SHOWCASE EDITION: #01
INTERACTIVE
DIGITAL INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
MAGAZINES TRANSFORMING PRINTED MAGAZINES INTO ENGAGING, INTERACTIVE EXPERIENCES
WHICH PLATFORM IS BEST WEB PUBLISHING OR NATIVE
HOW TO TRANSFORM YOUR
ADVERTISING REVENUE
MEASURE AND REPORT RESULTS WITH REAL-TIME ANALYTICS!
WIN A FREE
MAGAZINE DESIGN! A BESPOKE 24-PAGE MAGAZINE LAYOUT CREATED SPECIALLY FOR YOUR PUBLICATION
1
Transforming Your Printed Magazine into an Interactive Experience!
Contents
2
Welcome to the Showcase Edition of Interactive Digital Magazine.
5 Benefits of Digital Publishing
04
Understanding the Options
06
Advertisement Example
08
The Benefits of Web Publishing
09
Advertisement Example
11
Interactive Engagement
12
The Downside of Bloated Apps
14
Advertisement Example
16
Flip-Books & PDFs
17
Behind the Scenes at IM.ONLINE
18
Designed and created by the team at InteractiveMagazines.co.uk, this showcase edition of IDM offers magazine publishers an insight into digital publishing and the options available to transform their publication into an online magazine. To further understand the opportunities of digital publishing, you can access an Interactive version of this Magazine here: URL HERE
For more information on InteractiveMagazines.co.uk, please visit our website or call Steve Parker directly on: +44 (0)7710 418036 Design and Layout by InteractiveMagazines.online
04
06
12
09
14
17
18 3
INTRODUCTION
5 Benefits of Embracing a Digital Magazine If you’re a magazine publisher who’s thinking of embracing the world or digital, I’ve created this article which you may find useful to help make up your mind? ARTICLE BY STEVE PARKER
Let’s Get Started... If you’re reading this article, the chances are you are wondering if creating a web magazine is worth the time and effort? You’re almost definitely assessing whether the investment is worthwhile and what options are available for you? Here at InteractiveMagazines.Online, we understand that transitioning from print to digital can feel overwhelming to some publishers. We’ve created this magazine to walk you through the options, and help you determine the right solution for your magazine. To get started, let’s take a look at a few of the benefits you can achieve by creating a digital version of your magazine and, in later articles, we’ll look at each feature in a bit more detail.
1) Increase Your Readership Whether your magazine serves a niche audience or appeals to a generic readership, there will always be more people who could benefit from your content. Taking your content online will broaden your network and raise awareness of your magazine to readers irrespective of any geographical borders. With wider exposure, you can gain more chances to attract leads and convert them into loyal customers. Moving quickly will give you an edge over your competitors, who are yet to explore the amazing results of having a web magazine, and help to position your magazine as a defacto publication within your chosen space.
4
INTERACTIVEMAGAZINES.ONLINE
2) Utilise Search Engine Traffic
4) Increased Revenue
By choosing a web-based publishing solution, you can leverage the power of online search engines to attract new readers, who are already looking for your content. Positioning your digital magazine to be accessible on search engines is not only the cheapest way of raising exposure, but also the most successful for attracting your key target audience.
Adding interactive features that allow your readers to directly engage with you in a click, brings a host of new revenue opportunities for you and your advertisers.
The more publications and editorial content you add to your offering, the more visibility you will enjoy on various search engines. This will increase organic search visibility and your ongoing website traffic will continue to rise.
The opportunity to add a contact form, direct call or coupon redemption link to your display adverts, will allow your advertisers to receive direct, real-time enquiries straight from your publication. This interactivity mixed with the increased online readerhip opportunities, will provide your magazine with a much stronger offering to potential advertisers, compared to your print competiton.
For the best search engine results, it’s recommended to use an HTML based web solution for your magazine, as these are likely to be crawled and indexed faster by the search engines.
In addition to increased advertising revenue, an online publication offers you the opportunity to think about sponsored links, affiliate partnerships and the ability to promote additional products.
