Archive for Digital Magazine Publishing

Once print habits are gone, the magazine industry will rely on a new breed of digital magazine habits that you’re responsible for creating

Once pundits started waving the “print is dead” flags, the decline began. It was almost like the media was trying to coerce consumer habits, rather than predict the future. Print is not booming,   Continue

Register now, or wait another year to attend this one-day workshop.
I’ll keep this short, because I know you’re busy. Registration for the upcoming one-day Digital Magazine Publishing Workshop closes in one week. If you miss it, what do you plan to do instead to grow your business?

If you’re the owner or operator of a niche magazine business, or are   Continue

Create digital magazine teams using agile principles and progressive technology to build more collaborative processes

Magazine teams have historically all been in one building, maybe in New York City, or Washington, D.C. They might occupy more than 20 floors in the World Trade Center, like Condé Nast, or a more humble space, like many of the niche   Continue

Please hurry! Your Early Bird price ends at midnight tonight
Your chance to exercise frugality in attending our one-day Digital Magazine Publishing Workshop ends at midnight tonight.

Perhaps you noted our earlier emails about the Early Bird price for our first one-day Digital Magazine Publishing Workshop and told yourself you’d get to it soon.

Well, soon is now! Early Bird registration   Continue

At the beginning of your roadmap, this magazine platform should come first, even before an app.

Online magazine platforms or offline magazine platforms or any platforms in between, it doesn’t matter: We’re fans of a good many of them, and believe in a “more-the-merrier” approach because the right deployment can open up new revenue streams.

But if you’re   Continue

The answers will surprise you
At Mequoda, we’re deeply opposed to guessing.

That’s why we’re so devoted to testing and statistics, which is how we developed our Mequoda Method and made it so successful that we’ve been able to improve the power and profits of dozens of magazine brands.

And of course there’s one other method for finding   Continue

12 magazine promotion ideas stemming from a strict email marketing plan

The scenario plays over and over again: A publisher invests the time and money to build a multiplatform publishing website, only to wonder why they’re not generating as much revenue as expected. When we audit their efforts, we find they’re not sending any promotions for   Continue

Put down the sunscreen and register before summer fever sets in
So, look, I know you’re headed on vacation in the next week or so, but we have an early bird deadline coming up for our first ever one-day Digital Magazine Publishing Workshop, and I don’t want you to forget.

If you want to attend for the   Continue

What most publishers of niche magazines don’t realize is that coming up with an editorial calendar is just as much work as producing the evergreen content itself.   Continue

Your magazine app is a platform, but it’s not the most profitable digital magazine platform for passive income

Digital magazine apps are great for one huge reason: They come with a built-in marketplace. People who own tablets are accustomed to buying apps, and using app stores and newsstands to find new content.

The app edition of a digital   Continue

If you’ve been reading here about the journey from legacy print publishing to digital magazine publishing, it may sound almost too confusing to contemplate
The journey involves everything from creating a magazine edition you may never even have heard of before – the web edition – to pricing to marketing on social media to upgrading print   Continue

There’s no doubt that niche content is the name of the game, at least if you’re playing the game using the Mequoda Method. But digital magazines can’t expect to slap a few enthusiast articles up on a homepage and wait for the money roll in. Rather, online publishers must stay vigilant in repurposing content, developing a content distribution strategy, and cultivating audience through digital magazine apps.   Continue

Circulation reporting and auditing has been a meticulous science for more than a century. Then digital magazine publishing came along to shake it up for the first time in decades.

In fact, if you haven’t read our recent look into AAM’s reporting methods. The short story is that AAM doesn’t count subscription numbers, they count subscriber numbers. If someone is subscribed to your digital edition and your print edition, you only get to count it once. Most publishers choose to tally subscribers under their print editions, so their number of digital subscribers look small compared to the reality of that last, and regardless of whether a subscriber paid more to get the digital edition as part of a combo package.   Continue

Learn everything from pricing to copy platforms, and watch the print-to-digital upgrades roll in
The beauty of the digital era in publishing is that it doesn’t just give you a new option for your existing audience to choose.

It delivers the opportunity to expand that audience, create several new premium products, drive more orders per promotion, and   Continue

If you’re starting a magazine business plan, it would be a good idea to circle the troops and decide right now whether your future will be advertising or circulation driven.

Will you choose a mass circulation strategy that allows you to compete with television and portals for advertising dollars, or will you compete with book publishers who sell users premium long-form high-quality content? Those who cannot choose and reside in the middle will likely be lost.   Continue

Set up your marketing based on data and continual improvement to reap big profits
One thing that troubles publishers who are planning to make the move to multiplatform publishing is how to promote so many different products, especially given the new marketing channels that are available to us in the digital age.

