Advertising in books: will it work?

Dec 09 2007

A recent article on the Publishing 2.0 blog talks about placing ads in books. This is one business model in publishing that hasn’t really been tried yet. The post talks mostly about ads on ebooks for non-fiction titles. As far as digital content goes, ads are nothing new. How many blogs do you read without some form of advertising? My own personal view is that as long as the ads are non-intrusive (ie. pop-ups, annoying flash animation, etc), then I really don’t mind. In fact, I have discovered some interesting products and websites because of these ads.

But fiction is a different story (no pun intended). How do you find advertisers for a novel? How much will they pay? Would the advertising be content related? For example, maybe a science fiction novel would advertise technology-related products. Romance novels would advertise more erotic products. You get the picture. And if the novel is in ebook form, the ads could change based on evolving tastes.

What does this mean for the consumer? Aside from seeing small advertisements next to the narrative, you (the consumer) would probably be paying less for the ebook, if anything at all. The publisher and author are no longer 100% dependent on people buying the book for revenue. And if ads bring in enough money, they could give out the novels for free!

Print books are much different. While magazines and newspapers are filled with ads (often too many ads, in my opinion), it’d be hard to fill a print novel with advertisements. For one thing, there’s nothing to click on. You’d have to go to your computer and log on to whatever website the ad prints. This is an extra step. As a lazy reader myself, I’m not sure I’d be inclined to do all that extra work. Furthermore, advertising is a very timely business. Everything is based on current consumer tastes. If I bought a book last year, the ads would be worthless.

The Publishing 2.0 article sums up why ads will only work for digital content over print:

Regardless of whether there was any sense to this prohibition against ads in books in print, in digital all bets are off. The way content is consumed digitally is fundamentally different. The experience is different, and the expectations are derived largely from the core experience that defines digital media — surfing the web.

Whether or not advertising should sneak into the literary world is a big question. My first instinct is to say no – literature is too pure to be contaminated by advertising. Even if it were only in ebooks, I’m not sure it would catch on, at least in fiction.

However, things are changing fast. With the release of Amazon’s Kindle, it’s becoming more and more obvious that ebooks really are catching on and more people are open to digital content. Maybe a decade from now we’ll be seeing advertising in the novels we buy in digital format and not think anything of it. Only time can tell…

Can books have ads? YES

One Response

I actually love the advertising model. The publisher gets paid, the advertiser markets their product and the consumer gets not only free or low-priced content, they also get connected to products and services that they might find useful. At least, with a decent ad system, that’s how it works.
I think that there are some ads that could serve books. Ads can be timely (car ads, and the current swarm of holiday ads come to mind) but there are some long standing products out there that could advertise in books.
The problem with book advertising would be advertisers trying to control content. We’ve seen it on TV, where advertisers start dictating what can and can’t be said or shown, and the creative people (writers) always lose. That would be a bad thing.
-Melissa Donovan

Melissa Donovan 12/11/2007 12:35 am