3) Interactive Features
5) Analytics & Reporting
After increased exposure and readership, one of the biggest benefits of a digital magazine are the interactive features available to engage your readers, and interact with them in different ways.
Unlike printed magazines, a digital publication will provide you, and your advertisers, with rock-solid data results.
Embedding neat features such as slide-shows, video, audio files, surveys and the ‘all-important’ contact forms, will provide your publication with an arsenal of benefits that you simply cannot replicate within traditional print.
You can instantly see which of your magazine’s edition is a hit amongst the users, how many users are visiting it and how much time are they spending on each article. Each reader interaction is logged, and advertisers can be provided with a detailed report to show how many people have responded to their offer or service offering?
INTERACTIVEMAGAZINES.ONLINE
5
UNDERSTANDING THE RIGHT DIGITAL PUBLISHING SOLUTION FOR YOUR MAGAZINE We’ve looked at some of the generic benefits available from a digital magazines, but what publishing solutions are available out there for you to choose from?
Let’s start with the basics... As more and more consumers use their tablet and mobile devices to consume content, there’s neen some major growth in digital publishing software and tools available to brands and publishers. These solutions have begun to vary from each other quite a bit, as they serve vastly different purposes within digital publishing. To help you select the right digital publishing solution for your business, I’ve created a straightforward list of ‘must-ask questions’ that you can use in your own decision process. I’ve also added why I think these questions are important.
What is Digital Publishing? To get started, let’s understand the basics of Digital publishing (which is also referred to as online publishing or e-publishing). Quite simply put, this term includes the publication of any editorial matter on to digital devices such as PC’s, tablets and mobile phones.
6
INTERACTIVEMAGAZINES.ONLINE
Some digital publications are sold as subscriptions for monthly magazines, while others are created specifically as free content and are monetised through advertising or used for (content) marketing purposes as digital magazines, ebooks or catalogues. Some publishing platforms work best for the paid content model, while others are more suited for content marketing and organic searches. I’ve divided up these different digital publishing solutions into two categories:
WEB PUBLICATIONS & NATIVE APP You’re already familiar with the term “app”, but you may not know the difference between a (mobile) web publication and a native app? In essence, the big difference is as follows: It comes down to where each of them lives, so to speak. Whether you want to call them mobile apps, responsive publications/sites or mobile publications/sites, the point is that web publications live on the Internet. In stark contrast, native apps live on the handheld device itself. There’s even a third choice, which is the hybrid app. Now days it’s becoming difficult to distinguishing between the web and native apps. Nonetheless, important differences remain, and I’ll walk you through them.
What Web Publications Are... While you may have been led into thinking otherwise, a web publication or web app is actually a website that you can access on your handheld device. Though they may appear like a native app, they definitely aren’t implemented as such. Usually written in HTML5 and accessed by a browser, a mobile site has its own URL. The user can even “install” the mobile site on his homepage by simply bookmarking that page.
What Native Applications Are... In this corner, we have the native app. As explained above, it lives on your handheld device. Accessed through the icons that you see on your device’s home screen, it needs to be installed via an app store such as the Apple App Store or Google Play. Only developed particularly for one platform, it can utilize all of the features of the device. This means that a native app can utilize your device’s camera, its contact list, its compass, its GPS and much more. It also supports gestures (whether it’s an appdefined gesture or a more standard one based on an operating system), working offline and the device’s notification system.
What Hybrid Applications Are... A hybrid app is essentially a mix of both a mobile website and a native app. For instance, it needs HTML to be rendered in a browser (just like a mobile site), but it also exists in an app store and utilizes a lot of the features of your device.
Native Or Web: Which One Is Better? Does it make sense yet? Both web publications and native apps have their pros and cons and we will split them out in feature groups below.
When Considering Features: If your main concern is having a myriad of features from which to choose, then use native apps. Native apps have access to the whole boatload of device-exclusive features like notifications, camera and GPS, to name just a few. A business that mainly interacts with its customers in person or on the phone likely doesn’t need a mobile app. A regular web publication will be exactly what you want. However, if your business is one that offers an existing web service that caters to user logins and account management, then the native app offers more features and is more convenient.