As we’ve noted here before,   Continue

When we develop magazine business plans for our Gold Members, it include seven levels which you’ve probably heard us refer to as CAROTME: content, audience, revenue, optimization, technology, monetization, and exit.   Continue

There’s no such thing as publishing a magazine.

The fact is, if you want to transition your business from the traditional print model to 21st-century publishing – and the profits it promises – you have to publish five different magazine editions of every title in your portfolio.

Mequoda has learned from decades of experience that these five are absolutely crucial to successful digital publishing. And many traditional print publishers have learned, to their sorrow, that digital publishing is crucial to their very survival in the modern age.

If that sounds alarming, we can assure you it’s completely achievable – more on that below. But first, let’s consider all five of those editions that we’ve identified as the very heart of our Gold Members’ publishing empires.   Continue

The MPA just released their Magazine Media 360° report and the future of magazines is just as interesting to predict as ever. The top growing magazine brands year over year tapped into just about every general interest niche: Esquire, domino, Nylon, Town & Country, Fast Company, Harper’s Bazaar, Teen Vogue, Fit Pregnancy & Baby, Country Living, Popular Mechanics.   Continue

There’s no such thing as publishing a magazine.

The fact is, if you want to transition your business from the traditional print model to 21st-century publishing – and the profits it promises – you may have to publish up to five different magazine editions of every title in your portfolio, with three of the five being table stakes.

Mequoda has learned from decades of experience that having multiple platform editions is crucial to successful digital publishing. And many traditional print publishers have learned, to their sorrow, that digital publishing is crucial to their very survival in the modern age. We’ll tell you all about it at our Digital Magazine Publishing Workshop on Tuesday, Aug. 2 in Boston.

If that sounds alarming, we can assure you it’s completely achievable – more on that below. But first, let’s consider all five of those editions that we’ve identified as the very heart of our Gold Members’ publishing empires.   Continue

Conventional wisdom says that moving your legacy print magazine into the digital age is complicated, expensive and painful.

Mequoda says: Not if we have anything to say about it.

There’s a better way to publish digital magazines that’s driving amazing revenues and profits for the select few publishers who understand this new methodology.

The digital publishing strategies we   Continue

A magazine sales letter full of content and detail works best for selling premium information products online. No matter how hard we try to make winners out of short sales letters (after all, they’re much less work!) we still see A/B split after A/B split show that longer magazine sales letters work best.   Continue

Some folks like to talk about the decline of magazines. And yet, the digital magazine surge shows that not only are magazines surviving, but they’re alive and well, with still new ones being born.

Of course, it’s not easy to achieve. Then again, that’s what Mequoda is here for: to help would-be publishers who want to know exactly how to start a magazine, just as much as it is to help legacy publishers transition into the digital age.   Continue

We talk a lot about digital magazine subscription marketing around here, and unwittingly neglect your very important print publications. Once you’ve established your subscription price strategy, the next problem to solve is the offer you make in your magazine subscription marketing campaigns.   Continue

A magazine consultant is a magazine consultant is a magazine consultant, right?   Continue

Since the printing press was invented, the best way to deliver readable content was always on the page. Until the advent of the web, consumers hadn’t even considered other ways to digest content beyond books, magazines and newsletters printed in a linear, bounded fashion.

But then the web arrived on personal computers, and then it arrived on mobile phones, and then on smartphones, in email, and through tablet devices.   Continue

What is a web magazine compared to a digital magazine or a magazine’s website?
The answer many people give to the common question, “What is a web magazine?” is often incorrect.

You’ll often be told that a magazine’s website is a web magazine, but strictly speaking that’s not correct.

Others believe a web magazine is the same thing   Continue

Digital magazine costs aren’t limited to production and design, there are distribution fees to take into account, as well as the software and hosting fees

There’s no doubt that publishing your digital magazine on a tablet, so that it can be downloaded in some of the world’s largest newsstands, is a good idea. 20% of your   Continue

These four exemplary digital magazine examples demonstrate best practices in design, business models and pricing
With 20% of tablet users reading digital magazines every day, it’s instructive to take a closer look at the variety of digital magazine formats and subscription choices that are available to them five years after the iPad blasted onto the scene.

When   Continue

Digital magazine publishing success can be monitored with the help of these metrics

Digital magazine publishing has come a long way from its inception. Some digital publishers are very active in offering digital magazine apps, including premium and affinity versions.

