A new revenue model for E-books?

[casnow]

So, the NY Times reported a couple of very interesting things this weekend: That Kindle is opening up to apps and that the apple tablet is going to be revealed soon... and knowing apple this will also be something you write apps for.

How do websites make money? Either you pay for content (like WS Journal, Economist, etc) or through advertising. E-books are digital content, and there are two ways that revenue can be generated for the author: They sale it (either through a publisher or they do it themselves) or they get nothing for it. Hmm... the second half of the equation is missing. You can't advertise in E-books (effectively).

Or can you? It should be possible for someone to write an e-Reader app for the Kindle/Nook/Tablet/iPhone that will take advantage of the 3G/GPS capabilities, which will use the GPS and connectivity to deliver very targeted advertising within the book. Granted you would have to be careful to keep it from interfering with the reading experience, but you could imbed key words, which if a user clicked on would bring up ads. Everytime it is clicked the author gets a chunk of the per click revenue (same way google adwords works). Or maybe you could deliver full or half page (I think 1/2 page would work better since the reader has to stay on the page to continue reading) ads like a newspaper does, but have the ad target the readers specific location (which he App could do by reading their last GPS location).

So if you are an e-Reader type, would you rather pay $9.99 with no ads, or get it for free with ads? At what point would you rather pay? $6.99? $3.99? $0.99?

[rose]

I represent the Tragedy of the Commons answer. I would like the free with ads ebook, please. And then I would also like the work-around hack that suppresses the ads, like the Firefox Adblock add-on does.

rose

[casnow]

I represent the Tragedy of the Commons answer. I would like the free with ads ebook, please. And then I would also like the work-around hack that suppresses the ads, like the Firefox Adblock add-on does.

rose

You are evil! :)

[Simpatico]

Personally, I don't think it would work. (As evidenced by the above posts.)

People are just too inured to advertising. They'll gloss over it.

And if you make it too intrusive to get over that obstacle, they'll do whatever they can to get around it. It's just the way we are. Advertising is a necessary evil, but the fact is we hate it. We hate having people cram things down our throats and try to coerce us into spending our money (or trying to divert our attention from where we want it to be - on the story or content.)

The internet ad model is not wholly successful. Many sites are starving and many magazines are starting to change to a subscription model.

To be honest, I just can't see somebody being engrossed in your story, then suddenly stopping mid-sentence to click on a word to see a product that was advertised.

[casnow]

Simpatico - you are probably right that people would gloss over it (or block it) unless it was an actual static part of the file that couldn't be effectively blocked like internet ads. However, you do raise another good point, which is a subscription model. I remember that Yahoo had a music service where you could download unlimited songs, but you were basically renting them (you had to keep paying to keep them on your computer - otherwise they expired).

Does anyone think a similar model could work for eBooks? Example, for your $9.99/month you subscribe to an eBook store that will loan you a book that is valid for a month, after which if you want to keep it you have to pay your next month's fee? It would be a huge revenue hit for authors, but from the POV of a publisher, how many of your customers read more than 1-2 books a month these days? (maybe you even keep your best sellers off the subscription list, and just put on older stuff that is close to being out of print).