put their fresh ads inside, and not bother with rotating ads through older e-books.

I would think authors would be paid sort of like how other artists get reimbursed right now. Apple pays artists on a per song sale. Radio reimburses artists on a per play. Actors get reimbursed when there media gets pushed to syndication. The addition of advertising could provide a small but continuing income which would provide a real feedback to artists on the true value of their work.

[kjk]

Originally Posted by paulckennedy

I would think authors would be paid sort of like how other artists get reimbursed right now. Apple pays artists on a per song sale. Radio reimburses artists on a per play. Actors get reimbursed when there media gets pushed to syndication. The addition of advertising could provide a small but continuing income which would provide a real feedback to artists on the true value of their work.

And with always-on connectivity like Whispernet, it could be instantaneous.

[paulckennedy]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

EPub: Sort of. (WTF is "bottom two lines" of a display? ePub can't tell how big a screen you're using to read. But it can probably place a floating box that follows the scroll down the screen.)

Sony's ePub rendering software: no. Not floating, and not "text highlight color;" e-ink screens have your choice of about half-a-dozen shades of gray for text backgrounds. It's always very noticeable; there isn't any subtle, non-obtrusive highlighting.

One of the current problem with ePub is that, while the spec itself supports a great deal of flexibility in layout & features, not all ePub readers support all those.

I was speaking more to concept in the ePub specification than in actual usage. I would expect the designers of the eReaders to format the ads which are included specifically for their reader. Some would have just text. Others would have animation. For example, the Edge and the Nook could use the added LCD to offload advertising away from the eInk screen while the Kindle and Sony Reader would use more text only based advertising maybe at the bottom or the top of the display.

[paulckennedy]

Originally Posted by kjk

And with always-on connectivity like Whispernet, it could be instantaneous.

The included WIFI on the new devices makes them an advertisers wet dream.