With ads appearing on everything from cup holders to subway risers to (ok, to use an extreme case) people’s skin, books remain one of the last of the ad-free sacred spaces. Other than the occasional unsuccessful attempt at inserts (1970’s cigarette ads) and product placement (Bulgari anyone?), publishing has never looked seriously at advertising as a means to float the written word.
Some publishers like SparkNotes, Fodor’s and Dummies have long accepted third party advertising on their sites. But even they are tentative about moving ads under the covers. As content migrates from print to online, however, the stigma surrounding ad-supported books may be softening. For most, seeing an ad alongside digital text is much less jarring than seeing ad in a print book, and some publishers are starting to take advantage – albeit hesitantly – of this shift. (Logistically, ads online make more sense as well – two of the biggest complaints about print ads are their timeliness and printing costs, both of which can be digitally side-stepped. As can, theoretically, contractual strictures against ads appearing in the printed book.)
In line with their hand-in-all-the-digital-pies attitude, HarperCollins was the first major publisher to experiment posting ad-supported free content online last year with Go It Alone!, a business book by Bruce Judson. An ambitious, if somewhat primitive attempt, the book is displayed as consecutive html pages with contextual Google ads running alongside the text. Obviously caving to DRM worries, the book is purposefully difficult to navigate, never allowing the user to view more than one page of text at a time, and often switching between font sizes – making for a somewhat dizzying read. (In another curious turn, there is a banner ad on the table of contents page for The Power of Nice, a Doubleday book). HC declined to comment on the experiment, and Judson could not be reached.
Nick Bogaty, Director of the IDPF said that he didn’t have much expertise with the format, and that ad-supported books aren’t on the agenda for this year’s conference. Although the topic isn’t at the forefront of discussion, experimentation continues. Currently, the most viable contender seems to be Wowio – a relatively new third-party site that hosts free e-book PDF downloads. The site, which began by offering “ad-supported” books where ads were integrated into the text, soon moved to a “sponsorship” format much like video pre/post-roll where a few pages of ads “customize” the book for the reader before, after and during breaks in the text that has generated a much more favorable response. “We’‘e fond of the new model,” CEO David Palumbo said, adding that with the sponsorship model publishers and Wowio don’t have to worry about fundamentally changing the reading experience.
Arthur Klebanoff, Founder of Rosetta Books – one of the publishers with content on Wowio – referred to Wowio’s sponsorship approach as “PBS style” as opposed to embedded, saying that while he didn’t have a problem with an ad-supported format, sponsorship is certainly more dignified. “My view is that if the agents and authors are comfortable, why not,” he said (quickly adding that some of his authors and agents were indeed not comfortable with the idea). Other publishers include Oxford University Press and Soft Skull, and Palumbo added that Wowio is currently in discussion with “all major publishers” – although he wouldn’t say if there are any plans for any of them to sign in the near future.
At present Wowio has “several major sponsors” which pay anywhere from 4 to 64 cents an insertion – and the largest of which has up to ten ad campaigns running, so that one reader can receive different ads from the same company in different downloads. Wowio in turn offers publishers a portion of the revenue from each ad based on number of downloads. In order to use Wowio, users must enter a variety of demographic data about themselves, which advertisers later use to “select” the readers they would like to get in touch with/match content to.
And, in a refreshing approach to DRM difficulties Wowio notes, “Since anyone can defeat the most “sophisticated” DRM with the print screen button, we believe that technology-based DRM is essentially a fraud.” Instead, Wowio asks users to submit either an email address, credit card, or other government issue ID to verify identity.
But will the trend catch on? “It’s too early to know,” Klebanoff said. “I think it’s frankly an exaggeration on the content side to say that anyone is ‘excited’ about what e-books of any sort are doing,” Klebanoff said. “But I also think that all responsible experiments are worthy and only increase the reach of a medium. Not to sound Zen like, but it’s a catch 22. If enough advertisers put money behind it, it will capture attention, but they won’t put the money there until there is rather broad content, and rather broad usage – even if it is for free.”
