Big News From The Home Front

Big news. BIG news.

We have been working nearly around the clock to bring you this brand new version of our website. The site overhaul is directly influenced by our desire to serve visitors – like you – better, and we have made some significant upgrades.

One of the biggest changes is our Solutions section. (Click here to view.)
We created the Solutions section knowing many publishers face the same types of problems, whether it’s growing circulation, generating revenue, decreasing the sale cycle, or navigating mobile options. Rather than giving you a list of features and benefits and expecting you to decide what to do with them, we’re giving you real life examples of how publishers solved these issues. For example, click here to read how Henry Schein got creative with advertising and navigation to push readers deeper into their catalog.

We’ve also made it easier for publishers to find the resources they’re craving. We feature three top downloads on our new homepage, and we have a section dedicated to resources. For instance, click here to be taken to our white papers page in resources where you’ll find 5 white papers ready for FREE download.

So go ahead! Dig in! Dive deep in the website, and let us know what you think.

Stand Out Next Trade Show Season

It’s not easy to stand out during trade show season. Trade shows are still popular ways to gather thought leaders and vendors to share knowledge and products related to an industry. The trick is creating a value that sets you apart to both attendees and vendors.

Nxtbook clients have approached this many different ways. The American Association of Endodontists, for example, created a digital exhibit prospectus for sponsors and advertisers which made it easy for sponsors to find and print necessary documents for the event. They also created an animation which made it easy for potential sponsors to view the floor layout page, enabling it to flip vertically and horizontally so buyers can get a good look at the floor space available.

Georgia Tech went a different direction. They decided to focus on integrating a cutting-edge interactive show agenda in their brochure to connect attendees with networking opportunities before the show even began.

The Boston Atrial Fibrillation Symposium set itself apart by creating a screen-friendly design with optimized fonts and optimized layout so attendees could access the information on any digital device.

Your approach to differentiating yourself from the competing shows might look completely different from any of those samples, but one thing is clear: digital editions are a key platform for achieving that goal.

A Webinar for You Education Types

Looking for some insider information about how to use digital editions in the education industry? We’ve got you covered. We have asked industry expert and long-time senior editor Sherri Miles to talk about some of the best practices she’s seen in digital publishing for educational facilities.

To hear Sherri Miles speak, you can click here to register for a webinar hosted by University Business and Nxtbook Media next week, October 4, at 2:00 pm EST. The webinar will touch on points such as why a digital edition is crucial to your audience today, what kinds of questions you should ask when looking for the best platform, and what kind of results you should look to see.

Click here to register. To read more information about the speaker, you can visit her website here.

20 Pieces to Freshen Up

It’s the same problem everywhere: how to make the same information new and relevant.

It’s true, Nxtbook Media has a strong history of producing digital magazines, catalogs, brochures, and travel collateral. But the beautiful thing about digital media is things are always changing, always updating, and always presenting more opportunities to breath fresh life and creativity into your regular material.

So it is unsurprising that more and more people have come to find new and exciting uses for our digital medium. For instance, have you ever considered flipping these typical pieces into an engaging digital experience?

1. White Papers
2. Case Studies
3. Trade Show Brochure (with interactive social calendar)
4. Trade Show Dailies
5. Featured Guides
6. Presentation Slides
7. Infographics
8. e-Newsletter
9. Membership Directories
10. Pricing/Product Guides
11. Data Sheets
12. Research Papers
13. Analyst Reports
14. Customer Satisfaction Surveys
15. Company Handbook
16. Annual Report
17. Holiday/Thank You cards
18. Archived Blog or Website Articles
19. Instruction Manuals
20. Press Releases

Like flipping a house, cleaning up a tired façade and adding new features can really vault the value of your original material.

Optimizing Your Reporting Ability

Optimized digital editions are more than just for magazines, brochures or catalog publishers. The Southeastern Association of Housing Officers (SEAHO) for example, created an optimized version of their content-heavy annual report, which is distributed to a large membership audience.

I spoke with Report Editor Scott Nelson about the reasons why SEAHO switched to an optimized digital edition. In our conversation he noted, “It’s a cost saving measure because it offsets the costs with mailing, postage, and printing.”

Going into more detail, Nelson explained that the responsibility of hosting and producing the report gets passed to different institutions. Because of this, there are no set production pathways. “As a paper report, when we first received the responsibility, we had to find a printer, and put everything together, and crop it, and print it, and work with campus mail services, and learn the proper rules for bulk mail, and sort by zip code. When I was first starting out it was an absolute nightmare.” Going digital will work to alleviate some of the burden felt by the institution charged with hosting the report that year.

At the same time, Nelson noted more and more members looked for the SEAHO report online. However, the PDF version they supplied online received some negative feedback. “They had some difficulties being able to navigate through the PDF version of the report,” Nelson said. “They had to zoom in and scroll up and down and side to side.” This contributed to SEAHO’s decision to optimize their digital edition. “With this horizontal view and bigger font it really meets that need, I believe,” said Nelson.

Click here to open the SEAHO report. The cover animation is immediately engaging and encourages readers to dive in to the edition. Navigation is simple with live links to individual sections lining the bottom of each page. The optimized design makes it easy for members to read the report, and as Nelson noted, “It just looks better, to be honest. It’s a lot more sharp.” Now, a lot of relevant content is disseminated in an easily distributed, easily navigated format.

