Ten years ago, we thought the future was tablets and tablet apps, and for a while, they were. But early on, we discovered that there was minimal benefit in containing magazine issues within an app, when they could be developed in HTML and be accessed on any device, not just a tablet. To adopt this mindset and begin producing more robust digital magazines, the digital magazine publishing software you choose needs to include analytics, metered paywall functionality, marketing automation and should be able to transfer data to and from your third-party providers like fulfillment and email management. Otherwise, you’re going to need more resources to manage it all separately, which means you’ll have less time to spend doing the necessary legwork to profit from your digital magazine and all-access memberships.
In the past, when someone was looking for tablet magazine publishing software, we’d be pointing them to the likes of Adobe Digital Publishing Suite and Mag+. The Adobe Publishing Suite is one digital magazine publishing software option that offers a complete digital publishing solution for multi-title publishers. Mag+ is a spin-out company derived from Bonnier Corp.’s very early Popular Science app, and when publishing partners are still looking for tablet magazine publishing software, Mag+ is Mequoda’s go-to provider.
However, nowadays most magazine businesses are looking for digital magazine publishing software that is responsive, built in HTML, and can be enjoyed on mobile, tablets, and desktops. We now build digital magazines on the web, not via tablet applications. The reason is that consumers like them better, and offering a web library of back issues allows you to charge a higher price point (plus, you don’t have to pay a digital newsstand). Digital magazines on the web are responsive, and work just as well on tablets as they do on desktops or any size screen. We think any publisher who is starting on the path of building a digital edition, should consider the web edition first. With that said, let’s get into the digital magazine publishing software we suggest.
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While there are many ways to build a digital magazine, most of the digital magazine publishing software available offers no specific roadmap or guidance specifically for publishers. Even the biggest web development companies struggle when they try to build sites for publishers, because of their unique interface, membership, and fulfillment needs.
At Mequoda, we only work with publishers, so the Haven WordPress CXMS I’m about to recommend, is something we built for publishers, by publishers. Our publishing partners vary from large organizations like AAA and Harvard University to niche publishers like Yankee, and I Like Crochet.
Most digital magazine publishing software stops at the CMS portion of their game, but Haven WordPress CXMS connects to Tier 1 email and fulfillment systems in order to give you one central location to run your digital business, which is why it’s called a CXMS—short for Customer Experience Management System. Unlike retrofitted websites with disparate systems that make customer service and reporting more difficult, Haven WordPress gives you a complete, central database that informs your marketing decisions and helps you maximize the lifetime value of each subscriber. We manage all the infrastructure, so you never have to look under the hood.
The Haven WordPress CXMS is built on—you guessed it—WordPress. WordPress is trusted by some of the biggest brands in the world. It’s easy to edit and change, and is inherently Google-friendly – an important factor to bring more potential subscribers to your website. We’ve identified the best partners so you don’t have to research software, email, hosting, and other functions on your own, or take stabs in the dark. We’ve also built the APIs that help these providers transport data to and from their system from Haven WordPress. When you put your system management into the hands of the industry’s only strategy-centric provider for publishers, your organization reaps the benefits of stress-free technology, content-focused implementation and ongoing profitability.
Mequoda’s Digital Magazine Publishing Software Starts with Haven Core
Our base for Haven WordPress is called Haven Core and as mentioned before, it’s built from the WordPress kernel, a popular choice for many publishers. We chose to build our system on the WordPress kernel because of its flexibility and reliability. It features an easy interface for users, and is detailed and complex for developers. Some of the biggest brands run their web sites on WordPress and we know it can meet the needs of the vast majority of publishers.
We have made many custom changes on top of the WordPress kernel to build our Haven Core product. With open-source code, we’ve been free to take control and make the changes we know will benefit our publishing partners, are easily replicated, and can be built upon to meet the future needs of our partners.
Using Haven Core enables us to put all of our publishing partners on the same codebase, and publishers can choose to use, or not use, different modules that can add functionality to meet their specific needs. Our member websites are not built from scratch every time, and little time is wasted on compatibility trial and error. Mequoda itself spends a significant amount of money each year enhancing the system.
