Like David, I recognize that everybody’s got to eat; I agree with the idea of placing ads between chapters (and I think that would be ideal from a reader’s perspective.) However, if Wowio (and other publishers following a similar model) do increase ad frequency, I suggest the following:

Try narrowing the page of text and adding ads on the side margin. I strongly suggest that they should keep it a clusters of 3 or less, but pepper such clusters within a chapter (perhaps at the beginning and at the halfway points?)

These locations are arbitrary, but my rationale is that I do not read the long columns of ads that are found on the side of the page (such as on this very blog page). I might, however, scan the first couple of ads as I automatically skim the first screenful of the web page to map out content and prioritize my reading for the rest of that page.

I also suggesting refreshing ads. Isn’t there anyway to embed codes such that new ads can be inserted in those locations? Almost all my books from the previous incarnation of Wowio are sponsored by Verizon. That’s nice, and I thank Verizon, but the ad is useless to me because I am locked into a Sprint family plan, and I doubt I’d change out anytime soon unless I can get my in-laws to change their family plan (which won’t happen.) Shouldn’t you have secondary sponsors for every book?

If you can’t rotate the ads you have in a book, then may I suggest adding links that refer to Wowio? I envision these links taking me to Wowio, which will then display, a la Pricegrabber, a list of various companies selling that item and their prices. Thus, I can go through Wowio to drive ad-directed revenue to you.

Unfortunately, this plan has the drawback of not paying the author or his estate (as Chris Meadows points out for the comic Alien Dice.) Clearly, Wowio should have links embedded to point back to that author’s website. But of course, Wowio might also have information about which books are driving traffic back to Wowio and can split revenues with those authors. Again, it seems advantageous for authors not to use the Wowio model, since they can get 100% of the revenue if the traffic came from their page, and I am not sure how to make this more attractive to everybody.

I have a feeling that the number of ads will only increase. Heaven forbid ads are inserted between every line, but I suppose the only way to limit the total number is to help companies like Wowio figure out how best to use ads (placement/location, frequency, rotation, static/animated, targeted/general audience, etc.)

I say this as an academic researcher working in neurosicence. I am not, nor does anyone I know, work for publishing/content companies or ad/marketing agencies. With all due respect to Mr. Lidwell, I detest ads in novels, and I am one of those people who gladly pay to remove ads (I have a rather full fictionwise library of paid ebooks that were bought at the time of first-run release. Yes, that’s right, I paid full, hardcover price for some of my ebooks.)

But I do hope that Wowio and readers arrive at some mutual understanding of book enjoyment vs book-derived revenue. Please, take from this comment the idea that reader enjoyment can be balanced with profit making models. The precise features of how to achieve that balance isn’t important at this point (such as my suggestion of placing clusters of ads at specific points in each chapter and changing the text flow.) The point is that everyone seems to think increasing ads is the solution. I think it is time for companies to think less about how ads can please their sponsors and focus on making ads useful for the consumers (which should increase interest for sponsors.)

[Will: I've fixed the copy. I, too, should have noticed. - David]

On the other hand, I well remember the old dot-com boom and bust. I remember writing for Themestream, a blogging-for-pay site, that paid its readers first a dime, then a nickel, and eventually only a penny or two per hit before going under altogether. And more recently, Talkshoe has stopped paying its show hosts the way it used to because they haven’t been able to get enough ad revenue to keep it up. So I suspect that what you aren’t telling us is that Wowio was actually paying out more money than it took in under the old system, and this change was necessary to stay afloat.

If this were true, then the most free societies would be those with the least visible advertising… is this the point she (or William Lidwell) was trying to put forward? If so, it seems to go against the rest of his argument.