via wallblog.co.uk
Here's a story I wrote for Wall Blog on the future of iPad magazines. For some inexplicable reason it took me ages to write. Odd
Ashley's take on, well, everything
Here's a story I wrote for Wall Blog on the future of iPad magazines. For some inexplicable reason it took me ages to write. Odd
Here's what the Shiny team has been up to in the last few weeks.
There's some basic information on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/pages/Technode/153277224737017?sk=wall
It should be ready for the end of the month. More details soon.
Huge news this morning from Sky which has anounced that it is to massively cut its magazine output. The hero brand for customer publishing for many years now is to close Sky Sports Magazine and Sky Movies Magazine, which are each published every two months and have a combined circulation of nearly eight million copies, and reduce the distribution of its flagship Sky Magazine, which has an average circulation of 7.3 million copies, and its frequency from 12 issues per year to four. http://www.mediaweek.co.uk/news/1057214/Sky-close-magazines-job-cuts-loom/#
The magazines will be replaced by email and reflects the company's shift from print based promotion throught to digtial products. There is also some speculation that rising paper prices and the increased cost of postage might have forced the company's hands.
Sky Magazine has been a poster publication for the customer publishing industry for many years now. It was produced by John Brown Publishing but is now put together in house. The Sky Movies mag is however produced externally by Future Publishing.
So where does this leave the customer publishing industry? Well while losing a flagship title is clearly a blow, the industry as a whole has never been stronger. February saw a host of new wins for agencies including some imaginative social media driven projects http://www.sutrodigital.com/880/branded-content/customer-publishing-agencies-... You can read more about new projects here http://www.apa.co.uk/news It seems that print projects are not dying, but are being used in a more strategic way. In some respects customer publishing agencies will probably be the last companies producing print magazines. They may have to deal with rising print and mail costs but a business model in which many of those costs are met by the brand is obviously a lot more robust than one in which the cost of magazine is met by advertising (on a downward spiral) and consumer purchasers (also struggling in many areas according to the latest ABCs).
So I don't think that Sky's decision will have a huge impact on the industry as a whole. The leading supermarket magazines are still posting very healthy figures and many brands still see print as the premium way of engaging with consumers. Sky's magazines were always more vulnerable given their huge circulation and the fact they offered TV listings which are available in many other places.
There is also the emergence of digital opportunities for customer publishing agencies namely video content, iPad magazines, blogs as well as websites. It is these opportunities which are keeping my agency Sutro very busy indeed.
As a publisher who has dabbled in digital magazines - go check out issue 1 of Pies mag it really is great - http://www.magcloud.com/browse/Issue/142915 - I am cheered by Google's One Pass system that was announced today.
In some respects I think that it will be very hard for publishers to charge for digital content no matter what format it is in. For me that horse bolted long ago and the future is all about other ways of funding content. However for the publishing industry there has to be a way of at least being able to charge sensibly for magazine content on tablet PCs and One Pass gives them that opportunity.
In many ways the system is a complete riposte to the system unveiled by Apple yesterday - check out Rob's comparison piece here - http://paidcontent.co.uk/article/419-google-pitches-a-flexible-paid-content-s... and good for Google in opting for this route.
Over the past few months I have been using Magcloud, the magazine self-publishing web service from HP, for both commercial and personal projects. We used it to print the first issue of the Who Ate All the Pies magazine (get yours here http://www.magcloud.com/browse/Issue/142915), and I have also used its turn a Flickr stream into a photo mag for family and friends.
For me Magcloud is a really great option for indie publishers. Overall the Pies experience with the service was good. We created the PDFs and uploaded them and within minutes we had orders for our print magazine and people downloading the iPad version.
I do think printed and tablet magazines offer a good opportunity to small publishers to take their brand away from being web only. It enables them to offer longer stories, create richer designs and generally engage in a different way with their fans. Magcloud is by no means the only option for producing magazines, especially tablet ones, but it has worked well so far.
So I am heartened to hear that the service has been upgraded to. One of its weaknesses was that it could only offer print and iPad versions. Now there are lot of people who won’t pay for a print product and who don’t have an iPad. So now that the company is offering the magazines in a digital, PDF version compatible with just about every electronic device I think it could make Magcloud even more useful.
Magcloud publishers will also have the choice of distributing their digital issues free-of-charge or at a cost. If opting for paid for digital issues, each publisher can set the selling price to whatever he sees fit as long as it is above the minimum requirement of $1.70% of all digital sales will go to the publisher. Alternatively publishers can opt for a print and digital bundle, which offers a paid print order and free digital issue.
As I mentioned earlier there are some interesting alternatives to Magcloud that I am currently exploring, but so far, for the quality of the print job, the ease of use and the fantastic option of print on demand I can heartily reccomend it.
Media Guardian yesterday turned the spotlight on to paid for magazines with a pair of features that underline how difficult magazine publishing in the UK has become.