Because we use the same codebase for all of our publishing partners, everyone benefits from these improvements. In addition, our publishing partners also benefit from the enhancements we are implementing for our other partners.
Every major upgrade or improvement contributes to the optimization of all the publishing partner websites.
Haven Core comes “out of the box” with the major digital magazine publishing software features that you need. The user interface is easy and intuitive to anyone who has already run a WordPress site. Operators can manage their content to create drafts, schedule publication and edit posts without learning a complex new system. In addition, operators can easily upload images and media using a drag and drop system.
To develop a site that can incorporate a digital magazine, we build custom plugins, but we can also take advantage of the extensive plugins already developed by the WordPress community to add features quickly.
Our custom plugins developed for magazine and newsletter publishers allow them to build-user-friendly magazines with tables of content that “stick” to the right-hand side of the page, so a user always knows they’re in the magazine. We’ve also built a metered paywall plugin, which restricts access to premium content but will allow non-subscribers to access a limited number of premium articles per month before being prompted to convert into subscribers or all-access members.
Our most successful offer is the all-access pass, which gives members access to multiple digital products, like digital archives, and video libraries. Haven WordPress is uniquely built to support those products, order flows and upsells.
Digital Magazine Publishing Software Add-Ons
When choosing digital magazine publishing software, you must consider all the same factors you do when considering any other digital service – functionality, integration, flexibility, customization, user interface and, of course, costs.
Remember that many basic CMS installations fail due to internal barriers rather than external ones. Doing it yourself means getting staff buy-in and doing the training all on your own as well. If you buy an outside service, keep your future flexibility in mind, and remember to consider the possible integration issues with all the other technology solutions you’ve already bought into.
Below is a list of the many different types of functionality we’ve identified as critical for most 21st-century multiplatform publishing operations working today. Most will probably either match your business today or reflect an idea you’ve had for how to grow your revenue.
1. Web Analytics and Reporting System
You can’t run your business without data. To run a business accountable for its actions, you have to constantly review and analyze the data – in the dashboard of your email service provider, in the sales reports, etc. So much data is available now it can almost feel like cyber-stalking. But having as much data as possible about all the systems you run is critical for strategic decision-making. This system should offer everything from web traffic to subscriber and email campaign performance reports.
2. Customer Relationship Management System
These systems allow you to store all your prospect and customer information and track what they are doing. You can also capture and store all the communications, accounts, leads and sales opportunities. Multiplatform publishers can have complicated relationships with their customers who buy a subscription, multiple single products, events, and who can be leveraged to sponsors as leads. A CRM allows you to share all this information with the different parts of your organization so your efforts are efficient and well-coordinated.
3. Marketing Automation System
Marketing automation refers to software platforms and technologies designed to allow organizations to more effectively market on multiple channels online – email, social media, websites, etc. More importantly, these systems allow you to automate specific marketing tasks. So, you can nurture prospects with personalized content that leads to them becoming your customers. When used correctly, these efforts can significantly boost revenue by efficiently targeting prospects with specific content and marketing messages. It’s easy to imagine that a prospect who opened and clicked on an offer, but didn’t purchase, might get that extra nudge to become a customer with a well-timed, well-written piece of marketing copy – sent automatically to all such prospects. Most publishers use some form of marketing automation already, whether they are drip campaigns or some type of autoresponder series. These are much more efficient methods of making sales and getting more revenue into your organization as quickly as possible.
4. Push Notifications System
Push notification systems drive as much as 10% of the traffic for the sites of our publishing partners, so we consider them an essential element if you’re a publisher putting out daily content. The traffic that comes in via push notifications tends to be more engaged in terms of both purchasing premium subscriptions, memberships, products, and events. They also engage more with website sponsors.
5. Email Management System
Whether you send 5,000 emails a day or 500,000, you have a professional email marketing system that allows you to communicate to customers and prospects. This is an essential component for marketing to new customers, as well as communicating with existing customers. The huge amount of email people receive daily makes it more critical than ever to manage your messages correctly. The data on sends, opens, clicks, etc., is critical to managing your messages and keeping your revenue growing. Plus there are legal sending requirements that must be adhered to. Additionally, your email management system should be able to dynamically and automatically build daily and weekly emails populated by content from your website.