Like all other digital platforms, there is necessity in tracking relevant data so you can focus on the most successful products and plan for future ones.   Continue

Publishers aren’t just going digital anymore, they’re creating digital magazines that are evolving as quickly as the technology that hosts them
In 1967, an eight-page issue of Computerworld was published for the first time, deemed “the newsweekly for the computer community.”
The goal with Computerworld: provide its readers with insight into the world of technology and how to generate   Continue

Publishers will reinvent their digital magazines across platforms and newsstands in 2016
This year print magazines saw a sharp downturn in newsstand sales, with a 10.3% drop year-over-year in single issue retail and a 9.8% drop in dollar value during that same time period, MediaPost reports. Time Inc., Hearst, and Meredith all saw plunges. Meanwhile, The New Yorker,   Continue

Our most-read digital magazine publishing posts of 2015 reveal a desire for better understanding of creating, publishing, pricing and selling magazines
This year in our Digital Magazine Publishing articles we’ve tackled everything from choosing the right magazine software, to identifying pricing strategies that get buyers to pick your highest package, and how to design a digital magazine   Continue

How magazine content monetization has gotten more profitable, if you publish it in the right places

Something we know from talking to niche publishers at the industry events we speak at, and during our own CEO Institute, is 99% of magazine publishers are giving away 100% of their content and not separating their free portal content   Continue

Digital magazines are relying less on advertising by implementing paywalls that influence more subscriptions
 

Remember the days when digital editions of magazines were only available by paid subscriptions? You’d arrive at a static home page with a snapshot of the recent issues, and then be prompted to sign in or register to view any content. The   Continue

These six publishers are nailing sponsored content, but all in very different ways
Last week we talked about the guidelines for writing native content advertising, also known as sponsored content. Now let’s take a look at some great examples of publishers who create this sponsored content for their advertising clients.

These particular examples of sponsored content were   Continue

The latest publishing trend isn’t just about magazine publishing in general. It’s a digital publishing trend: Launching digital-only magazines without legacy print publications behind them.

Mequoda has a client who is doing just that. Prime Publishing is a company that began with free websites but no print publications whatsoever. Now the company is launching digital-only magazines such as I Like Crochet and I Like Knitting as premium products to enhance their associated websites, AllFreeCrochet.com and AllFreeKnitting.com.   Continue

From content planning to determining your exit strategy, every successful multiplatform magazine business model includes planning these seven things
At Mequoda we spend a significant amount of time building custom business plans for our niche magazine clients who are adopting a multiplatform magazine business model. During this process, we run through seven elements of the business   Continue

When your magazine rate card focuses on custom content, everyone wins
Print advertising rates have always been robust. After all, magazine ads have always been superior to broadcast ads in several ways: They offer a targeted environment, they offer adjacency, and they’re self-paced, giving readers as much time as they want, not just 15 or 30   Continue

Why do modern multiplatform magazines make so much money?
At Mequoda we talk about publishers that have multiplatform magazines on a regular basis, but what we don’t always mention is that those who are the most niche, see the greatest gains. General interest publishers are having a heck of a time figuring out a content strategy,   Continue

If you’re looking for digital magazine software that allows more control over pricing and distribution, then a web magazine is for you
Attention publishers: digital magazine apps for tablets and mobile phones are leaving money on the table.

We recommend having a magazine app, because, who can beat the marketing that comes from the online marketplace that   Continue

Ever wondered where Kim and her team find all of their magazine industry news for our daily Digital Publishing Trends posts?

Well, I have, so I asked them for their top 5 sources – their “go-to” sites for discovering the latest and most useful news and analysis for magazine publishers. Of course, they had a hard time narrowing down their pool, so I happily let them get away with 7, which itself even proved tough given all of the high-quality coverage out there. Maybe we’ll do a part two down the road!

In the meantime, here’s a list of not only our favorites, but favorites of magazine publishers and digital marketers always on the lookout for relevant articles best practices, cautionary tales, revolving door gossip, mergers & acquisitions updates, and more. These are the sites that drive discussion and inform the decisions of executives – and help us keep the Mequoda Method fresh while continuing to offer free advice throughout the week.   Continue

Keep more revenue while offering a better customer experience by ditching the app and launching a web magazine
In our eyes, there are two digital magazine publishing software giants: Adobe and Mag+. When we work with publishers developing digital magazine apps for tablets, we recommend Mag+, a spin-out company that sprung from Bonnier Corp.’s very early Popular Science app.

We   Continue

The digital revolution not only makes content more accessible; it offers additional ways to generate revenue

Have the changes in digital magazine publishing created new revenue generating opportunities for you?

Those opportunities may exist for many digital publishers, even if they don’t realize it due to other focuses.   Continue

Starting an online magazine business brings one platform that offers advertisers the visibility and tracking accountability they desire
  Continue