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Will Amazon Put Advertisements In eBooks?
destinyland writes "A book editor at Houghton Mifflin argues ebook advertising is 'coming soon to a book near you.' (Paywalled unless you go through Google.) Amazon has filed a patent for advertisements on the Kindle, and the book editor joins with a business professor in the Wall Street Journal to make the case for advertisements in ebooks. Book sales haven't increased over the last decade, and profits are being squeezed even lower by ebooks. According to another industry analyst, Amazon is being pressured to make ebook sales more profitable for publishers, partly because Apple offers them more lucrative terms in Apple's iBookstore. One technology blog notes that Amazon's preference seems to be keeping book prices low, and wonders whether consumers would accept advertising if it meant that new ebooks were then free. Meanwhile, Ralph Lauren has confused the issue even more by publishing a 'shoppable' children's storybook online, prompting a fierce reaction from one blog: 'I hope it's the last. Books are one of the last refuges in our world from the constant cry by advertisers to spend money and fill our lives with unnecessary things.'"
According to another industry analyst, Amazon is being pressured to make ebook sales more profitable for publishers, partly because Apple offers them more lucrative terms in Apple's iBookstore.
This is completely the opposite of the way a "free market" is supposed to behave. Enjoy your oligopolies, America. I just take heart in the fact that if a Kindle can read it, so can any other device. I will wait for the ad-blocking readers before spending one dime on one.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Hear hear. Project Gutenberg has been the source of all of my eBooks -- I've really been enjoying reading through Jules Verne, HG Wells, Dante, Don Quixote, and all sorts of classics that have been on my list for years.
There's so much stuff out there that's really good and now freely available that it's mind-boggling. Yeah for Project Gutenberg and their work!!
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I get a LOT of the stuff I read from Project Gutenburg as well. I usually donate anywhere from $10-$20 per paycheck to them, depending on how much I've downloaded and read in the past couple of weeks.
$9.99 per ebook? No freakin' way. Donations to a project whose purpose is making classic works available for future generations? Absolutely.
Living With a Nerd
Do we have the option to get our cable TV without comercials? there are a few pay on-demand channels, but as a general rule, no.
DVDs? iTunes? Netflix?
Broadcast radio? no
CDs? iTunes? Spotify?
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Do we have the option to get our cable TV without comercials? there are a few pay on-demand channels, but as a general rule, no.
HBO? Cinemax? Showtime? And why are you comparing books -- a single finite length of words -- to a streaming service that continually offers new and different content? Wouldn't it be better to compare books to DVDs? Your comparison of a 24/7 service that provides semi-unique programming versus a book smacks of an "apples to oranges" comparison.
Broadcast radio? no
NPR? XM Radio? If they could sell you subscriptions to FM and AM bands, I bet they would (similar to HBO/SHOW/CINE). Again, try comparing books to CDs instead of a 24/7 service of semi-unique programming. No advertisements on CDs.
Magizines? no
There are specialty magazines that don't have advertisements. It just turns out that people are used to magazines and newspapers having advertisements so they use this to subsidize the cost. Just like television used these same advertisements to pay for costs, it seems we are used to this and will accept it largely. I highly doubt it will be the same with books, albums and movies. I subscribe to Specialten and it has no advertisements. The subscription price is also outrageous. I think people put magazines in the "service" category and accept advertisements with services. This isn't always the case as ISPs have suffered from trying to put advertisements into failed DNS request redirects.
Think like a distributer... why charge less for the version with ads in them when you can charge full price AND get the advertising money and make it the only version offered. If I were a heartless corp, I would offer the two versions, then when the next big hit comes out only offer it with ads at full price, then slowly increase the number of ad-only books till that was all I offered in about 5 years or so.
The simple answer to that is to think like the consumer. Why should I could keep paying full price and suffer through advertisements, I know that they are supposed to reduce the cost unless I've been living in a cave on Mars during the advent of the internet? I have faith in the market in this one and speculate books -- both physical and digital -- will remain mostly advertisement free as most albums and movies have.
If the Kindle provides me a service to access a vast array of copyrighted books for free or cheaply, I would expect that to change though and would assume advertising would be necessary to mitigate the costs.
My work here is dung.