BONUS: Mequoda will partner with you to develop this email content on your behalf, creating custom-written Library Content Previews that tease readers, use up metered paywall credits, and convert email subscribers into all-access members quickly at a greater rate than you’re likely experiencing. Good luck finding another digital magazine publishing software provider who has a whole copywriting team ready to roll!
6. User Onboarding System
If you’re converting from another system, or want to try email appending, you’ll find this add-on useful. In Haven WordPress, you can add a large number of users to your site—without uploading data directly to Haven. Users are only added to Haven after they have opened an email and have been set to confirmed.
7. Lead Management System
We all know what a good lead is, and a lead management system is a system of practices designed to generate new potential customers, generally through marketing campaigns. Whether you generate leads for your own business or for a sponsor, you need a system to collect these leads and move them from one place to another automatically. Some publishers use this system to feed their own sales force and integrate this with a sales management and customer relationship management system. Others offer sponsored content designed to generate leads for the sponsor. In those cases a good lead management system will automatically transmit those leads to the sponsor on a routine basis.
8. Sponsor Management System
How are you organizing content on your website that is sponsored? Our system allows you to display the sponsor’s information, like company name and logo, alongside the website elements they are sponsoring, like text ads, articles, categories, and free guides.
9. Text Ad Management
One of the most essential conversion elements on your website is a text ad. These ads, scattered throughout every article you publish, are built to capture email addresses with the promotion of a free report. They’re written in—you guessed it—text, and lead to a rapid conversion landing page. In Haven WordPress, our text ad manager allows the operator a one-time setup of text ads displayed by category so that any posts in a single category display the same, relevant text ad. This way, website visitors are always being enticed by a free download that is relevant to the content they are currently reading.
10. Entitlement Management System
If you sell subscriptions for a digital product that is accessed behind a paywall, you need something to determine who can have access, and when their access begins and ends. Ideally this also contains an auto-renew function so you can charge renewal subscribers without doing anything manually.
11. Metered Paywall Management System
A metered paywall is a great way for you to allow users to preview your premium content in an effort to engage the user and convert them to paid subscribers on your site. Our plugin restricts access to premium content, but allows non-subscribers to access a limited number of premium articles per month. The number of articles that can be viewed for free can be defined in the plugin settings up to a maximum of three. For 30 days, a user can return to their chosen articles as many times as they would like, however, once the limit is reached they cannot view any more articles for free within those 30 days. The Metered Paywall ads that are served to the non-subscribers before they are able to view each paid article contain copy to entice the user to subscribe along with a link to a subscription page. There’s also a link to continue reading the article for free without subscribing. Once the user reaches the final ad in the series (upon reading the maximum number of free articles allowed), the link to continue reading the article instead redirects them to a non-premium portion of the site and prevents them from accessing any additional premium content.
12. Digital Newsstand System
If you still desire to sell tablet editions of your magazine, you can use a digital newsstand such as Apple or Google Play, or you can use us as a digital magazine publishing software provider. Digital newsstand editions are often the most visually appealing editions of your products. The segment of your audience that wants to access your content on a tablet will expect this edition of your product to have the same features and functionality as other products. To make this channel profitable you need a publishing and marketing system to create and deploy these editions on the most popular newsstands, as well as to manage subscribers and offer web access to content with their subscription.
13. Directory Listings Management
Many publishers have sold directories in print for years. As we entered an internet economy, people initially thought these products would just go away. But many people are still looking for a reliable source of information on products and service providers in specific markets. If you’re a publisher doing this online, you need a tool to manage and sell listings. Ideally, this system allows you to populate other parts of your website with “related resources” where you can publish these directory listings from the category in which the post is published. This kind of additional functionality increases the value of the listing – and allows you to charge more!