Installation, Rapid Access & SEO: Web publications are much easier to install than native apps. When you “install” a web publication, you just have to create a bookmark on your home screen. However, installing a native app means downloading it from an app store, which takes longer and also has to get over the hurdle of the user first justifying the effort to do so. Accessing a native app is easy immediately after the download. However for future access and updates, often additional downloads of content and updates of the app are required. This can create a burden on the reader, and it should not come as a surprise that more than 9 out of 10 apps are deleted after installation. Also, do take into account that native apps cannot be accessed on desktops, which is still about 50% of your traffic.
When Considering the User Interface: Native apps are your best bet, if you’re looking for that extra crispy feeling and high-resolution graphics. However, for 99% of us, the experience and interface possibilities offered by web publications are not just good enough, we feel totally satisfied with the experience.
It Comes Down to Preference As you can see, both web publications and native apps have their pros and cons. Each is also better for specific situations which the other’s not well-suited for. Web publicaitons has started to become increasingly popular due to the use of HTML5, which has allowed more users to achieve native-like functionality right in their browsers.
DOWNLOAD OUR FREE WEB VERSUS NATIVE WHITEPAPER
INTERACTIVEMAGAZINES.ONLINE
7
SPONSORSHIP & ADVERTISING OPPORTUNITIES Understanding the importance of being able to raise the profile of your business and gain exposure to potential new clients, strategic partners and business connections (plus, we love to shout about the fantastic businesses we are engaged with!) – the Black Country Chamber has many sponsorship & advertising opportunities available for you to promote your business. From headline sponsorships of important initiatives, to regular advertising space on our communications – we have something to suit you, whatever your marketing budget. YOUNG CHAMBER SPONSOR Opportunity to become a key business associated with our prominent Young Chamber initiative, promoting your business alongside raising awareness and improving the links between the worlds of education and business; either in your particular region. IDEAL SPONSOR PROFILE: A company (or companies) passionate about improving the links between education and business; with a strong ethos of working with, supporting and providing opportunities to young people
EVENTS SPONSORSHIP Business EXPOs Campaign Events Business Briefings Professionals Network
For sponsorship enquiries, further information or a discussion about any of our opportunities, please contact:
David Hadley
8
Director of Commercial Development davidhadley@blackcountrychamber.co.uk INTERACTIVEMAGAZINES.ONLINE
THE BENEFITS OF WEB PUBLISHING
So far, we’ve taken a look at the advantages of digital publishing and the differences between Web Publishing and Native Apps, but which one should you choose for your magazine?
Well it depends on the type of magazine you have and what type of readership you want to attract? If you have an Advertising-driven Magazine or Content Marketing Publication, and you want to increase your Brand Position then you need the solution which provides the biggest reach, and works best with social media, search engines, social advertising, email and SMS.
IDEAL SCENARIOS:
• Advertising-Driven Media & Publishing • Brand Publishing / Content Marketing • Internal Magazines & Publications
While Native Apps bring some distinct advantages to publishers, it remains a fact that they are only great for your loyalist customers, who have the right type of smartphone or tablet and have been convinced there is value in continuing to download new editions and keeping the App on their device.
The same report points out that more than half of this time in Apps is spent in the user’s favorite app; 88% in the top five and 97% in the top 10. This means that only the most popular apps are thriving, and the liklehood of your Native Magazine App being clicked is pretty poor.
If advertising (online/offline), email, SMS, web search or referrals are part of your customer engagement strategy, you’re going to need to hit the masses, and this is where Web Publishing is sticking its neck forward and winning the race.
The story for mobile reach is totally different. For a broad audience, mobile web is king, and is becoming ever more dominant. This reality means that even the most successful Native App Publishers are already taking mobile-friendly Web Publishing extremely seriously.
Mobile Masses or Most Loyal Customers Native apps are often chosen by publishers on the finding that 87% of mobile time spent in the UK is in Apps. Taken out of context this sounds astonishing and compelling but, delve a little deeper and, the data is misleading.
