Advertising in ebooks

The idea of putting advertising in ebooks is not a new idea but I wanted to make a few comments on it. Paper books have had advertising in them in the past. Doing some research on the topic I found several references to cigarette ads in paperbacks in the 60's and 70's.

The major critique of ads in paper books is that the ad breaks the flow of reading and that the ads are wasted paper.

I am a Kindle owner and I would like to see a certain kind of advertising for ebooks. I would like to see ebooks sponsored and the process of sponsorship would allow people to buy a cheaper copy of the book.

Let me give an example of a hypothetical ebook that sells for $14.99 on Amazon. The $14.99 edition has no advertising. Honda sponsors the book and creates a "Honda edition". The Honda edition contains the full text of the book and sells for less than the regular edition. Honda would pay the publisher for each copy of the Honda Edition that was sold. After the title page of the Honda edition there would be one or several pages of information (ads) about Honda products. There would be no ads in the actual text of the book.

People looking to buy the book would see two copies available on Amazon. The regular edition ($14.99) and the Honda edition ($9.99). This type of sponsorship would have a strong impact on consumers. I think people would remember the companies that sponsored the books they bought and made them more affordable.

Honda, of course, was just being used as an example. Any company could sponsor a book. If there was some type of connection between the subject of the book and the sponsor of the book that might make the sponsorship even more appealing.

I just looked and the Kindle edition of "Marley and Me" sells for $6.49. Why not a Purina edition of the book that sells for $2.99?

I typically am not a big fan of advertising but I think this idea would create a win/win situation. Memorable strong advertisement would strengthen brands that used this method to advertise and readers would win because they would get cheaper books. Because the advertising is at the front of the book it would not harm the reading experience and the reader would not feel put upon by the ad because they received a specific price reduction because of the ad.