14. Event Marketing System
More and more publishers have turned to events to grow their business when revenue from print and online editions has gone flat. Even in today’s digitally connected environment, people still value the networking and learning that comes from actually meeting and talking to people who share their interests at a live event. Whether you are running 25-person roundtables or conferences and expos with hundreds or thousands of attendees, you need a system to collect funds, send confirmation emails, help with online check-in, manage different prices for early-bird pricing and track attendee information.
15. Offer Management System
You don’t want to display the same ads to unknown users as you do to known, logged-in users. An offer management system displays targeted ads and offers based on whether a user has no active subscriptions, a currently active subscription that can be upgraded to All-Access or is already an All-Access member. This enables you to maximize revenue and improve the usability of your site for known and unknown users.
16. Online Checkout System
If you sell one, two or three products online, you need a direct sales system for online marketing and payment processing. You can create great content and market it well, but if your online checkout system doesn’t work well, all those efforts go to waste. Problems with payment types, complex processes, and an overly complicated registration system are common mistakes in online checkout systems. Many publishers with only one or two products to sell often lose customers when they opt for a shopping cart, rather than a direct checkout. Publishers get a better close rate when there are fewer screens to deal with.
17. Abandon Recovery System
When someone abandons checkout and leaves their cart, what happens? This add-on to the Online Checkout System logs user order information prior to order completion. A series of 2 or 3 abandon recovery emails are sent to users who started the order flow and did not complete it, to encourage them to complete their order, often with a discounted rate.
18. Online Shopping Cart
If, however, you sell many products, you probably need a shopping cart system so customers can browse the choices you have in order to buy multiple products at one time easily. But as you have probably experienced if you shop online, there are some common pitfalls: the process is too complicated, sometimes it’s hard to continue shopping once in the checkout, or the information on products and total sales charges isn’t presented clearly. Any online business selling multiple products needs this experience to work well in order to maximize revenue.
19. Social Media Management System
Smart online publishers schedule and track social media through a social media management system. These systems can be very important for marketing and outreach to customers. Different systems have different levels of user-friendliness. Posts must be very easy to schedule. The system has to interface with the right social media platforms, and the reporting must be easy to understand and readily available. The system we use in Haven WordPress allows publishers to schedule social media right from within the article page, and you can schedule a series of social posts to deploy when the content publishes and for months and even years in the future. You can also set up social posts to automatically re-deploy at set intervals, making content promotion easy.
20. Content Recycling Management
If you are like most publishers, you already have a lot of great content. You spent a lot of time and effort creating it, but maybe published it once and never let it see the light of day again. Refreshing and reusing existing content has become a key tactic for publishers who find they can engage their audience through multiple channels with the same piece of content. A content recycling management system automates this and allows publishers to bring older content back to the surface where it can continue to engage your audience and drive revenue.
21. Taxonomy Management System
Complex websites with a lot of content need an easy way for users to navigate the site. You wouldn’t build a library without some way of finding the content you need. When online content is structured and indexed taxonomically, users can find what they are looking for more easily. Building and maintaining a taxonomy has become a basic part of creating and managing web-based businesses. A taxonomy management system, sometimes called business semantics modeling, or knowledge organization, reduces the time spent building and maintaining the information while improving its consistency over time.
22. Online Calendar Management System
Many publishers also reach out to their audience by listing events in a calendar on their web site. This type of system not only lists event details but allows users to add the event to their Google calendar or export to another calendar system. Also, members of the community can submit event listings for approval by the publisher.
23. Application Protocol Interfaces
There’s a lot involved with managing content online. You need something to communicate all this data to other service providers such as your fulfillment company, your email provider and other third parties – that’s what application protocol interfaces do. Without it, you’d be stuck without any third-party options.
In comparing all the various options out there, we think we’re the best of both worlds at Mequoda. We’ve built a system that includes a component library consisting of more than 100 third-party plugins and Haven WordPress plugins, that have either been developed or selected to meet the needs of a unique website we’re managing for a premium content partner.
We also offer audience development, so our goal isn’t just to saddle you with a new CXMS and send you off—most of our publishing partners work with us to develop the content and marketing processes to make it successful. When you become a Mequoda Gold Member, you’ll have all the resources you need to hit the ground running and start doubling and even tripling your revenue in the next five years like our other publishing partners.