The success of Web Publishing rests on its interconnectedness with all of the vital communications channels, such as Social Media, Search Engines, Email, and general Web Usage, accessed by your business, your customers and the rest of the world.
INTERACTIVEMAGAZINES.ONLINE
9
Is Your Native App Going to Be Noticed?
Inclusivity versus Exclusivity
Will it be as slick, useful, addictive or popular with your customers as Facebook, YouTube, Google Maps, Twitter or Spotify?
Native Apps are developed individually in different programming languages for different smartphone/tablet operating systems, most commonly Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS.
That might sound harsh, but with 2 million apps available in Google Play and 1.9 million in the Apple App Store, the competition to persuade the smartphone users to a) Notice you have an App; b) Download it; and c) Use it; is intense. There have been a few fairy tales, but mostly the Native App success stories are companies with the most brand visibility and the deepest pockets to promote themselves. Of course, if you can deliver a Magazine App that is indispensable to your customers, you could be richly rewarded with higher customer engagement, but the odds are stacked against you. Ultimately, the Native App route may be something you decide is right for your publication but, before commiting yourself, you need to gauge and foster your customers’ readiness for mobile engagement with your brand and study their mobile behaviour. There is no better way to do this than through a Mobile-Friendly Web Publication. If you do decide to add a Native App, your Mobile Web Publication can be a good vehicle for encouraging people to utilise your App, but please don’t ruin your site with Download-OurApp Ads. (Everyone, including Google, hates them).
10
INTERACTIVEMAGAZINES.ONLINE
This can mean they only work with particular smartphones and tablets running the newer versions of these operating systems. Many, possibly most, of your customers will not have one of these devices. And your App will only work on these devices, if your customers actually take the time to download it. Therefore, by definition, customer engagement through a native app only impacts a fraction of your customer base. Conversely a mobile-friendly Web Publisher will work on any type of device that has an internet browser – Smartphone, Tablet, Desktop or Smart TV etc. regardless of the make, operating system or the browser used. Crucially, it doesn’t need to be downloaded from an App Store, it’s just there in micro-seconds when you click on a web-link. This inclusivity explains why mobile web audiences are so much higher, even compared with the top 1000 apps. If you’ve decided that Web-based is the ruote for you, the next task is to find a Web Publishing Solution that effectively promotes your content online, while offering your audience a clean and engaging reading experience.
TRANSFORMING YOUR MAGAZINE INTO AN
ENGAGING, INTERACTIVE EXPERIENCE! EASY READ© ARTICLES
INTERACTIVEMagazines.co.uk offers magazine publishers a simple, effective service.
RICH MEDIA & VIDEO
We take your printed magazine and transform it into an Interactive, Digital Publication that is accessible on all devices, and exceptionally easy to read.
Transform your Magazine Editorial into Mobile Friendly, Easy-to-Read copy Bring your Articles to life with Features such as Video, Audio and Animation.
DIRECT WEB-LINKS
Take your readers straight to Websites, Offer Redemptions or Subscribe Pages.
SUBSCRIBE FORMS
Allow readers to input their Contact Details and instantly add them to your data-base.
DEVICE FRIENDLY
Optimised Readability designed to work on Desktops, Tablets and Mobile Phones.
With a host of interactive features available, we’ll invigorate your advertising revenue and ensure your editorial content is accessible to the people who matter. Our team eat and drink editorial, and will take away the headaches of managing and creating your own online magazine. Simply forward us your print layout and we’ll take care of everything else!
PUSH NOTIFICATIONS
Send Notifications of New Issues, Articles of Interest or Special Offers directly to your Readers Device.
SEARCH-ENGINE FRIENDLY
ACCESS OUR SHOWCASE DIGITAL MAGAZINE AT: WWW.INTERACTIVEMAGAZINES.CO.UK/ONLINE-MAGAZINES AND SEE OUR WEB PUBLISHING SOLUTION IN ACTION!
