*Translation: Okay, I take it back. You’re not being inconsistent. You’re being bug-nuts! You’re expecting ads between every paragraph… and you call me ludicrous? Climb down, man, before you hurt yourself! It’s an ad… not a used condom!

your comments sound inconsistent. You say you don’t want ads… then you go on to describe an ad which is okay because you don’t consider it a “true” ad.

Don’t be ludicrous. There is a world of difference between listing an author’s other available works at the end of a book and ads for soda pop, vodka, or cars. My objection is to the placement of third party consumer ads in ebooks. I don’t really care if there is a textual connection between James Bond and Smirnoff, I’ll don’t need an ad for it.

Don’t fool yourself, if third party consumer ads ever make it into ebooks, they will not be relegated to the back of book on a digital equivalent of Jim Crow segregation, they will be interspersed in the text, between chapters and maybe even between paragraphs. What I imagine is something like the old cigarette ads in the middle of cheap mass market paperbacks, only manifold for other products, maybe a few dozen throughout. And I doubt they will be small watermarks: maybe in the beginning to test the waters, but I’d bet on full sized multipage ads difficult to click through or ignore would win the day.

Maybe you wouldn’t mind seeing that many ads in the middle of an ebook, but that would be enough for me to give up my Kindle or any other ereader. There will always be the print bound book

Of course an ad for an author’s other books is an ad, and no different than if they were ads for that author’s collection of etchings, or their handmade model Conestoga wagon made out of toothpicks. An ad is an ad.

The key to ads, as always, is you use ads which are appropriate to your viewers, and the subject matter they apparently enjoy (as indicated by the book they bought). If you enjoy James Bond novels, you probably won’t object to an ad for Astin Martin or Smirnoff in the back of the book. If you just read a nature book, you probably won’t mind the ad to help save the rainforests at the end. And so on.

If I’d just read a sci-fi opus, then saw an ad in the back for the author’s Conestoga wagon made out of toothpicks, I’d consider that pretty silly, even cheesy. But if I’d just read a traditional western, the idea of buying that wagon may be very attractive to me. Properly targeted ads are more effective, mainly because viewers are more likely to respond favorably to them. They are also proven to be considered less obtrusive and objectionable when properly targeted.

If you refuse to buy a book with a single ad, that’s your choice. But history and human nature are already on the side of advertising: Most people will get used to them, won’t think twice about them, and will even occasionally order something from them, and the world will keep turning.

As for a market of would-be thieves, I think that’s an unfair description.

However, in Assumption 4, you addressed the problem of piracy:

Piracy will be drastically reduced once all content is online and is just as easy to use as bit torrent, price issues aside.

Since ad supported ebooks would be in market competition with the pirate site, it is, in my mind, rather obvious to deduce that this plan is at least partly going after the would-be thieves market in an attempt make them legitimate.
If people can’t or don’t want to buy an ebooks they can, indeed, go to the library. While I can’t say that all library systems offer ebooks, I know mine does, and when I still used my Dell Axim PDA as an ebook reader, I sometimes checked out those out. (Technically, I can still check out ebooks for my Kindle with a system hack, though that is probably illegal if I ever wanted to do it.) So there are option for those who don’t want to pay or own ebooks. If they don’t have library that has ebooks, then, yeah, they’re SOL, and will need to get their hands on a print bound book.

I don’t think ad-supported versions and non-ad-supported versions will coexist peacefully. One or the other will win. If publishers and ebook resellers think think they could make a few extra cents per book by inserting ads, then that will happen. I could see ads maybe generating $0.15 to $0.30 per book sold fairly easily; not enough for free content, or even a meaningful discount for the consumer, but a few $1000 to divide among the providers. So in the end you wouldn’t have free or discounted ebooks, you just have ebooks with ads. They might start off small but they would surely grow in size and frequency. The only sure way to prevent that from happening will be to completely reject the idea of any ads in any ebooks.

