Barriers Broken for Advertising in Books
How many years ago was it when I was in the movie theater in East Hampton, New York and the first product advertisement appeared on the screen? No, this was not a movie trailer; this was not an over-loud cartoon enticing you to buy overpriced popcorn and over-ice-cubed sodas in the lobby. No. This was a polished, sleek advertisement that revealed what it was at the end. The audience sat in its seats, stunned, for about 15-seconds, and then all hell broke loose. We screamed, howled, threw popcorn at the screen. We wrote letters to the editor of The East Hampton Star newspaper. At every dinner party that the great, the near-great and the great-pretenders of “The Hamptons” attended for the next few weeks, we didn’t hear the usual vapid, fare. (Did you see how fat Alex Baldwin got? What was Lauren Bacall thinking dressed like that?) That summer it was clear: we would not stand for commercials with our popcorn and movies. Would NOT stand for it.
I went to see the movie Mrs. Henderson Presents this past weekend at the East Hampton Cinema. Passively, stoically, as the buttery smell of fresh cooked popcorn wafted through the theater, my fellow movie-goers and I sat slackjawed watching commercial after commercial.
But not books. Not precious books. No advertisements there. Not for the tweedy set of publishing. No way.
Surprise! Remember the hoopla and outrage back in April 2005 when it was revealed that O, The Oprah Magazine had struck a deal with Dove soap. For $500,000, Dove ran two-page spreads featuring its “Real Beauty” campaign inside the front and back covers of a “keepsake” book containing Oprah Winfrey’s “wit and wisdom.” The book (96 pages and pint-sized) was packaged with the fifth anniversary issue of the magazine and was a freebee for 2.6 million Oprah loyalists. No? Don’t remember the brouhaha that ensued? Not even after The New York Times ran an article on April 11, 2005 with the headline “Buy the Oprah Magazine and Get the Book, Too.”
Of course you don’t remember because what you heard was…silence. Silence from the literati. Silence from the business end of publishing. Perhaps a few editors “tsk, tsk, tsked” about it, but there was nothing like the great eruption that would have ensued and the industry-wide shunning that would have taken place twenty years ago or even ten years ago if Farrar Straus, Norton, or Simon & Schuster had been so crass, so commercial, as to contemplate placing an advertisement in (gasp) one of their books.
Just a few weeks ago Jane Freedman, President and Chief Executive Officer of HarperCollins Publishers, hinted (was it in PW?) at some sort of tie-in between ebooks and advertising. (Ah, hah! I thought. Here we go.) In Dan Mitchell’s “What’s Online” column in the New York Times today it was announced that ”for the first time, a major publisher is offering a book online at no cost to readers, supported by advertising.” That publisher is (drumroll) HarperCollins.
Of course, the book isn’t literature. No, it’s a 2004 business book called Go It Alone! The Secret to Building a Successful Business on Your Own by Bruce Judson. You can read it for free (there’s that word I hate so much) through the author’s website. But unlike Cory Doctorow (see yesterday’s blog posting), who gave away 650,000 free downloads of his book, Bruce Judson must have learned something by being a fellow at the Yale School of Management because his ebook may be free, but the ad space is not. (Hum… does he hold the ebook rights?)
A quick trip to Judson’s website does not reveal 1/4-page ads or full-page ads. There are however, small ads and links for Collins Business Journal, Exclusive Wealth Marketing, 3-Step Plan Home Business System (with audio), Wealth Strategy Group LLC running down the left-hand sidebar of the web screen, and links within the text of Go it Alone to companies Judson references like www.guru.com, ”a marketplace for individuals with full-time jobs seeking part-time evening jobs.” Did he get paid for that link? It doesn’t look like you can download. However, you can download the book for $8.76 from amazon.com and booksamillion.com or $18.26 directly from HarperCollins. (Welcome to the world of book pricing! I’m just shaking my head.) Judson’s website, by the way, looks fabulous. The audio intro is warm and friendly, and the book is very easy on the eyes to read.
As a marketer, it makes sense to me that we should start advertising in books. My dirty little secret (well, one of them) is that about two years ago I tried to get a publishing house to cut a deal with a diaper company that would have brought in a huge chunk of change. All we had to do was give a subtle reference to nappies by brand name within the text of a book, which was mentioning diapers generically anyhow.
“No” today, but “yes” tomorrow. You watch. It’s coming.
Can 1/4-page ads and spreads be far behind?
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing: Will a double-page-spread advertising a Ferrari appear in a novel where the protagonist drives one? What do you think?
February 19th, 2006 at 7:51 am
I do not want advertising in my books unless a provision is made to remove them, like the return post card in some magazines. Advertising is almost as dangerous as monotheism.