Attract new Content Focused Readers with Search Engine accessibility.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO DROP US A LINE. YOU
SOCIALLY SAVVY
EMAIL TO INFO@INTERACTIVEMAGAZINES.CO.UK
CAN CALL STEVE PARKER DIRECTLY ON +44 (0) 7710 418036 OR SEND AND
Seamlessly integrated Social Media links allow Readers to Share your Content. 11
INTERACTIVE
ENGAGEMENT Interactive, digital content offers some HUGE benefits to magazine publishers! This article gives you an insight into the ‘must-have’ interactive features you are going to need for your publication...
Single-Page Layout
We’ve looked at the options for publishing platforms, so now let’s take a look at the sort of functionality you will want your publishing soluton to offer you. Here is a list of ten essential features you will need for a successful digital magazine:
Likewise in the digital world, if you have a device with a large screen, then it may be feasible to look at two pages at once, but on smaller screens, single-page viewing is often the way to go.
Support for a variety of formats
Videos and the digital world go together like they were made for each other. Unlike their paper counterparts, which can only tell viewers where to find a video online, digital magazines can actually embed them in the publication.
A digital magazine has to look good and perform well on a huge number of devices, but it also has to suit your needs in the best possible way. Support for different format simply has to go straight to the top of any list of essential features for digital magazines. While the PDF format is still a must for many publishers, the enhancement of HTML5 will offer a much more interactive user experience. A good HTML5 based, Web Publishing solution will allow your reader to see your original magazine layout, while benefiting from interactive elements and a mobile-friendly reading experience.
12
INTERACTIVEMAGAZINES.ONLINE
Also known as Presentation Mode, the ability to view single-pages at a time is a must-have feature. In the paper world, where there’s space, it’s nice to spread out a magazine, but if you’re reading in more cramped conditions, it’s more common to bend the magazine over on itself so you only see one page.
Ability to Embed Videos
Imagine including a video interview within an editorial feature, or a video walk-through of the property you’re writing about? Or, how about, allowing your Advertisers to include videos to show their products or a customer testimonial? As anyone who’s spent any time on YouTube will know, videos also offer further opportunities for advertising revenue through adverts in front of the videos or product placements within the videos.
Thumbnails As a magazine publisher, you don’t want to lose the essence and identity of your publication when it transfers across to digital. Thumbnail images of your print layouts are important to maintain identity, but should be enhanced with tools to ensure the reading experience is as comfortable as possible.
Excellent Navigation Options Navigation can be very frustrating for users, who have to work out how to navigate each and every individual magazine they buy. Make sure the publication solution you choose has powerful tools to support effortless navigation, use them wisely and ensure your readers can easily see how to make their way through your magazine.
Audio Support It can be easy to forget that audio works well on the internet and not just for podcasts. Again, this can really give digital publications a huge edge over their paper counterparts.
“Multimedia elements such as video, audio and animation provide an added depth of information for your readers, while interactive features like weblinks and subscription forms offer unprecedented opportunities for editorial and advertisers engagement.” Direct Web-Links The ability to send a reader directly to a website, landing page or sales funnel is a distinct advantage for digital magazines. Engaging a reader, and then transporting them to a call-toaction opportunity in seconds can provide fantastic results for advertisers. Editorial articles can also be enhanced with links to additional information and further reading.
Subscription Forms Capturing reader data and utilising it to promote future content is a huge benefit for digital publishers. The inclusion of a simple name and email form within an article or advertisement will allow readers to express further interest and receive additional information in a click. Bolster this functionality with the opportunity of special offers, free samples or additional benefits, and you’ll soon be collating a large database of potential customers who can be leveraged and promoted to.
For example, paper magazines can only publish transcripts of interviews, digital magazines can actually embed the audio to enable readers to hear the person speaking. You can enhance the reader’s experience by giving them as much control as possible over the audio playback, so look for a publishing solution with enhanced audio playback options.
Additional Info Text This is a great tool for digital magazines which cater to readers with various levels of knowledge on any given topic. In the digital world, you can pitch the body of the article at readers who have a greater level of knowledge but use text boxes to add extra information for those who need it without creating visual clutter and slowing down those for whom these details are superfluous.