Does your magazine publishing software hold up? What other questions do you have?
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This post was originally published in 2012 and has been updated.
I think it’s important as well to look at PageRaft from Nxtbook Media. Super sleek responsive platform that looks and reads great on every device.
You can go to http://www.pageraft.com to see examples.
But how much?
Another tool that is a must have for anyone publishing content routinely is Copyleaks. I’ve been using their service for the past 6 months and have been notified numerous times when my content is being used elsewhere. I highly suggest it for content creators.
Try responsive digital publishing!
https://www.wp-magazines.com/
WordPress based, simple, powerful & 100% responsive
WP-magazines the responsive publishing platform for marketing professionals, designers and publishers. Would you like to publish your own online magazines and articles? Then get started with a free WP-Magazines responsive digital publishing account. Signing up just takes 30 seconds. It’s that easy to start.
Another good solution and not on y is http://www.tablish.co.uk with a very easy to use drag and drop editor to add videos, links etc.
Strategy and marketing question: in the article you recommend Mag+ because it “allows you to eliminate the app store and newsstand middlemen at Apple, Google and Amazon and keep the cut you’d normally owe them for each issue sold.” While I appreciate the margin enhancement, there is marketing value to these middlemen in terms of reaching new readers and driving new purchases/subscriptions. So, does Mag+ enable publishers to utilize these newsstand platforms in addition to publishing your own digital magazine app as part of a diverse channel distribution strategy?
Hi George,
We absolutely agree and we believe in doing both. Mag+ publishes to all app stores, but also allows you to sell through your own site.
Hi Ed – We took an approach with the interest of eliminating the need for apps for the digital magazine and have launched https://vertiqul.com as a full service digital magazine or digital edition service from existing print layout files. As we hand design each issue we may not be cost effective for every startup but hope the value of the experience and magazine revenue support for any existing publisher make it a logical option. We know others are moving toward HTML5 editions and will also have vertical edition solutions that are easily viewable on any device and many options are on the horizon. We are experimenting with our first customers but keeping a focus on the UX and readability plus keeping the advertising and linear magazine structure in place for every issue. Thank you for your consideration.
A new kid in town: http://www.magazine.live
Its the easiest tool to create mobile first magazines.
Hi Bob,
thanks for the comment. We are currently investing a lot in the product and we are going to make a few very important announcements in the next few weeks. Stay tuned!
We are one of the most active companies in this field, I hope we will be mentioned in the next update of this post.
Thanks!
Luca
CEO | Paperlit
We are currently using Paperlit. I don’t love it but I don’t hate it and it’s got a pretty good publishers portal for customizing issues and a pretty good admin component. I wonder if there’s a reason you excluded them from your report?
Why not just use ePub, whether reflow ab,e or fixed layout? A simple $55 a month subscription gets you Adobe CC with InDesign, which creates excellent epubs. Then readers can simply download to their favorite ereader app and enjoy. Plus export to HTML or Markdown in my case. That’s my strategy (note that I produce a small publication where reflow able works well and while I follow many of the Mequoda methods, I am not a customer because my publication isn’t at that level…yet!).
I’m not discounting the apps mentioned in the article or the many excellent comments; I’m asking the question because I may have missed something critical as to why to NOT use ePub in this fashion. What are some valid reasons to avoid ePub, either reflow able or fixed layout?
Hi Ed,
Thank you for the great list of providers! When you’re looking to update your post, please check out http://www.paperlit.com – a simple tool to create interactive digital magazines (replicas and reflows) and distribute them via a branded newsstand app. Would be more than happy to set up a demo and answer any questions you have. Thanks!
Hi Ed, really great list of digital magazine software providers. Please check out http://www.editiondigital.com when you update your article next. It is a great solution for publishers who want to create highly interactive and engaging digital magazines and sell them through their own branded newsstand that they can set up in minutes and/or through native branded apps. Thank you!