February 21st, 2006 at 6:03 pm
Eeek! Advertising in my books? Please! Can’t books at least be the last sacred place on earth where advertising isn’t? But what if Ms. Scanlon is right and these ads are coming no matter what we reader purists say. So what would publishers do? Catagorize ads according to genre? I’m overcome just thinking of opening a new garden book to see an ad for Miracle Gro. Or how about a slinky Victoria’s Secret ad for seamed stockings in a page turner from Lee Childs. Or lucious lips by Maybelline in a gossip book by Liz Smith. Oh, where would it end? And hasn’t subtle advertising begun already? In some paperbacks–Patricia Cornwell’s novels come to mind–the author offers the first several pages of his or her next novel at the end of their novel you’ve just finished. Or, at the beginning of a paperback, pages of notable quotes on the author’s other books appear frequently. So, it’s really already begun, this ad business in books. Don’t say the Publishing Contrarian hasn’t warned you.
March 1st, 2006 at 9:33 am
And here’s another news flash. And another twist. Robert Gray, former bookseller, now consultant to publishers, authors, agents and handsellers; and frequent blogger at his Fresheyesnow, fessed up to reading the March/April issue of AARP—The Magazine (for the over 50 set) and seeing a coupon offer for a 15% discount on Goldie Hawn’s memoir, redeemable at us.penguingroup.com at checkout.
And what if, when the book arrived in the mail box, there was another coupon for a second book IF purchased at Penguin Group’s website?
Rerouting traffic from Barnes & Noble and Borders online? Don’t you love it.?
March 2nd, 2006 at 3:01 pm
More ammunition for you…raises questions, like on TV–what’s a commercial, what’s a program? What’s a publisher? What’s a book? What’s a commercial?
From Publisher’s Lunch:
BMW Test-Drives Audio Books, […] BMW has recruited four authors from Random House UK, including Karin Slaughter, James Flint and Simon Kernick, to write 45 minute audio books featuring their cars. The audio files are available for free from BMWAudioBooks.com, starting this week with Don Winslow’s The Beautiful Ride.
March 3rd, 2006 at 12:22 pm
Companies paying for mention in books has been here for years.
And some books already come with publisher ads, mail-in cards right in the middle. Not much of a stretch to extend it to other advertisers.
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing: Molly is working on her first novel.
March 6th, 2006 at 1:13 pm
Hi, Lynne:
Why did I put a book up online and for free?
I stumbled across blogging and figured it was better to put the book up and attract a few readers, rather than have it fester unread in the back of a drawer somewhere.
I couldn’t think of any angle I could monetise the e-book. Why? Firstly, I didn’t think it worth the effort for the few pennies I might receive. Secondly, I rather liked the idea of doing it for free since it sort of absolved me from any responsibility to my readers.
My next book — which I have just started — will be different!
Best regards,
Bill Liversidge
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing: I zipped over to Bill’s website for a look-see at his book, and read the first chapter. I liked it. If you’ve lived through a downsizing, recession or worked in a company going the way of the dodo bird, Chapter One will be “deja vu all over again.” What I like about this free, online read is that readers critique A Half Life of One. Isn’t that what Stephen King suggested in his book On Writing: show your friends before you show your publisher? Bill lives in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Check out the view from his window.
March 11th, 2006 at 11:15 pm
Dear Folks:
Back in the mid-70s, cigarette ads started appearing right in the middle of ACE books science fiction paperbacks, including the Perry Rhodan series, which were aimed squarely at teengers. The ad was a full-color, two sided item printed on stock heavier than the book’s other pages and was glued in at the spine.
There was a huge backlash and the ads ceased.
Ads keep intruding into every corner of our lives and keep increasing the noise level we have to tune out to keep a clear head. As a reader, I certainly don’t want a book to be polluted with extraneous matter.
May 9th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
I remember that too! But it happened in Westport for me.
It’s definitely coming to books AGAIN.
It was very ordinary to see advertisements on the last few leaves of books in the nineteenth century. Most often for the publisher’s other wares, but there were paid adverts too.
So plus c(with a thingie under it)a change. People think spam is new, but the first electronic unsolicited citations were a series of telegrams in London in 1886.
I believe “product placement” is the movie term for putting identifiable goods into the action for pay. It probably happens quietly often enough. If the authors are clever, it’s pre publication- “Hello, Dodge of Portland? I’m Stephen King, and I really like that new Viper. I’m just finishing a new manuscript…”
Stephen King is the first recent author to sprinkle brand names heavily into fiction, and it was unusual enough to draw attention to it at the time and make it a marker of his work. He’s clever enough to make that call.
The successful “American Psycho” was one long list of commercial products. Or at least as far as I got through it before I threw it at the popcorn.
(It makes me wonder if once upon a time advertisers tried this, and publishers refused because they weren’t offered a big enough cut.)
I don’t see anything wrong with it. If Mr. King talks about a character using Tide, or Dashiell Hammett about one being shot with a Webley Fosbery, why do I care if the author got something more than artistic satisfaction? That payment lowers my cost after all, and it’s not as though “Coke” takes any longer to read than “soft drink”.
The movie adverts are different, that’s ten minutes of my life I won’t get back again. I arrive late to avoid them.