Ads for Adobe PDF

Including ads in PDF documents may seem like treading on unchartered territory. I've talked to numerous publishers and they all tell me the same thing: they see this ad service as a means to explore new business models that will help them subsidize the costs of content creation and production. I think it's always helpful to remind your readerbase why advertising is such a critical piece of the publishing business. Sponsors help pay the bills and if the ads are relevant, they can even be interesting and helpful to your readers.

I've run across a few great examples of how publishers have communicated this to their readerbase:

1) Kevin Kelly's ebook on True Films
http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/002538.php

This is a great ebook that reviews the best 200 documentaries. The link to his ebook includes a blog post that iterates why he is including ads with the ebook:

"I hope you get the updated version of the Reader and click to see the ads. Why? Because my hunch is that books-supported-by-ads is one way to extend the FREE. I would love to produce books for free, outside of big publishing, just as this recommendation site is given away for free. Cool Tools has continued for free for five years because it is funded by the ads on this site. There is a chance we can develop a similar culture and business model around FREE books. The engine would again be ads."

2) The Seventh Sun
http://theseventhsun.com/index.htm

The Seventh Sun publishes all sorts of fascinating articles and news about the virtual world. When you mouse over a PDF that has been ad-enabled, you will see a brief blurb describing the ads and why they are there.

3) Dinosaurs and Robots Dispatch
http://hooptyrides.blogspot.com/2008/02/dinosaurs-and-robots-dispatch-new.html

The previous founders of Boing-Boing have created a new publication for projects, techniques and tools, loosely arranged around the idea of transport. In their blog post containing the PDF, they write:

"There are folks who do not believe creative effort should be rewarded monetarily. I am not one of those people. Dispatch is released as a PDF with dynamic ads from Adobe/Yahoo. You can choose to turn off the ads or open the PDF with Apple Preview, which does not support ads. However, if you enjoy the Dispatch and would like to see future issues, I would appreciate it if you'd open with the Adobe Reader and leave the ads enabled."

Take a lead from your fellow publishers. Ad-sponsored content is nothing new, but sometimes, readers just need to be reminded how they are getting that content for free!