Firstly John Plunkett looked at some of the more general issues facing the industry - lack of new launches, closure of many titles, difficulty in monetising iPad and digital editions - http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jan/24/magazines-free-media-launches while Peter Kirwan put Haymarket's business under the microscope.
If anything it is the latter feature that puts the the industry's problems into sharp relief. Haymarket, once a bastion of sucessful consumer titles with a thriving B2B sector, is now heavily in debt with (and this is astonishing) Thenhurst Agricultural Ltd, the Haymarket Group subsidiary that owns Lord Heseltine's 18th century mansion and 55-acre estate in Thenford, Northamptonshire, offered as security to RBS to make them feel a little more comfortable about the £126 million the company owes.
Banks tend to see debt in a very different way now than they did a few years back and with an operating profit of just £15 million that debt is sure to feel like a lead weight around Chair Rupert Heseltine's shoulders. The shock news about the economy http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12272717 probably won't help either.
Ultimately Haymarket, and to be fair a lot of its rivals, invested massively between 1995-2008 in expanding into other countries. Now the with the Internet delievering online global media brands (ie largely US based ones) and with core media brands in decline that move doesn't look quite so savvy.
Haymarket also faces the problem of monetising B2B brands which will be further exacerbated this year by the retraction in the public sector - one-third of Haymarket's B2B revenues come from this source.
Not all is doom and gloom. According to The Guardian 'Publishers are nothing if not optimistic. Advertising revenue in the consumer magazine sector was up 5% in 2010 and is forecast to rise another 2% this year.'
I do think though 2011 will see a major shake up in magazine publishing. There will be acquisitions, consolidation and closures. Most of all publishers will look to protect their key brands by investing heavily in digital accompaniments such as apps, iPad mags and websites. It is going to be an interesting ride.
The cost of producing a magazine on the iPad used to be prohibitively high for indie publishers. I say 'used to be' because it really isn't any more. Over the last few months we have seen the arrival of a series of solutions which now mean that anyone with great content (and a few quid) can publish to the Apple gagdet.
December has seen the arrival of two high profile indie mags on the iPad plus the growth of a rather special travel magazine from Holland.
Urban culture mag Hoodgrown launched its first issue a couple of weeks ago and it really is a unqualified success. The mag uses the Golden Alligator platform - which is ideal for smaller publishers who may not have easy access to designers - and has some great features and interviews accompanied by audio and video. It lacks some of the interactive elements of more high profile launches, but IMO that's a smart move as it makes the mag easy to read. The mag is free and funded by advertising. A video showing the mag in action is below.
Another notable iPad start up is a Dutch company called Trvl http://www.trvlzine.com/ which is producing very neat magazinettes that focus on a part of the world. The mags, which are free to download via Trvl on the iPad store, are image focused with a feature or two. The photography is at times breath-taking.
Finally, a bit closer to home, the UK's leading sports blog Who Ate All the Pies is now available as 48 page digital and print magazine. It was my idea to produce the mag, but Ollie and Mike can take the credit for some superb features and its rather lovely design.
It was produced as an experiment, and three days after launch I can report that it has been a very real success. The mag is available in a printed version via HP's excellent start up Magcloud. It is also available as an iPad mag through the Magcloud iPad store too. We have also made the mag available as a PDF which sells for £1 - more info on the mag and how to get it is here http://www.whoateallthepies.tv/feature/59849/pies-launches-new-football-magaz...
I think offering the magazine in a number of formats is clearly the way forward. I guess that in the future the tablet PC version will become the main distribution source for the mag, though I think PDFs and having a printed version gives the mag reach as well as enabling people to read the title in the format they are most comfortable with.
So is there a business model emerging? Absolutely. I think it is about offering the content for a small fee on iPad or PDF. Unless the title gets a sponsor and then the mag is free on all formats except print. It is a fantastic opportunity for a sponsor - not only are they the only brand in the issue, but the mag's regular readers will know that if it weren't for Brand X then they would be paying to read it. Also digital mags offer a really great platform for proper brand integration, something which has got kind of lost in the rush to produce flashy graphics and interactive videos.
Also I think having to wade through pages of ads - Conde Naste style - is archaic and unacceptable. I know CN have to recoup their investment, but in the future I think readers will see endless ads as devaluing their reading experience.
Massively excited about this. The UK's best football website, Whoateallthepies.tv, is to launch a magazine. Available in early December the magazine will be available as a free download for the iPad and as a printed version.
Some of the content for the magazine will be crowdsourced from Pies huge (over 800,000 readers each month) and passionate community.
There's more information about the project here http://www.whoateallthepies.tv/competitions/52222/contribute-to-the-who-ate-a...
We (Anorak Publishing) are looking for sponsors for the project - especially sports and photography brands - contact ashleyatanorakdotcodotuk
