Melville House Books

Captive audience

I’m not a luddite but I’m not totally platform indifferent either; I will choose a bound book over the e-other if forced to choose. Yet truth be told, I am excited about several prospects with respect to the future of reading. I’m not a fan of proprietary platforms that are locked down in such a way that you can’t, say, lend an e-book to a friend for an indefinite amount of time or sell one if you’re finished with it. On the other hand I am, in principle, excited along with a few others about the fact that the new Google ebookstore allows indies to sell e-books. I’m also pretty jazzed about the potential of enhanced e-books, something which Melville House will soon be getting into (stay tuned).

But there is one area with respect to the future of reading that, to quote Herman Melville‘s ever lovable but inscrutable contrarian Bartleby, “I prefer not to.” And I just don’t think I ever will.

In a story in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, Emily Steel reports about an effort by some e-book marketers and retailers to sell ads within e-books. Seeing huge revenue potential due to the triple-digit-growth surge in e-book sales (which is expected to top out at just under $1 billion in 2010), this new reading platform is seen as prime territory for marketers to move in and make a buck.

Here’s how e-book retailer Wowio, Inc. has integrated advertising into e-books:

Some Wowio e-books have three pages with promotions: an introduction and a closing page each with an ad, plus another full-page ad. The company also is experimenting with techniques to insert ads between chapters and to target ads using profile information that users submit to its website, says Wowio Chief Executive Brian Altounian.

Okay, so let’s play this out. Imagine you’re reading one of you’re favorite authors–which of course Wowio will know who it is because you’ve bought several books by this person–and then, all of a sudden, after you swipe to the next page the text disappears and a video comes up. It’s Stephen King, and he says, “Hi [insert your name here], just thought you’d like to know that I’m hard at work on my next book scheduled to come out in April. Buy now and you’ll receive the enhanced edition for half the price!” Yes, you’re right, it is fucking creepy.

But Altounian assures us not to worry. “It is not the kind of thing where you are reading and a video pops up on the screen,” he told Steel. Yet in the very same breath he seems to contradict that statement by saying, “If advertising gives access to content that is free or heavily subsidized, then most readers will accept it.” In other words, it’s a game of numbers. Once everyone has bought in, we’ll accept it in whatever form it comes.

Fortunately books have historically been resistant to advertising. In the 50′s and 60′s mass-market paperbacks used to have ads in the back. That effort eventually failed due to the transient nature of advertising conflicting with the relative permanence of books. But Steel points to a fundamental difference in e-books that might create a space for in-book ads to thrive. Advertisers, she points out, will now be able to insert ads “that are appropriate for when a person accesses the book and targeted to the reader’s interests.”

Maybe. Still, I have doubts. I also feel no guilt in hoping that in-e-book ads are an abject failure. I’d even bet many ardent technophiles share that sentiment.