If I ever do come across an ad for third party consumer merchandise in an ebook (e.g., soda pop) then I will contact the company, explain that I’m instigating a boycott because they put an ad in a book, and put up a web site of boycotted products. If it is just me, then the effect will be insignificant, but if enough book readers join in the complaint and boycott, then the company may think twice about more ads. If you think the attempt at generating revuniue from ads is worth a try, then, equally so, would be the attempt to boycott products in the ads.

Also, to be clear, I consider “ads” to be for third party consumer products or services, for profit or even non-profit organizations. I don’t think a list of an authors other books listed at the end is truly an ad.

Just read your last comments, and I agree that there may be many, many publishing models. One size does not have to fit all.

http://mispeled.wordpress.com/2009/08/18/sponsored-e-books-followup/

For instance: Patronage. Patrons could sponsor artists (which usually qualifies them for… drumroll, please… TAX DEDUCTIONS), and consumers get free e-books, and simple and unobtrusive “This product sponsored by…” ads.

So there are workable (and not heinous) ways to do it. It just takes some development of the models. That’s why I won’t dismiss the idea out of hand… I believe it has potential.

Before we get too fixated on this: Not every potential advertiser is Pepsi.

Maybe we should use Tooth Decay Cola (TDC).

A first time author for fiction is going to get about a $5,000 advance; selling 7,500 would be a big success. Having Pepsi shell out 5 to 10K isn’t going to happen on those kind of numbers. Maybe for a big name author with a track record of bestsellers; and I don’t think Pepsi will go for small watermarks ads.

What is in it for Pepsi? They’re not interested in supporting the arts. If they give you 5K they’ll want a return on their investment, maybe 6 to 8K in new sales at least, but probably more. Can your book sell that mush soda pop with just watermark ads? If you can’t show them the sales they’re not going to give you jack. (Not to mention that Pepsi might be upset if the watermark ad appears in a book with sex, swearing, violence, or other aspects that might offend somebody somewhere.)

Then you need to tell Pepsi marketing the kinds of people who will be downloading your book. “Well, to prevent illegal downloads, I’m going to give the book away for free, and people who would otherwise steal are the type who will see the ad.” Now maybe I’m dense, but the would-be-thieves-otherwise is not a hot marketing demographic.

The whole problem is trying to make the ebooks free. The idea that books (music or movies too) should be free grew from the minds of 13 year-olds who didn’t want to ask mom and dad to buy something for them.

The bottom line is I’m not going to read a book with ads, whether gaudily animated or small watermarks, but I will buy somebody else’s book without them.

If I was a company and I wanted to try this model, I would either:
a) approach popular, published authors, or
b) hold a contest on my website.

Either of those methods could find an author that could be willing to try it out and give companies an idea of whether the model would be profitable or not. There’s really no way to know until it was attempted.

As for supporting authors on ad rates: Well, I don’t know. It depends on whether Pepsi gets enough people to read the book and the book makes people want to drink more Pepsi. But that’s a question of whether advertising really works or not. It isn’t a question of using it as a possible money-making option for authors. That’s why I advocate a lump-sum from the sponsor, not a CPM-based method.

Making assumptions about rates, number of readers and potential profit margins may be premature, here. It took years for television, for instance, to work out its successful ad formulas… there’s no reason to expect the e-book field to figure it out in a year or two.

Given the exceedingly low rates of income that online advertising seems to be generating, why would e-book advertising fare any better, especially given the low number of people who actually read books? Can you really expect to support yourself on current CPM rates?

I understand your desire to avoid ads intermixed with content, but as I suggested, ads don’t have to be blunt instruments like gaudy animated ad banners at every chapter break. Books have been packaged with ads in the past, mostly in the back, but occasionally even in an insert in the center of the book, and the world (and books) didn’t come to an end over it. With a new medium comes new ways of doing things, which may include hitherto-un-thought-of ways to package ads that will be acceptable to readers. (Even you.)

Besides, this is only one suggestion. Not all books have to be subsidized by ads, it’s just another avenue to try.