Push Notifications The referral link to an online magazine is very often shared via an email. You will receive this mail because you’re a customer or because you subscribed to a newsletter. In other words: it has been delivered to you (push medium). Websites attract visitors (pull medium). You visit a website because you are looking for it, or you end up there by accident after clicking on an ad or a link in a tweet. longer on the pages of an online magazine, and they also tend to be more focused.
Archive Never underestimate the power of archiving. Depending on your business model, you may choose to give away all or part of your archive to encourage people to subscribe to the latest issues or you may choose to monetise it for extra income.
INTERACTIVEMAGAZINES.ONLINE
13
THE DOWNSIDE OF
BLOATED
NATIVE APPS Browse a online newsstand where the major brand magazines are downloaded and skim the comments about how great the content is? Great content is what magazines are all about. Now go read the negative feedback. Ouch, something’s not quite right? No matter how many different publications you scan, from one tech mag to another about cooking, or publications about cars, or turtles, or cars for turtles, there just seems to be a singular complaint so common it has become the bane of every online magazine publisher’s existence.
Why is this Download So BIG? 500 megabytes! 800 megabytes! For just one issue of a online magazine? What the heck is in here? This thing has a bigger footprint than Sasquatch wearing combat boots! Look closely at today’s leading online magazines and you’ll discover publications created with InDesign based print-oriented tools, then sausage-stuffed into a loose framework of binary code so they can be served up as online magazines. When these online behemoths, essentially gussied-up PDFs the size of a summer action movie download, aren’t even intuitive with the way audiences engage with their tablets, is there any wonder why users leave bad ratings and reviews? Users of modern mobile technology want to seamlessly consume content with one click. Consumers use portable media devices to access the content they are interested in but, when you only have a limited amount of storage, a mammoth-sized App that takes up half a gigabyte is about as welcome as the pox. What happens to those potential downloads? Yup, they get canned! Mobile users just haven’t got the time, or the inclination to clog up their device with a Magazine App. Content is just too easily accessible elsewhere!
14
INTERACTIVEMAGAZINES.ONLINE
EDITORIAL & PUBLISHING RESOURCES Nobody Wants to Wait Every single second that someone waits for your content to load potentially decreases the momentum hold you have on their attention. Those lost moments are the birthplace of those twitch decisions that lead a potential consumer to click away for something else instead. Plus, how much do you think your bandwidth-conscious customer appreciates your bloated product? Will a user with a 5gb monthly mobile data plan now think twice before dedicating so much of their bandwidth to the consumption of your future content?
Writer’s Digest Critique and Editing Services http://www.writersdigestshop.com
Editorial Freelancers Association https://www.the-efa.org/hiring/
Writer’s Digest University https://www.writersonlineworkshops. com/catalog
Manuscript Academy
Bad user experiences can kill an audience’s relationship with your product… and even worse, with your brand.
https://manuscriptacademy.com/
2oth Century Technology in 2018?
https://authority.pub/
Digital magazines have been around since the turn of the century. There is no reason they still need to be created using a online publishing methodology from the last millenium. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE InDesign…to create a smashing print publication.
Reedsy Learning
Authority Pub Academy
https://blog.reedsy.com/learning/
Remember, consumers choose online magazines for the content and the overall digital experience. Today’s advanced online magazine publishing solutions make use of instant-on web apps that greatly streamline the process of publication and audience engagement. A company that believes they are saving resources by compiling the electronic edition from the print-ready files of the physical edition risks losing their tablet audience by continuing to deliver a product that disappoints. And in today’s world, ignoring the needs of your online audience base will send you the way of the Dodo bird so fast you won’t need a publicist to tell your tale, you’ll need an archaeologist.
INTERACTIVEMAGAZINES.ONLINE 15 I 15
1616 I INTERACTIVEMAGAZINES.ONLINE
FLIP-BOOKS & PDF PUBLISHING
Despite the numerous advancements of mobile publishing solutions, it is still a fact that the words ‘Digital Magazine’, will conjure up the image of a flip-book style publication for over 65% of people. To give you an insight into the pros and cons of Using PDF For Magazine Publishing PDFs have been around since the early 1990s and were once the de facto standard for cross platform and cross device information sharing.
