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Digital Publishing Blog by PressPad Posts

Why Converting Your Print Magazine to a Digital Publication is a Must-Have in 2023

Stop for a moment. Look carefully at people around you: bored in the crowded commute, exasperated in long queues at shops, relaxed on benches in parks on sunny days. Is anybody reading a paper publication? If so, how many people are doing it? To compare – how many are staring at their smartphones or laptops? No matter where you are, we will bet the answers and proportions between these numbers will be similar.

This is because the on-screen reading trend is global. Nowadays, we all hear about large publishing houses, newspaper and magazine corporations which rebrand their strategies, limit some parts of their print titles, and move their efforts to the Internet. It doesn’t happen without a reason. On the contrary, there are a number of arguments why converting a print magazine to a digital publication is a must-have in 2023. 

In this article, you will see the most important ones.

Get a Publisher or Publish Your Magazine Yourself

Have you ever thought about the process of creating a book or a magazine? What does it look like step by step? What path does the publication go through from being the new idea to becoming the complete issue? The goal is always the same to win readers’ hearts, yet to get a publisher is a way to achieve it. At least, that’s how it’s been so far. Publishing’s changed and today, no matter what kind of publication you want to publish – book or magazine – you have two options to do it successfully. What are they?

Well, we put them into the title of this article instead of keeping you on tenterhooks. 

The first one – “get a publisher” – is as old as books, so let’s call it more traditional. It’s descending from paper and print publishing practice, based on giving the power to others which is engaging an external subject to publish a book with sharing profits policy. In return, the author has one duty which is to provide written content on time. 

The second one – “publish yourself” – is relatively new, mostly related to the digital world, and the possibilities of widespread export without any boundaries. Self-publishing is based on giving many roles and deciding power to one man, what’s equal to freedom of decision-making, and what’s related to this, lack of sharing costs. 

At first glance they are totally different, aren’t they?

The biggest differences between traditional publishing and self-publishing apply to the length and costs of the whole process, as well as the way of distribution, the range of creative control man has, and profits.

But they also have something in common – the goal, which is reaching readers interested in having or buying the publication.

In the following article, we’ll take a closer look at both ways, analyze how they evolved, (what’s closely related to changing magazines’ roles), point out the pros and cons, and finally, we’ll help you answer the question – which way is better for me?

Layout of a Magazine is More Important Than You Think – See Why

While the magazine cover is like the house door inviting you to come inside, the layout of a magazine is like the interior that makes you want to stay inside.

Do you know the rule of cleaning the house saying that there are three types of things you need to keep: useful, pretty, and those you have an emotional bond with? It is similar to magazines. People buy and read regularly only those publications which are useful, pretty, and have emotional meaning for them.

Each of these three issues – utility, prettiness, emotions – is the responsibility of a different team of people preparing magazines: writers, designers, and marketers. ​​Only their cooperation can lead to success. In this article, we take a look at one of the components of prettiness success – the layout of a magazine.

Why do we focus on this particular part?

As old birds in the publishing business, we think that a layout of a magazine is much more important than everybody thinks.

How Has ECommerce Conquered the Digital Publishing World and What Has Come from It?

The experienced publishers, running their business for years, have well-structured and great working sales funnels. So they diversify content adjusted to defined target groups accordingly to the different purchase stages. As a result, their sale is growing. What if they want to develop their digital publishing company even more? There’s a way; something that goes beyond content sales. After all, no one has said that this is the only product publishers can sell.

Let’s play with the words for a while – a digital publishing business is a company reaching not readers but customers by offering them not content but products. Everything seems to be correct, but there is a subtle difference, isn’t it?

Talking about the publisher as an entrepreneur broadens the perspective and gives more earning possibilities.

For most publishers, the main sources of revenue are advertising and subscribing. Both methods are strictly related to content. What about monetization as an entrepreneur, a business owner? Well, it is more about the sales of goods.

Content is a core publishers’ product but it doesn’t have to be the only one they offer.

As an entrepreneur, you can sell different things, even more so you have a bunch of loyal fans, a ton of data, and business experience. Why can’t you offer backpacks and mugs if you publish a travel magazine?

Maybe it’s time to take a step further in your digital publishing venture and think seriously about eCommerce as a way to diversify income.

Sell Stories, Not Products. How Digital Magazines Become a Way to Succeed in E-commerce

Digital magazines have ceased to be products created only by publishers as we traditionally understand them. The rise of digital publishing platforms has made more and more non-publishers brands are preparing and distributing online publications independently. As time moves on, the line between the business world and publishing is blurring. This heralds an exciting new chapter of engaging customers in more innovative and creative ways, in accordance with the principle, every company is a media company today.

This phenomenon is observed primarily in the e-commerce industry. Entrepreneurs have noticed that selling products digitally cannot be complete without offering proper online content, while social media channels or blogs are definitely not enough to achieve satisfactory sales results today. Digital magazine has become a solution helping to meet these needs.

If you’re running (or planning to run) an e-commerce store and thinking about extending your content strategy this article is for you. It answers a few basic questions. Does publishing digital magazines by e-commerce is only a temporary trend or a solid long-term strategy? How do well-known brands manage their online publications? What is the recipe for success?

