Wanna Win an Award?

Let’s suppose you’ve got a digital magazine that you’re proud of. You could enter it into some of the standard award shows from min, or ABM, but oftentimes, they don’t know what to do with you. They might shove you the microsite category or the interactive category but there’s for just plain old digital magazine. If you’re tired of feeling left out, maybe you should give the aptly named Digital Magazine Awards a try. It’s a new contest out of the UK, so it remains to be seen how impressive (or international) the applications will be, but it’s no doubt worth a click to find out. Thanks to Nxtbook customer and blogger Peter Houston for pointing it out on his blog.

UK Musings

So I’m writing this post from London, where once again Nxtbook is exhibiting at the Publishing Expo, the premiere event for magazine publishers in the UK.

Attendance is off slightly from last year, but not so much we mind. The Nxtbook team was plenty busy today and we’re looking forward to tomorrow.

In fact, when I asked one of our newest customers at the show why he came on board with Nxtbook, he said, "The fact of the matter is our business is recovering really quickly and we needed to plow forward with new innovation immediately."

Wow. When’s the last time you heard a publisher say that? Let’s hope it’s contagious. 

Magazine Magazine Launches. I’m Not Impressed Impressed.

The optimist in me was very excited to know about a magazine launching in the UK covering the magazine industry. As a company with an office in the UK, we were hopeful that the aptly named Magazine Magazine would provide publishers with keen insight into publishing success.

Alas, if their first article about digital editions is any indication, I’m concerned about the future of Magazine Magazine. Here’s the link to the publication. Sadly, Magazine Magazine used such old-fashioned software for their publication that I can’t link to the specific article. You’ll have to turn to page 42 on your own.

The article in question is Monetising Digital Editions, a subject near and dear to our hearts. Unfortunately, the advice given to publishers ranges from can’t-hurt-might-help to downright dangerous.

The first idea listed is to Add Your Publication Into an Online Store. The authors says – correctly – that it’s hassle-free and generally profitable for the publisher. That being said, we’ve always said that the best person to sell your magazine is you. Prominently. On your website. Strangely, the author even writes, "As an example, the Daily Telgraph typically sells 800,000 copies a day but achieves nearly 27 million unique visitors worldwide per month to its website."

Ask yourself a question: If these numbers are true, would you expect the Daily Telegraph to sell more digital editions from their own website, where all the readers have already shown that their fans of the content, or on another website, with lower traffic, where potential readers have multiple options. The math just doesn’t add up.

Keep in mind, there’s nothing wrong with a digital newsstand, and at Nxtbook we’re pleased to refer our clients to eMagazines.com for that service. But in the long list of ways to make money, it’s kind of low on the priority list.

Another idea proposed in the article is to stream ad-serving into the digital publication. While technically feasible – we’ve been doing it for years – this is another idea that is often strategically misguided. Here’s why:

1.) Ad-Serving is a medium where the currency exchange is CPMs, yet the digital edition is a medium that always provides lower page-views and higher click-through rates. By selling on CPMs, you’re drastically lowering the value of your offering.

2.) Using Ad-Serving for its implicit benefits – rotation, reporting, etc. – is fine, but if you just use it to serve up standard IAB banners, you’re missing out on the advantage of digital magazine real estate. In fact, as a sponsor of the soon-to-be released study by Josh Gordon on Interactive Magazines, I can tell you that readers are 4-5 times more likely to ignore a banner ad than a digital magazine ad. That being the case, why would you strive to put such creative in your digital magazine?

So while we’re happy to see a new magazine (any new magazine) covering the digital magazine category, we’re hopeful that the writers of the publication can serve as better educators to the UK publishing crowd in future issues.

Fipp Magazine Congress – Digital Magazine Review

Nxtbook is a proud sponsor of this year’s Fipp Magazine Congress, being held this week in London. Though we’ve made a few Twitter updates, the reality is that this writer has found the global capabilities of his BlackBerry Storm to be a bit less impressive than the billboards would suggest, hence, you’ll find the best stuff on the blog.

Today, a quick review of a session on digital magazines. More than 200 people attended, so if you’re FOLIO or ABM you might want to take note (Publishing Executive is the only US show that’s consistently puts this content in their shows to date).

For our money, Kevin Madden was the best speaker on the panel, though he also went first, so he didn’t have to hurry. But what’s interesting about Kevin is that even though he know is in charge of iGizmo, Monkey and other well-known digital only titles, he’s been doing digital magazines for quite some time and spoke first about what didn’t work in his previous attempts. To note:

1) Early on, his publisher didn’t have enough e-mail addresses for their subscribers. Since e-mail will be your core distribution (though less so today than five years ago), that can certainly present a problem.

2) Auditing issues with ABC made it difficult to get credit for what they did distribute. (Since fixed by ABC, BPA, et. al)

3) The software was subpar. (No longer the case.)

4) Early digital magazines often didn’t take advantage of the technology.

Time, technology and attention have fixed the first three and Nxtbook Media can help you nail #4, so based on Kevin’s experience, you’re probably in great shape!

