Multi-platform production doesn’t have to be a mystery. Here are three examples of musically-inclined niche publishers who use digital platforms to expand their reach.
Efficiency is key to successful publishing. There are projects and processes that take time, and there is no way around that. Researching your articles, writing, editing, planning – this all takes time. But not every project needs to reinvent the wheel.
Turning one product into many is a technique we’ve been promoting for some time. Multi-platform production is one of the best ways to streamline your approach to publishing. It’s how you get the most bang for your publishing buck.
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You can look to some of the big publishers for excellent examples. The New Yorker does a stellar job of turning magazine articles into emails, website stories, issue archives, and audio stories among other products. The New Yorker, however, is a big publisher, and even though they have great content, and use it effectively and efficiently, can their multi-platform publishing process be translated to smaller publishers?
Niche publishers making the most of multiple platforms
Just to quickly review, multi-platform publishing is a way to stretch your resources as far as you can, while still maintaining editorial integrity. Digital platforms make this very possible for even the smallest of niche publishers. An article in your magazine can be turned into anything from a newsletter to a podcast. You can take a series of articles and publish them as an ebook or an online course. In short, the digital age has made multi-platform publishing a way to extend your magazine’s reach that is limited only by your creativity and imagination.
Music and more
Anyone into jazz is probably familiar with Jazz Times. They are one of the foremost publishers in the world of jazz. However, since jazz has a specific audience, the magazine is obviously geared toward a niche audience. Jazz Times has successfully moved their print magazine into the digital realm, and offer subscriptions designed specifically for a digital audience.
To please this digital audience, the digital subscription includes videos and mp3 downloads, as does their website. Offering music downloads to readers of a music magazine just makes sense, doesn’t it?
How can you turn your print article into a new product? Find something your audience loves and offer it as a listening experience.
Holding down the beat on multi-platform publishing
Another music magazine that has moved from the print to the digital world is Drum! This magazine is clearly geared toward a specific niche. The magazine includes helpful tips and practice segments. The problem with a print-only version, though, is a beginner may not know what the practice exercises should sound like. How does Drum! solve this problem?
The digital version of their magazine includes audio of the exercises, so as you learn something new, you also know what it should sound like.
How can you turn your print article into a new product? Offer audio and video instruction for hard to master concepts. This could apply to anything from music, to do-it-yourself faucet repair, to building pine box derby cars.
Digging into the past for future success
Gramaphone is “the world’s authority on classical music.” Their reviews of classical music are legendary, but for us, what is legendary (or at the very least a smart move) for this niche publisher is the digital archive. There are so many publishers that have a long history of articles and editions that sit on a shelf gathering dust and smelling like a damp basement.
Publishers with a history can look to Gramaphone as an example of how to make money with those past issues. They’ve put their archive online, which can be purchased as part of a subscription bundle, or as a stand-alone product. The hard work on this type of multi-platform production is already done – the articles are written and edited. There is an investment in turning these archives into a digital product, but once that is done, those archives could make you money for years to come.
How can you turn your print article into a new product? Use your archives to create a subscription library.
Do you know of a good multi-platform publishing example from a niche magazine publisher? Let us know in the comments. And if you are a publisher, and need help turning your magazine into a multi-platform money making machine, get in touch for a no obligation consultation.
