Online Publishing

A couple of months ago I decided to try to grow the number of readers of YES magazine, the music education magazine that I edit as part of my work with Yamaha. I have always enjoyed the challenge of turning negatives into positives (or at least giving it a shot) so the reduced budgets that most of the commercial sector has been enduring since the recession kicked in last Autumn provided a suitable trigger for that process to begin.

I had long been attracted by the notion of online publishing, since the co-called page-turning sites produced some great-looking publications. One of my all-time favourites remains iGizmo, with it’s superb design and fully integrated multimedia. It’s design and programming elegance on a stick!

With the advent of web 2.0 a few years back, interactive web sites have begun to replace the mostly notice-board sites we’d become used to. MySpace, Facebook, YouTube and Webjam are all examples of the power of web interactivity. The ability to publish online has certainly been enhanced by the option of linking video and audio as well as animation, to enhance the experience of using a site or part of it.

But how many people actually read magazines or newspapers online? Certainly, the major publishers all have online versions because it’s one way to attract back the diminishing number of readers and advertisers. Yet when I speak to friends and colleagues only a handful of us regularly read publications on line. So the notion of switching from print to online publishing seemed to be a non-starter, at least for now.However, as a way of expanding the reach of a printed publication, online publishing provides a great opportunity. With a magazine which is posted to subscribers, the postage costs alone mount up to a substantial cost. Having a base of subscribers who receive a printed copy is excellent but then making the publication and back issues available online - free or for a subscription - seems now to be a no-brainer!

The two providers of online publishing that I explored in detail are issuu and Yudu. Each offers a great looking service with a range of options, from a free version to a professional publishing option. Take a look and judge for yourself. I like issuu’s look and feel and the fact that they seem to have a larger range of publications on offer than Yudu. But I preferred Yudu’s animated page turns to those on issuu - important when this is the main onscreen activity of anyone reading one’s publication. I also chose to go for the basic paid-for service, for various reasons which you can read about on Yudu’s site.

So I’ve now published all eight issues of YES magazine with Yudu. You can access them and check them out yourself here.

This entry was posted on 25/05/2009 at 12:15 pm and is filed under My Learning, web, Yamaha. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.