Came across this article and just wanted to warn potential consumers about Mag+. Our company is currently a customer of theirs and in the midst of a 12 month contract. The software is extremely temperamental and we are constantly experiencing problems. It has become just a headache, and quite frankly an embarrassment for our customers to tell us that the app randomly closes on them or has glitches… We have actually stopped using it altogether although we still have a monthly bill that comes.
We have reached out to several members of their customer service department, but once they get you to sign that contract it seems they do not care about working with you or if you are happy or not with the product.
Have you thought about other options?
Anyone try 3D Issue? or Zmags? I’ve heard some great things about 3D, and online samples look nice.
Three more options I’ve run across in my travels:
http://www.appzinemachine.com/
http://www.appsvolcano.com/
http://www.yumpu.com/
PressPad no longer offers a free version… starter package is $99 a month…
Exactly PressPad no longer offers a rev share model. Now you can start from $99 per month for iOS app but the prices are negotiable. What’s more PressPad has started offering also WordPress branded News app https://www.presspadnews.com so there is an option for web magazines and blogs to go mobile to increase reading experience and improve mobile users retention to website.
Hi everyone!
We launched a new CRM, Production and Billing platform for Magazine Publishers in January of 2015. Start your free trial at http://www.runmags.com/signup/
Thank you Nick. Well keep it in mind.
Hi Ed, really nice list of digital magazine providers. I’d be happy to tell you more about MagLoft when you update this article. It’s becoming quite the contestant now 🙂
also anyone have experience with IN HOuse Digital Publishing?
http://www.inhousedigitalpublishing.com
how would they compare with Mag+? I like mag+ but dont like the monthly fee
Hi
Can someone tell me a little about mag+? I check out their site but something I don’t understand. When you purchase a plan (either 499 or 699$) plan it says I can publish one app but multiple issues, what I want to know will I be able to publish that one app one iOS, android and kindle at same time without any other cost?
Which other software cud I check out that will not just be a normal pdf? I don’t have a magazine as yet
Check out eMagCreator! It’s an interesting and very flexible option. They offer both an online drag and drop solution as well as a full-featured desktop software. It is a PDF to digital solution.
The software allows complete customization of the digital publication – rich media, links, API, web content, etc. And publications are completely white labeled for companies to add their branding and can be published to any location, as well as offline.
The online solution is super simple and allows publishers to share individual eMags or their own public page, which has no related content.
Overall, I think it is a solution that is very interesting to this list. Both the online drag and drop, as well as the eMagStudio desktop software, can be tested for free. The pricing is very flexible and competitive with other providers. There are solutions for every budget, and the eMagCreator team is willing to put together custom quotes for anything that is not listed on the site – including for Apps. Every solution includes completely unlimited publishing. Definitely take a look at emagcreator.com and the eMagStudio software for the next iteration of this!
Also check: BlackMonk
Thank you Per. Interesting timing. We had done some research in that area years ago and were just discussing whether to update it. Last week we decided not to because the newspaper sub-industry has different issues from most of our clients and while much of what we do is transferable it doesn’t play as much to our strengths. The National Newspaper Publishers Association (www.nnpa.org) or the Newspaper Association of America (www.naa.org) ought to be able to point you in right direction.
Hi Ed! I am currently doing a review of the various digital publishing systems ( Mag + , adobe , etc.) available on the market right now and have found very useful information at mequoda . What I do find it difficult to find is a list of what platforms the major newspapers are using in making their digital editions , for example WSJ , Bloomberg, Yahoo News Digest, NY Times , the Economist Espresso and others. Do you know where I can find this information ?
Thank U!
Thank you Leo and Michelle. We will look at Joomag when we update this next.
Indeed, Leo took the words right out of my mouth. As a avid publisher through Joomag, The Vintage Business Magazine has dipped toes in the waters of every other site but we’ve always come back to Joomag….
Always keen to explore other avenues so will be looking into all the sites mentioned here in the article – thank you 🙂
Strange Joomag isn’t mentioned. I like the pricing and the extra stuff (video, sound, flash snippets) you can build into your magazine. I ended preferring it to issuu.
Thank you Elizabeth and Jakob. We will certainly look into those when we update this next.
