Thanks, Dave. I think it small and unobtrusive too. Which I find funny, considering all of my initial angst. 🙂

Even television gets carried away sometimes. How many people complained about the Lost finale being ads punctuated by a TV show? I think there were 45 minutes of ads in that 2.5 hour episode. Too much. So you’re right about moderation. You also have to be able to find the website through the ads. All things to think about.

Back in the early 90’s Rita and I owned a few small business’ and bought ad space in several newspapers, augmented with flyers etc. We tracked the success of each marketing tool to see the returns (aka bang for our buck). Some worked well in certain markets while others did poorly. As a result of this experience we as writers need to have some reliable data to offer prospective advertisers so they know they’re getting sufficent market penetration in their potential customer base when they place ads on our site.

In our business today it seems to me we should only accept ads in someway related to our business. Though the possibilites seem endless within these parameters. Movies, television, publishers, accounting services, lawyers, freelance editors, etc. etc.

I agree 100% we must each determine what we would accept but my imagination runs away at the possibilites.

I wonder why some of the big names don’t do more of this on their sites since they have such large exposure?

Once concern I hope we can avoid is the tendancy by some to get carried away with too many ads that will in the end be turn off. We all know of people who get carried away with the latest, greatest trend. How many times have you been to a movie and wondered when the ads were going to end and the movie start?

A very interesting topic that I’m going to ponder and discuss with a friend who’s very good at marketing.

Because I’m lazy, Mary, and that’s how they provided it. I may change it. But as you can tell, I’m not very concerned about this. The ad is incredibly minor.

I agree. I love free because it encourages me to sample before I buy. 🙂 Thanks, Cindie.

Funny, I’ve been reading all of these posts for free, yet I can’t wait for it all to come out as a book (that I will happily pay for) so I can have it all in one convenient place, one doc (paper or electronic) that I can read all at once and mark up. Another element of the new frontier, I think. Just because it’s free here doesn’t mean people won’t pay for it in another form.

Excellent point, Scott. Glad you clarified. I think that’s what I’m getting at with static and active sites. Very few NYT bestsellers have truly active sites, imho. Just the occasional pointed blog post about their work.

I will eventually post stories. Just haven’t found that round tuit yet.