If you’re curious to know the answers, read further.

How High Does The Jacobson Flare Fly? PressPad News Case Study

News app is a multipurpose tool that is becoming more common and affordable for companies of all sizes and budgets. It is offered not only by the largest newspaper publishers but also by local, niche entrepreneurs who want to achieve their business goals like content distribution diversification or monetization. As you’ll see in a moment, a free news app can also be a magnet in the process of attracting readers to paid content such as… another mobile app.

Encouraging readers to visit your website, read content, download a free news app or take some other action is one thing – converting a website visitor or an app user into a customer who buys or subscribes is a different story.

A newsletter is often given as an example of a tool that plays the role of a free sample attracting readers to paid content. If you properly encourage people to sign up for it, and then you regularly provide them with tailored content, it will lead you to great effects measured in numbers of subscribers.

It is similar with a free news app. Downloading it by the readers guarantees constant contact with the brand, what builds trust and makes them get into a habit. As an effect, it leads to the desired action – a purchase of a product: a magazine issue, a subscription, or anything else.

A paid mobile app may also be such a product.

Does it sound interesting? It is just the beginning.

If you want to know what role can free news app play in the marketing of a paid app, come into the fascinating case study of The Jacobson Flare.

Successful Magazine Sales Tips – a Guide Different from Any Other

Magazine sales tips should always be adapted to the current situation in the publishing industry, which changes practically from year to year. This is especially important in the case of digital publications, where business models are based on online purchases.

It raises new challenges headed by sales funnel modification, about what many articles about magazine sales tips don’t say. To achieve financial goals, publishers should understand the necessity of shift the revenue model from paid-in-dollars to paid-in-data.

Consequently, they will realize the potential of their own distribution channels like the website, newsletter, or news app to build a loyal returning audience. After some time, it’ll turn out that this group is the largest percentage of paying subscribers.

It’s time for magazine sales tips tailored to the present publishing reality.

Online Magazine Or News App? The Simple Answer To The Big Question

The publishing industry focuses on digital-oriented distribution channels, like online magazines and news apps, as never before. This is due to a few factors: the development of technology, decreasing interest in print issues and thus lowering advertising revenues, a new, more tech-savvy generation of readers, or the Covid-19 pandemic complicating traditional distribution.

The publishers’ goal is always the same – find this kind of digital publishing solution that will help with growing and maintaining their own distribution channels, simultaneously, will secure online sales, maximize the revenue, allow them to stay present in the competitive market, and respond to the readers’ needs.

– What would be better to achieve it: an online magazine or a news app? – we often hear this question.

In most cases, our answer is “both”.

Why? What role do these solutions play in the magazine publishing world? Why do they work best when are used together?

Come and get to know it.

Magazine Publishers Are The Real Winners Of The New Apple Privacy Policy

Apple is a company that needs no introduction. Together with Facebook and Google, it dominates the technological world and sets the tone for different kinds of businesses. Each, even the smallest change these big three introduce can have a huge impact on the whole world. This is what has happened recently due to announce the new privacy policy by Apple. It’s time to say it loud and clear: magazine publishers are real winners of this situation.

Who would have thought that such a little change would make so much noise?

Guided by the belief that privacy is a fundamental human right and one of their core values, Apple decided to facilitate people’s access to privacy policy settings. They don’t ban tracking but will require app creators to obtain consent from their users to track them.

This little step can make big changes in the advertising market, what many entrepreneurs worry about. However, all the signs indicate that the magazine publishers can sleep peacefully because they can become secure business partners for advertisers.

What changes will Apple introduce? How will it influence magazine publishers? If you want to know answers to these questions, read on.

5 Doubts About Print Magazine Online Clarified by PressPad

Modern publishing is something more than a choice between print and digital. The debates taking place in recent years about whether digital will replace print and when it will come should really be a discussion about the proportions of demand for these two publishing versions. If you want to run a print magazine online, it doesn’t have to mean reducing or eliminating paper editions – it’ll be more like a distribution extension and maybe a path to sustaining your newsroom in the digital future.

Print magazine online as a subject of particular interest raises some doubts. These are related to the role it plays in the publishing business, the PDF replicas usage, the safety of the distribution process, and the availability of this solution.

This article aims to clarify the above doubts and answer questions many publishers asked about print magazines online. Do you want to get the whole truth about it?

PressPad on the Trail of the Best Digital Subscription Strategies

News publishers are real winners of technological changes taking place in the publishing industry in the last years. The variety of digital distribution platforms allows them to reach every corner of the world with the content in live mode, as well as monetize successfully, for example, thanks to subscriptions. The strategy based on restricting access to the content allows increasing digital publications revenue and managing the offer of print and digital issues in the most profitable way.

The subscription business model is far from being a new invention. It was used by publishers of books and periodicals in the 17th century. It has been functioning in print for years, bringing publishers profits from selling regular access to the product. With the development of digital platforms, it has also appeared in the online sphere and has been adapted by many businesses and websites successively.

The year of the rise of subscriptions in digital news was 2020. This way of monetization became a top revenue strategy for publishers of all sizes and everything indicates that this trend will be continued.

Let’s take a look at five interesting subscription models that were implemented by well-known publishers. How do they monetize their content?