RSS FeedsAbout advertising in novels
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23 Jun
2005 |
A few days ago someone asked me how would it seem if advertisements appeared in novels. A novelist recently sold a page of his book for ad space. My first most reaction was of course a definite NO. I mean, how pathetic.
But then I thought more about it. There is big money involved in writing, publishing, promoting, and eventually selling novels. Many authors churn out book after book just to earn big bucks, and surely some authors earn millions. Some writers buy their own books in thousands just to turn them into best sellers. Big promotional tours are organized round the globe. So what’s wrong if a single advertisement appears in a book of say, 300-400 pages?
It does no harm if it stops there. But advertising is like this virus (we have all seen it in the form of SPAM) that spreads at an alarming rate. First it’ll be one page, then two, then three, and soon there will be an advertisement on every second page of the novel. A 300-page novel would turn out to be a 600-page one. It’ll be good for those who are used to skipping pages, but to serious novel readers it’ll be a major nuisance. Just imagine…in the thick of the plot when a character is going through a life altering, blood curdling experience, when you are partaking a delicious dish of melodrama and intrigue, there you are at a page that exhorts you to buy L’Oreal lipstick or VIP underwear.
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That’s an interesting thought…….
I think some novels have a kind of “strategic” advertising…they have an advertisement or four after the novel ends (the last few pages). It usually is that of some publishing company or something…..but it surely can be extended to anything.
Magazines do that routinely though……and bang in the middle of an article, you see an ad, or a “turn to page 73 for the rest of the article”, and we just grin and bear it.
I think the main reason why ads work in magazines, but probably won’t in novels is that a novel reader is focussed and not scanning through articles. So, if he/she sees an ad, (s)he will just flip through it, without even seeing whom it’s from…..
Does that make any sense?
Yes, it does. Novel reading, still in some quarters, is a serious activity, and something extremely non-intrusive, unlike magazines and tabloids. Advertisements in the end of the novel appear, but they mostly contain listings of the books by the same author, or by the same publishing company.
Putting ads in novels can sometimes go too far. A German edition of one of Terry Pratchett’s books contained (without his consent) an ad right inside the text. The sentence went something like: “And now our heroes must be tired of fighting, so they settle down for a bowl of …” Needless to say, he changed his German publisher. For me, personally, ads in books at least are a no-no, and quite irritating. C’mon, we’re already paying for the book, aren’t we? Last page ads are okay, though. They do no harm.