I'm currently working on an ebook. It is quite industry specific and I have a couple of interested advertisers.
I really don't know what kind of money to ask for? Should I base it on website ad prices, or is this a different game? I don't want to take the p1ss, but on the other hand I don't want to give it away.
The different ads I am selling are -
Page specific
Introduction
Front/Rear cover 'sponsored by'
Internal full page ads
Anyone done this before? Any ideas would be great.
edit: I should also ad that I don't know how many copies it will sell. It is more of an experiment than anything else.
What are the CPMs like in your industry? How much exposure do you think your ebook will get? Will the ads be linkable or just plain static?
Assuming they are static ads without any linking I'd say an optimistic rate would be:
CPM*Expected Distribution Number/1000
That's just my amateur and completely uninformed stab at it however.
Thanks Littleman.
Your uninformed stab is as much as I have so far ;)
Given that all the variables are pretty unknown its hard to suggest anything really but I'll make a different uninformed stab - it might be worth checking out offline advertising aimed at a similar niche and seeing what their page/halfpage etc ads are though. If that gives you an idea of what the industry is willing to pay, you can possibly adjust based on comparative circulation rates and see what you end up with.
What its reasonable to charge might also depend on what you're willing to do to get them eyeballs. If you sell the book at $10 and get no takers, will you reduce the price to $5, or whatever it takes, to get a certain sales level? If so, they can be relatively sure of the benefit they'll end up with, and might be happier paying a certain cost?
Thanks Gurtie,
To be honest I didn't expect to have any interest in the ads, I think it is just the niche that I am in which offers very little oportunity for advertisers to reach their market.
I have now been asked for prices, so I have decided to aim just above the production and marketing cost of the book divided by the amount of ads I think I can sell. This way I should cover the cost and be able to offer a fair price to advertisers. Anything I make on book sales is profit then.
Maybe I could push it a bit more, but this is more about learning the process of bringing a product to the market. Maybe I should start a thread about that too as I suspect there is a lot of experience here on Th3 Core.
If it's an ebook the cost of production should be fairly negligible.
Ultimately, if someone is advertising they will expect to get a certain amount of traffic clicking through. Why don't you run affiliate ads before you even sell any ad space and see what sort of commissions etc. you make. Then at least you will have the semblance of a rate card.
The price will be what someone is prepared to pay vs. what you are prepared to sell for. Make sure in negotiating though you mention that you could sell the ad inventory on ad exchanges, real time bidding and because the quality of the ebook is so good the demand for space will be high, if they want to take the best tenancy they need to show you the money now.
You can always do the same thing with version 2 of the ebook.
Good luck with it.