Your online magazine library is your greatest source of new content and passive income
Over the past few weeks, we’ve talked a lot about digital magazines and specifically online magazines – the online edition of a magazine in HTML format, which typically comes with a library of back content.
Creating an online magazine library through a magazine subscription website is one of our favorite multiplatform publishing platforms because it’s such a profitable resource.
If you have been considering adding an online magazine and library to your roster of platforms, in addition to your digital magazine and print magazine, here are a few reasons we recommend moving forward:
1. The content for your online magazine library already exists. If your magazine has been in business for ten to twenty years or longer, then you have a mighty back issue archive to digitize, but it will become your greatest resource of new content and passive income.
2. The library content is free (for you). The content already exists, which means the content is free. You might have thousands to hundreds of thousands of articles of free content. The content still needs to be webified and edited, but it’s now technically free, or at least paid for.
3. Your online magazine library makes money while you sleep. Every month, or week, or however often you update, your online magazine library will get updated with the newest content. Otherwise, once your back archives and articles are uploaded, they don’t need to be updated, and you can generate additional revenue from this platform without added effort.
4. Your online magazine library content doesn’t need to be optimized for the web. This is the first and only time we won’t tell you to optimize something for the web – because all of this content is behind a wall, and Google can’t search it anyway.
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5. Your online magazine library can be recycled into your free Portal. The free articles you give away on your Portal are used to promote your magazine subscription website (which hosts your online magazine library). This means you can repurpose content from the library into your blog. It also means you have to SEO the posts!
6. Your online magazine library is an upsell. Once your library is jam-packed with content for decades, you have a pretty lofty upsell. With contrast pricing you can add significant additional revenue. Just take a look at Biblical Archaeology Society, who sells their digital magazine for $19.95, the library for $29.95 and a bundle of both for $34.95. Now, $34.95 contrasted with $19.95 seems pricey, doesn’t it? But if you’re like most buyers, you’ll also spot the $29.95 price compared to the $34.95 price – and now $34.95 doesn’t seem so high. Hey, it’s just $5 more … and you can get what’s behind Door #1 and Door #2 for that extra $5! Might as well go for it!
7. Your online magazine library is easy to search. With search functionality implemented, your editors can always go back and quickly find information for new articles. Or maybe your farming magazine wants to write about what the price of feed was back in 1950? Dig up an old article! You’re now your own reference library.
8. It practically promotes itself. Don’t be shy about posting snippets from noteworthy, historical articles in your archive. You’re free to tease non-subscribers with the content they can only get their hands on if they subscribe. With so much content, you have much promotional material to work with.
Are you ready to launch your online magazine? Talk to us first. We’ll show you how to plan, build and optimize a successful multiplatform publishing business – the Mequoda way.