This technology is offered by an array of do-It-Yourself publishing platforms such as Issuu, Zinio and others. The Flipbook takes a print product and replicates it in digital format.
PDFs allow you to replicate your print publication in full, complete with color images and layout, but now that the world is becoming more mobile, they suffer from readability issues and lack the advantages of interactivity.
Open the book and you see exactly what you would see in a print publication. You can navigate and zoom using on-screen controls, though some users find the process of getting to the content they want quite tricky.
Smartphone users, who according to Google’s data are driving the mobile revolution, can’t easily read and resize content and turn pages on PDF documents. And even on larger screens, some PDFs don’t display well. (In fact, Adobe’s got a page dedicated to troubleshooting PDF problems – and that’s just for PCs!)
Some flipbook papers are Flash-based which means they may not display well or show up at all on some of the mobile devices that many readers are using. And reading content that is either too tiny or way too large just isn’t fun.
From a marketing viewpoint, there are other issues. Marketers need to know how people are interacting with content so they can make their content strategy more effective. With a PDF, you will know if someone has downloaded the PDF, but you won’t get fine detail about what they looked at within the publication. That’s why we believe there has to be a better online publishing solution than PDFs.
Using Flip-Books For Magazine Publishing - Pro & Cons If you are one of the few people who are still wondering what a flip-book is, you’ve managed to miss the most utilised digital publishing approach of the last 10 years.
Plus, it’s really hard to save text unless you put it in PDF format – and we already know why that’s not a good idea. Having tried flipbook magazines ourselves, it seems that it’s not a very reader friendly format, and that’s reason enough for marketers to avoid it. Similar to PDFs, marketers can’t track the response to individual pieces of content. In fact, when reading a flipbook magazine online, we noticed that the URL stayed the same no matter what page we were on. That’s just no use at all if you want to track engagement and measure content marketing ROI. Flipbook publishing solutions market themselves as replicating print publications online but our question is: why on earth would you want to do just that?
INTERACTIVEMAGAZINES.ONLINE 17 I 17
BEHIND THE SCENES
18
INTERACTIVEMAGAZINES.ONLINE
An Online Publishing Solution created by a Typography Nerd A look behind the scenes at Interactive Magazines.online, and how it all started... I’m Steve Parker and, back in 1993, I was beginning my career as a graphic designer with my town’s local newspaper. Since then, I’ve worked in series of editorial roles and headed online marketing teams in a range of sectors. Having worked on numerous printed publications in my time, I first dipped into the world of ‘online magazines’ in the early noughties. Back then, the ability to replicate your print layout into an online book that allowed you to flip through the pages like a real magazine, was pretty ground-breaking, and the sheer impressiveness of the flip technology was considered good enough.
Ticking All The Boxes I decided some time ago that the benefits of web publishing outweighed those of the Native App option, and began testing all of the web-based options out there. Whilst some provided a good range of features, I struggled to find on that ticked all of the boxes I had at the top of my wish-list.
it’s helm, and a mix of features designed to enhance both editorial and advertising requirements. The ability to access each page of your magazine as a stand-alone page with a visual representation of your print layout, enhanced by an ‘Easy Read’ link to each article, is a feature that has received favourable reviews. In my opinion it will become a ‘must-have’ for successful digital magazine publishing. You can see the end-result for yourself by
Of course, nobody actually read your articles in these flip-books, but that didn’t seem to matter at the time? Jump forward ten years, and the choice for different online magazine platforms had grown tremendously. The dawn of DIY publishing saw the flip-book option floursih with a few snappy add-ons but, ultimately, readability has remained a problem for most solutions.
The only option, it seemed, was to try and build my own web-based solution? The end-result of my endeavour is a web-based publishing platform that has readability at
Find out more information about Visit Interactive for Magazines.co.uk Visit www.interactivemagazines.co.uk more information on our services
19
INTERACTIVEMAGAZINES W: WWW.INTERACTIVEMAGAZINES.CO.UK T. 07710 418036 E. INFO@INTERACTIVEMAGAZINES.CO.UK
20
