"Consumers Don't Mind...Ads." Really?

[Piper_]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Back when I was a kid, ALL my comic books had ads in them. Ads have always been in magazines-even high-toned literary journals like Harper's and the New York Review of Books. Ads were in the SF digest mags when I was coming up. Heck, a few paperbacks had ads in the back. Putting ads in books would not be the horrifying, unprecedented disaster that people seem to think.
I think a likely option may be the freemium option, a la games, apps, and streaming music services. You download an ebook for free. There is a banner ad across the bottom. You start reading. Like the book but don't like the banner ad? Upgrade to the "premium" version by paying full price. If you can stand the banner ads, read the book free.
Hey, it may not be for everyone, but if it works for games, why not for ebooks?

Stop the presses, I think we found something to agree on.

I remember paperback books with ads even in the first few pages. Ponds cold cream, oil of Olay... Magazines I pay for are loaded with them. (They go way overboard, though, so I don't buy many.)

When I go to a movie for ~$20, I have to sit through 20+ minutes of ads before the movie starts, unless I want to stumble in the dark to find a seat in a full theater.

So, I'd gladly suffer through a few pages / 10 seconds of ads in an ebook to get it for free or even a serious discount. (Assuming they are just static pics I can click past.)

(This last week has convinced me that a few page turns > explaining to my husband every month why I'm spending ridiculous amounts of $ on ebooks. )

[stonetools]

Stop the presses, I think we found something to agree on.

This maybe the start of a beautiful friendship

[elizilla]

I bought my mom a K2 for Christmas a few years ago. She uses it, but only for books that she and my dad read aloud to each other while driving. She cannot be persuaded that it's OK to switch between books, that she won't lose her place, and that she can also use it for the books she reads to herself when alone; she doesn't need to carry paperbacks AND the Kindle. Perhaps I should buy her an ad-supported Kindle in hopes that the advertisers can tempt her to jump around and make better use of the device.

[pilotbob]

I just want to put it out there.. as a consumer and person,

I love ads. I love DRM. I love traffic jams. I love hard drive crashes. I love going to the dentist.

...I'm so glad I am catered to every day!

BOb

[DiapDealer]

You go to the dentist everyday?

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

You go to the dentist everyday?

Maybe he's a dental hygienist.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

You go to the dentist everyday?

Well... I don't encounter EACH of those things every day. But, I love them so much I wish I did.

[Hellmark]

What I could see happening is in the future, there will only be one model, and you can pay to opt out of the ads. That way, they only have to worry about firmware for that model, and not two separate sets of firmware. Plus that way, lower introductory price, and people can opt out when they can afford it (be it immediately, or months later). If the kindle gets sold and linked to a new account, it would default back to having ads, giving them a chance to get paid again to remove the ads on the same device (which ordinarily they would not gain from resales). Plus, most people would probably neglect to pay for the adremoval, and they'd have a steady stream of revenue.

[teadonkey]

I really don't think I'm persuaded by commercials because, quite frankly, my budget is extremely tight and I don't have the money wiggle room to be persuaded to buy something I wasn't already buying. So yeah, I really wouldn't be forced into spending more money by having the ads on a Kindle. It would /help/ me, most especially with that $10 for $20 giftcard deal. Woowee!

Also - I love traffic. I love the lack of control I have over it. Out of all the little things I have to worry about during the course of a day, I actually /like/ the break traffic gives me from it. No matter what I do, if I'm stuck behind a billion cars moving at the speed of a snail, I cannot alter my situation. That's freedom. (:

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by stonetools

I think a likely option may be the freemium option, a la games, apps, and streaming music services. You download an ebook for free. There is a banner ad across the bottom. ...
Hey, it may not be for everyone, but if it works for games, why not for ebooks?

"Across the bottom" of what? The ePub? (Has someone figured out how to put headers & footers in ePubs--and make them display on Sony ebook readers?) Does this ad take up 25% of the eink screen for the entire length of the book?

Does the ad still show up if the book is run through Calibre? Is the book a locked PDF, to try to prevent removal of the ad--making it unreadable on small screens?

People are very likely willing to accept non-invasive ads in ebooks. The problem lies in figuring out how to make non-invasive ads work in several ebook formats. The easiest is "splash page at beginning & end," and some publishers do this with their freebies--ads for upcoming releases or tie-in products; readers are happy with that. An ad at ever chapter break is also possible; more intrusive than that, and the ad-supported books will be ignored or stripped before they're read.

Even at chapter breaks, though, the question is, "why is it worth the advertiser's money to pay for part of the ebook?" If the ads lower the cost of the book by $1, are the advertisers going to get $1 of business for every ebook that sells?

[patrickt]

I don't want ads embedded in the books and I definitely don't want to shake my Kindle and have 327 pieces of paper cascade down onto the floor.

When I go to my bookstore to check out magazines I always dump the ads into their trash can.

[elcreative]

Originally Posted by patrickt

I don't want ads embedded in the books and I definitely don't want to shake my Kindle and have 327 pieces of paper cascade down onto the floor.

When I go to my bookstore to check out magazines I always dump the ads into their trash can.