When you update your article make sure to check out FlipandShare.com as well. This product is part of Mirabel Technology who has offered digital editions for years to more than 12.000 publications world wide. They have a large suite for CRM, Ad Order Entry, AR, Production, Pagination, and Digital Editions all integrated and have recently created FlipandShare for publishers who do not want their entire package.
Free account is offered and you pay as you publish, its only $1.00 a page and your published on the web, Apple, Android, and Kindle tablets through their newsstand. They also offer Branded apps. It a great product that is easy to use and offers a lot of interactivity and rich media. It is worth checking out.
Its so surprising to see that MAGZTER – the world’s largest digital Newsstand has not been mentioned in this article.
I tried using quite a few platforms for my magazine in the past, but now I’ve got onto Magzter and it proves to be the best choice made.
What attracted me the most is that there is NO UPFRONT COST. Simple revenue share model, nice
back end publisher dashboard, free tools to make magazine interactive – tools like MagCMS and MagEnhance used to give a similar outputs as Adobe DPS are few specialities that needs a mention. I had to spend nothing to go digital and i also had a Apple Newsstand App and Android (Google play) apps created for free.
Their 23+ million user base and 1+ million Facebook fans has delighted me with a hike in sales. I’ve now stopped using any others. Signing up with Magzter is the simplest. Just go to their website http://www.magzter.com and click on Publishers on the top bar and it’s a 5 min job to get on board!
Thank you Darrin. We have noted that Adobe has recently revised their pricing structure, although, as they note on that forum the overall cost is expected to be about the same, and while they are making part of their pricing policy transparent, in the forum you have linked to the Adobe staffer makes it abundantly clear in multiple instances that specifics of the pricing scheme are not as transparent and must be obtained from a reseller. This new pricing development, while of interest to Adobe DPS users, does not alter our view that DPS is not well-suited for most niche publishers.
It should be noted that Adobe DPS as of December 1st 2014 eliminated the per folio download fee. https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1648265
@ Les — thanks. Will look at that when we update, as you suggest.
Small publishers who do not expect to make money from digital editions but want to experiment at low cost can consider Issuu (issuu.com). Publishers can upload pages for free and have a flip book in a matter of minutes that has ads on the page when someone visits the website. Or, publishers can pay a small fee (about $125 annually)and there are no ads on the page with your magazine, and you can “hide” your titles from searches on Issuu and set up your own work-around for paid subs (not foolproof, but not difficult). Issuu allows you to embed the url containing specific issues of your magazines on your website or others and in promo emails. You can create an app on your own (or have someone do it) that is populated from the url Issuu gives you. Worth a look.
Ed, what no YUDU.com ? on your review…
lol
Perhaps on an update ? after all it is the power behind Quad Graphics(clients)Time Out,Saturday Evening post and hundreds of other Magazines and 1’000’s world wide 😉
Les
Agree Matthew. Anyway posts are aging : ) so let me update it little bit. I am encouraging every publisher to try PressPad, a shopify platform for magazine publishers. Thanks to its unique business model PressPad will add your magazine or comic to the App Store for $0
Digital publishing is really a good option in today’s world. Most of the people are preferring the digital content to read as it is easily accessible, portable, many times it is free and it is also easy to share. The information given in post about the different softwares is really good and helpful.
We will take a look at Lucidpress too when we update this article next.
Thank you Donna. I will be interested to hear how it goes. Through our research we’ve found Mag+ to be the best value. It’s a dynamic field so we’ll watch it closely.
We’ve tried Uberflip but found that while it’s great on a tablet it is not so great on a desktop and 50% of our readers are still using their desktops to read our magazine. Plus when you blow it up for a better look the videos don’t work. We’re going to give Magazine Manager’s Digital Studio a try. The demo we saw looks great but we’ll know for sure how it works in another couple of months.
Well, XFlip digital publishing software is similar to BlueToad, it can also convert PDFs into viewable formats online that can be read on iPad, tablets, iPhone and other mobile devices through internet. It allows users to publish for print, the web, and set download function for the magazine.