We all get tired of the mountains of junk mail we receive, especially around the holidays. Constant advertising breaks interrupt our favourite television shows. Yet, advertising is how we find out about the latest products and when they’re on sale.
But, how would you feel about advertisements appearing in the books you buy? It probably doesn’t sound very appealing, but what if those ads were necessary in the case of eBooks. In order for publishers and authors to make a reasonable return on their product, advertisements in eBooks will be necessary.
From David Kaplan of paidContent.org: @ eBook Summit: Advertising Is Coming To E-Books
In kind of mirror image of the kind of fevered discussions that goes on at most newspaper conferences, the consensus of the last group of panelists [...] was that the future of e-books will likely depend on ad-support to some extent.
Is this really something to be concerned about? After all, videos/DVDs/Blu-Rays all contain some advertising. The advantage is that it’s placed in such a way that a person can fast-forward or advance to the actual movie. You aren’t forced to watch the ads before you can see the movie that you either rented or purchased. Even movie theatres, some time ago, started running ads prior to showing their feature films. (Note: I haven’t been to a cinema in more than five years, so I can’t say if that’s still the case or not.)
As I see it, if the advertising is done in a non-intrusive manner, then it shouldn’t really be an issue for anyone. As long as the ads don’t interrupt the flow of reading, then I don’t see this proposal as any different from the ads placed on the film media that we rent and purchase all the time.
If it’s necessary in order for the viability of publishers and authors, then so be it. I much prefer advertisements and a lower eBook purchase price to the idea of much more expensive eBooks without ads.
Now if we could only get publishers to see the folly in their decision to delay the release of eBooks. *Sigh* I guess some dinosaur publishers just refuse to adapt to the digital world.
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