[stonetools]

Across the bottom" of what? The ePub? (Has someone figured out how to put headers & footers in ePubs--and make them display on Sony ebook readers?) Does this ad take up 25% of the eink screen for the entire length of the book?

Well, I was thinking of the banner ads at the bottom of video games. Maybe it isn't translatable to ebooks-yet. Sure they're working on it, though.

Even at chapter breaks, though, the question is, "why is it worth the advertiser's money to pay for part of the ebook?" If the ads lower the cost of the book by $1, are the advertisers going to get $1 of business for every ebook that sells?

Of course, you might ask the question " Why is worth advertisers to pay for tv shows if the commercials are only shown during the breaks?" They do, though- have for decades.
Are you saying a freemium model could NOT work for ebooks, the way it does for games and music?

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Well, I was thinking of the banner ads at the bottom of video games. Maybe it isn't translatable to ebooks-yet. Sure they're working on it, though.

They've been working on it for a decade. The formats keep changing; the hardware for reading them keeps changing. There are *no* standards in the ebook industry. There are three major commercial formats right now -- mobi, ePub, and PDF -- half a dozen commercial formats popular within the last five years, and over a dozen more over the last ten. And then there's the noncommercial formats that some people use--html, rtf, txt.

Any kind of ad rendering is going to depend on format, reading software, and hardware. Anything on an e-ink device is going to lose animation & color. Anything converted to txt will be lacking everything but text. Anything read on a web browser will have problems with ad placement, unless it's so code-heavy it can't be read in any other format. PDFs that have good color, well-placed, entertaining ads that don't annoy people--won't get read by anyone with a 6" ereader.

These aren't trivial problems; companies & individuals have been working on them for years. Companies keep trying to figure out how to put effective ads on web pages, where they have a lot more control of layout & presentation options, and most of what that's resulted in is reader blind spots and a proliferation of adblock software.

Of course, you might ask the question " Why is worth advertisers to pay for tv shows if the commercials are only shown during the breaks?" They do, though- have for decades.
Are you saying a freemium model could NOT work for ebooks, the way it does for games and music?

Yep. "Freemium" has problems in ebooks that don't exist in other media.

Advertisers pay for TV because a TV show is watched by millions of people; if 1% of them buy as a result of the ad, they've made a profit. If they have to pay $1 per ebook sold to include the ads, and only 1% of readers buys a $10 product, they're losing money. Ebooks, unlike games & music, aren't presumed to be shared around; the ad is supposedly only going to be seen by the buyer. If it's not to his or her tastes, the ad money was wasted.

Companies can (and probably will) have free ebooks as advertisements, the way that some companies give away books, comics or magazines as promos. But like those, it'll be sheer advertising costs, not a symbiotic relationship with consumers, where the cost is shifted from the book itself to the product it supports.

[stonetools]

They've been working on it for a decade. The formats keep changing; the hardware for reading them keeps changing. There are *no* standards in the ebook industry. There are three major commercial formats right now -- mobi, ePub, and PDF -- half a dozen commercial formats popular within the last five years, and over a dozen more over the last ten. And then there's the noncommercial formats that some people use--html, rtf, txt.

As to movies and TVs, there are different formats there too, not to mention the Great Divide between film and video. Lots of different hardware for watching movies. There's been ads from the beginning in both.

Any kind of ad rendering is going to depend on format, reading software, and hardware. Anything on an e-ink device is going to lose animation & color. Anything converted to txt will be lacking everything but text. Anything read on a web browser will have problems with ad placement, unless it's so code-heavy it can't be read in any other format. PDFs that have good color, well-placed, entertaining ads that don't annoy people--won't get read by anyone with a 6" ereader.

These aren't trivial problems; companies & individuals have been working on them for years. Companies keep trying to figure out how to put effective ads on web pages, where they have a lot more control of layout & presentation options, and most of what that's resulted in is reader blind spots and a proliferation of adblock software.

Yet there are plenty of web ads-including on this very site. There are PDF ads too.

Advertisers pay for TV because a TV show is watched by millions of people; if 1% of them buy as a result of the ad, they've made a profit. If they have to pay $1 per ebook sold to include the ads, and only 1% of readers buys a $10 product, they're losing money. Ebooks, unlike games & music, aren't presumed to be shared around; the ad is supposedly only going to be seen by the buyer. If it's not to his or her tastes, the ad money was wasted.

Books are read by millions of people as well : why wouldn't the same work for books as for TVs? And magazines have always have ads. Games are meant to be shared around?The game I'm familiar with - Jumblr2- is an Ios game which can't be shared around. Despite MR beliefs, lots of games are DRMed , too. As for music, the very successful freemium model music service Spotify is streaming only. No sharing there.
And , oh yeah, I haven't even mentioned freemium in shareware.

I think, Elfwreck, you are viscerally opposed to ads in books and I sympathize. But what you and I like may not be what happens.
The logic of the freemium model is that there are people who value free/cheap over no ads. Alternatively, there are people who can be enticed into trying an ad-supported product who would gladly pay to remove the ads if they find the product worthwhile. (I suspect you fall into category two).
The success of KSO hints that there are a lot of folk out there that don't mind ads- despite the confident predictions on this forum that KSO was DOA. (Maybe I'm overdoing TLAs? )