5 Things Your Digital Magazine Vendor Might Not Tell You…

… well, unless they’re Nxtbook Media.

1) They really aren’t search-engine friendly. Some digital magazines aren’t indexed at all by Google. But even those that are never get indexed as well as your website. Why? Simply put, the things that make for good SEO: short content & keyword density, are rarely found in your magazine content.

Your move: Make sure the digital magazine you choose is indexed by search engines. (Something’s better than nothing after all.) But realize your digital magazine is for your biggest fans, not those who stop by your content for a quick bite.

2) Your book might look awful. Guess what? When you run funky fonts through digital magazine machines, strange things can happen. Most of today’s popular fonts look great, but you won’t know until you try.

Your move: Get a sample done of your book before you buy. If the sample looks bad and you’re evaluating a self-service digital magazine provider, congratulations: you just got yourself a new headache.

3) You’re going to get complaints. Change anything about your magazine and readers will let you know how they feel. You’ll get people who write you e-mails thanking you for saving trees, and you’ll get some asking why you don’t just invest in your website.

Your move: Read and consider all the comments, but spend more time studying the analytics of your digital magazine to get a feel for how your audience is responding as a whole.

4) You’re going to have to learn how to sell this thing. Trying to sell a digital magazine with CPM’s is like trying to pass off McDonalds as a quality restaurant. It’s not the same. The digital magazine sale is for advertisers who want reader engagement and leads, not CPM’s. Chances are, your sales team isn’t used to selling that way.

Your move: Find your best out-of-the box salesperson and have them present digital magazine sponsorships to your best out-of-the-box advertiser. And whatever you do, don’t combine your web metrics with your digital magazine metrics.

5) Your web guy very likely won’t like it. That part about salespeople learning how to sell the digital magazine? It goes doubly for web-masters and IT-folk, often tasked with driving up web page views and living in fear of anything that will steal eyeballs.

Your move: Help them understand that web traffic ain’t digital magazine traffic. Show them that the digital magazine offers click-throughs and engagement times while the website offers gobs of page views. Apples and oranges. And then, put lots of links to the website IN the digital magazine. That will help position the digital magazine as an ally – not a threat – to the website.