Sarah Clegg from Menzies spoke, too, and had a few interesting things to say. First, she spoke about how the digital magazine can replicate the pace, rhythm and spreads, unlike a website, which was pretty cool. But she also about how – as someone who also has been doing a digital magazine for some time – she’s seen the attitude of her colleagues change as the product has moved from viability to reality and is now truly a worthwhile opportunity. Very very cool, indeed.

One other note: we’ve had the great fortune in London to meet up with Peter Houston who is very involved with a digital-only Nxtbook publication being done by Advanstar UK. Pharmaceutical Executive UK is a great example of a wonderful way to design for digital and Peter’s very involved with the project.

 

It’s All About the Links, Baby…

So, LiNKED Magazine (the custom publication of Nxtbook Media) went live today.

Here’s what you’ll find:
A great story about how Family Tree is using podcasts.
How Parenting Magazine is using Twitter. (While it’s always sketchy to claim to be the "first" anything, online, this is the first we’ve seen a live Twitter feed put in a digital magazine.)
A Grand tale: Imagine going digital-only with your magazine if your target audience was grandparents?

BONUS LINK:
LiNKED Magazine has also been released to the UK. LiNKED – UK has a special feature about how the BBC is using digital magazines to take America by storm!

London PubExpo – What Can We Learn?

So we’re exhibiting at London PubExpo this week – kind of the FOLIO show of the UK, if you will. Day 1 is over. Day 2′s still to come. What can we learn from British publishers and what are they learning from us?

1) Digital magazines are relevant. Last year’s FOLIO show had a slew of digital magazine vendors and so does PubExpo. It is a recession, of course, so a few names were noticeably without booths. As Mike Riley says, sometimes you can only see who’s wearing the pants when the tide’s out. However, the abundance of vendors demonstrated a vibrancy in the category for sure.

2) A UK office makes Nxtbook a better company for ALL customers.  Today’s interactions were interesting. Many times, US reps would share success stories with British publishers, and then our British reps would come in and localize the expertise for nuances in the local market. At the same time, our British reps have dynamite ideas on how US pubs can build readership overseas. We are truly one of the only global players in the space.

3) Even in the UK, digital magazines don’t sell themselves. Many people we talked to today had previously tried a simple free solution and discovered that it failed to boost readership and revenue. Simple, cheap things rarely do – in any industry. The UK is learning, as the US is learning, that digital magazines are an applied science – the right product deployed to the right audience with the right strategy will yield desired results. Anything less, though, will result in less.

The most dramatic difference, however, might have been in the overall attitude toward digital magazines. The US, after all, is where the industry started, and a some bad products and some bad executions early on have led – in some cases – to negative attitudes (one we’ve seen expressed at ABM events and FOLIO events from "experts" who haven’t tried a digital magazine in three years). Now that those early offerings are more refined, UK publishers seem to be enjoying the same fruits of labor that US publishers are now without the baggage that comes from having worse experiences earlier. US publishers who haven’t revisited digital magazines in some time would be wise to consider how the technology and industry have changed in a very short time.

Stack ‘Em Up

Mike Turro points us to a new and innovative service called STACK that bundles magazines and mails them to us all at once. Primarily in the UK now (though they do have international pricing), STACK’s a clever approach to get past some distribution expenses. 

Fundamentally, I love this idea – all of my magazines coming at once? Very cool, particularly for titles that I can’t readily get my hands on in the US.

Social Media – Free & Easy With Nxtbook…

It was only a matter of time before our UK headquarters started doing soccer (er, football) programs. Check out one blogger’s reaction here.

For the publisher, the blogger serves as a free third-party endorsement of their content. Everybody wins!

BBC Knowledge Goes With Nxtbook…

Even in this climate, new magazines are launching.

From the start, it seemed like a match made in Heaven. When the BBC announced they were releasing a magazine focused on the US market, a Nxtbook made a lot of sense. Our British office is located across the street from the BBC and if a British company wants to put a magazine into the US, what better choice than an American digital publisher with a British office?

BBC Knowledge is a paid title for print subscribers, but you can get a sneak peak of the October issue here. The photography in this magazine is top shelf and a great example of how a digital magazine can show content in a way that few websites do.

Nxtbook UK Office Releases Custom Publishing Project

Yesterday was a big day for our UK team as they released the first issue of Nxt Manchester, a local business magazine aimed at professionals in the local region.

Written and produced by the Nxtbook Limited team, Nxt Manchester is a great example of digital-only magazine, optimized for screen reading. The first issue can be viewed here and received extensive press and blog coverage here, here and here.

Nxt Manchester is a logical outcome from a need we’ve seen in publishing. Publishers are seeking ways to launch digital only magazines which leverage the beauty and engagement of print along with the interactive capabilities of the web. By doing our own custom publishing projects, this will help us to best advise clients on ideal launch strategies for their own publications.

Congrats to the entire UK team of Nxtbook Limited!

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