Nxtbook Knows Travel

Hey, Nebraska, check out what Colorado is doing. They’re letting the skiers, the artists, the hikers, the sightseers, the riders, the rafters, the enthusiasts and the adventurers know that Colorado is where they can go for all their thrills and needs.

Nxtbook Media has clients creating travel and lifestyle digital editions for 36 out of the 50 states of America. In other words, over 72% of the states are represented with a Nxtbook digital travel/lifestyle collateral. Publishers, chambers of commerce, travel advisers, and community centers are using digital brochures, magazines, and collateral to attract readers who turn to the Web first when searching for where to go on their next vacation.

You can click here to see our NxtVacation Map which highlights some of the travel brochures we’ve done across the globe.

Two of my personal favorites are this “Perfect Hawaii Vacation Guidebook” and "North Carolina 2011 Official Travel Guide". The Hawaii vacation guide excels in providing additional content by adding icons linked to videos, websites, and a "Book It" icon directs vacationers directly to a ticket-purchasing page. The North Carolina guide enraptures vacationers from the start with videos and intriguing animations, then keeps engagement through adjolt animations throughout the book.

Of course, these are just my personal favorites. If you’d like to see your home state’s edition, or your favorite state’s if you have one, comment here and I’ll post it. Chances are 36/50 that we’ll have it.

But Seriously…

Last week, one of our competitors sent an e-mail to a lot of you. (This is bound to happen when you’re not afraid to promote your customers’ content.) The e-mail said (in part):

 

 

So Long Nxtbook. I’m Getting Serious With (insert classy competitor name here)

Sometimes you just grow out of a relationship because you may not be getting everything you need. We understand.

The Benefits of (working with said competitor) are endless:

Double audience readership (Compared to what??? Half audience readership???)
Track advertising and reader behavior (How very 2003)
Integrate keywords for better Google search (Cute… we had this four years ago. )
Enrich and keep sticky with multimedia content (Is it me, or does this just sound gross?)
Reduce costs of print and mailing by up to 95% (Insert baldness cure claims here)

First up, whoever is in charge of marketing for these guys should be fired. Or worse. Consider the strategy:

1. Even though the ocean of digital edition prospects is a million miles deep and a million miles wide, let’s poach them from a competitor’s website.
2. After we poach them, let’s make it obvious that we poached them in our e-mail. They’ll think we’re cool! (Judging by what we heard, most of them thought you were creepy.)
3. In the e-mail, let’s mention a bunch of features that they have and pepper it with unprovable statistics.

Are you kidding me? The only thing that was missing was a free order of steak knives if you act now.

When shared with a top ranking industry insider, he wrote, "No classiness in this type of advertising. On the other hand, you guys exemplify class… so it positions you well in an odd way." So there’s that.

All of that being said, aside from the intrusion to our customers, the only thing that stung was the idea that you and we aren’t serious about this industry.

We’ve written of the many publishers who carefully have mapped out a strategy to grow international readership through their digital magazines. We’ve promoted webinars for those publishers who’ve found six figure revenue streams. And we’ve helped others launch their first forays into the mobile space with Nxtbook Liberty. You’ve gotten serious results, and we’ve provided serious support.

Along the way, we’ve built an entire layer within our organization of Account Managers, whose only mission is to help you be more successful. We added Flash animators and video experts – specialists who exist for the sole purpose of pushing the technology as far as it will go. And along the way, we’ve added a small army of developers, whose job it is to push the boundaries of the product even further. In fact, as a full-service provider, our entire survival is based on delivering serious results.

At the end of the day, we share many traits with our customers. Our mutual dedication to pushing the digital edition envelope further is just one of them.

We Got Game

Here’s a post discussing our involvement with the Cardiff City Football Club (you know – that kind of football), which caused us to think about how much sports work we’ve done at Nxtbook. We’ve done digital editions of American football, marathons, golf and even hunting & trapping. 

It turns out if you can kick it, carry it, run it, hit it or shoot it, we’ve done it!

Six Nxtbooks You’ve Got to Read…

Here are six very cool Nxtbooks, all produced within the past 30 days (some within the past 3). Some are listed because they’re some of the most-read titles of the past month. Others are listed because the content is unique or intriguing. Each is worth a look.

The Official Event Guide to SuperBowl XLIII – One of our most-read titles of 2008 is back for 2009!
Your Guide to Verizon Wireless, Winter Edition – Commence wishing now.
The 2009 Catalog from the Stuttering Foundation – NEW to the Nxtbook family, this catalog has great integration with their e-commerce site
Gold Medal Whole Wheat Baking – Custom publications from General Mills consistently crack the Nxtbook Top 10 in readership
Boat U.S. – January, 2009 – Who says it takes time to build readership? Since launching last year, Boat U.S. digital readership has been near the head of the fleet every month – Check out the animated water on the cover!
Connections Magazine – This one’s close to our heart – a magazine produced by Nxtbook Media’s in-house custom publishing team. Notice the font styles and sizes, perfectly chosen for on-screen reading

How Do You Say “Drool” in French?

Check out the gorgeous new Nissan GT-R in either the Canadian version or French version of the Nxtbook. For a wide variety of Nxtbook language samples, click here.

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