With the advent of digital technology, online magazines are becoming increasingly popular. Digital publishing tools can make these magazines more interactive and attractive to readers. In this article, we will explore some ideas to enrich your online magazine with digital publishing platforms like Calameo.
Add internal links
Adding internal links is a great way to allow your readers to easily navigate through your online magazine. Internal links can be used to redirect readers to related articles, product pages or even specific sections of the magazine. This allows readers to spend more time exploring your online magazine while easily accessing everything that interests them.
Add external links
External links are another great way to enrich your online magazine. By adding links to relevant articles from other sources, you can help your readers better understand the topic you are covering. In addition, it can also help your online magazine gain credibility and build reader loyalty.
Insert media
Adding media is a great way to increase the visual impact of your online magazine. By adding images, videos and other types of media, you can make your online magazine more appealing to readers. In addition, using media can help reinforce the ideas you present in your online magazine.
Add an audio track
Adding an audio track is another way to enrich your online magazine. This can be especially useful if you cover topics related to music or audio. By adding an audio track, you can give your readers a more immersive and interactive experience.
Insert shopping links
Shopping links are a great way to monetize your online magazine. By adding links to relevant products, you can help your readers find products they might want to buy. Plus, it can also help generate revenue for your online magazine.
Personalize the viewer
Personalizing the viewer allows you to put it in the image of your brand, to put forward your graphic charter and to ensure a visual continuity with your site and your other contents. A perfect feature to offer a recognizable content that only looks like you.
Create a table of contents
Adding a table of contents is a great way to help your readers easily navigate through your online magazine. By organizing your content into clearly defined sections and adding a table of contents, you can help your readers quickly find the information they are looking for.
Conclusion
By using digital publishing tools to enrich your online magazine, you can provide a more interactive and immersive reading experience for your readers. By adding internal and external links, media, audio tracks, shopping links, viewer customization, and a table of contents, you can help your readers explore your content more easily and better understand the topics you cover. Ultimately, this can help your online magazine gain credibility and build reader loyalty.
The first thing you need to know about digital publishing is that it’s simple. So simple, in fact, that you might already be doing it! Professionals, teachers, entrepreneurs, aspiring creatives, students, freelancers and people everywhere with something to share online turn to digital publishing every day.
That’s why the second thing to know about digital publishing is why it’s such a popular choice—and how to do it better. In this article, we’ll explain all the most important basics, tips to help you find the right solution and a few special extras to make the most out of your publications online. Read on to learn more about:
Digital publishing means using online tools to make media of all kinds available via the Internet. Instead of traditionally printed books, magazines and newsletters, digital publishing makes ebooks, blogs and online publications. Readers access this content on computers, smartphones or other digital devices. In short, anyone who has documents to distribute online can benefit from digital publishing technology.
Because digital publishing covers many genres and formats, there are plenty of different options to consider. From specialized content management systems to bespoke applications, there’s something for everyone. However, digital publishing platforms stand out above the rest: They offer a convenient, fast and easy way to convert your files to online publications.
Benefits of HTML5 publications
Although a few platforms still use Flash technology, the gold standard is now HTML5 for online publications. But what exactly does it mean to make an HTML5 publication?
Let’s imagine you have a Powerpoint that you need to get online and send out to colleagues. Using a modern digital publishing platform, your PPT file is converted into a browsable publication built with HTML5 and hosted at a unique address on the web. Then to send to your coworkers, simply copy the link and share.
Effortless sharing is just one advantage of HTML5 publications. More key benefits include:
Visibility. Unlike a basic file upload, your HTML5 publications are easy to optimize for search. Help searchers find your content thanks to smart keywords, structured data and automatically indexed text.
Compatibility. Never worry about problems opening your documents again. Your HTML5 publications work with all devices, all operating systems and all browsers. Better yet, there’s no extra software, downloads or plug-ins required.
Versatility. HTML5 publications are ready for anything. You can enrich them with audio and video content, add links and images, and embed them in your own website or blog. Plus, customize the presentation with your own logo, branding and design.
Usability. Above all, your HTML5 publications are always available online. View, share and update from anywhere, anytime.
Want to go beyond email attachments and plain PDFs? No matter what type of content you have to distribute online, digital publishing can help you get more out of it.
Why businesses use digital publishing
The name might make you think it’s all about novels, but digital publishing is actually a powerful tool for a wide range of businesses. Since an online presence is essential for companies in every sector, having smart digital content matters. Depending on your goals, the best reasons to take advantage of digital publications may differ. Here are three of the most common businesses uses.
Marketing
To create irresistible online materials. Traditional marketing formats like brochures and modern channels like video work together perfectly in digital publications. Marketers can mix and match to produce content that works for their target audience. A light footprint and detailed analytics make it practical for A/B testing, too.
Communications
To connect content with people. Newsletters, magazines, how-to guides and employee handbooks need to be online. Digital publishing platforms make it easy not just to upload content, but also to manage it. Advanced privacy controls and distribution features help communications pros get their message out there, the right way.
Sales
To modernize the sales funnel. Today, content and sales are closer together than ever. Both sales teams and ecommerce operations can make good use of digital publications. For example, email a personalized prospectus for leads to browse on the go. Or transform a PDF catalogue into an interactive, shoppable experience for customers online.
Education and digital publishing
One of the biggest challenges currently facing education is adapting to virtual learning. However, online publishing offers a user-friendly solution for digitizing teaching material. All that students and teachers need is access to an Internet connection to exchange documents securely. Because the best digital publishing platforms can handle multiple file types, converting assignments, tests and more to HTML5 publications is simple.
As a result, digital publishing can be used for many virtual learning materials like:
Study guides and lesson plans
Activities and homework
Presentations and projects
School newspapers and yearbooks
In addition, educational publishers often make sections of textbooks available online as digital publications. Expect this trend to grow while virtual classrooms continue to evolve.
Independent digital publishing
Before the Internet age, a creative career usually started with finding a talent agent. But now, online tools like digital publishing have opened the ability to produce and distribute to everyone. Authors and artists in every genre can choose to publish their work independently in digital formats. For instance, portfolios and media kits help show off your projects and skills, while previews and collections let audiences sample your creations. Even a whole book can easily become a multimedia digital publication to share or sell—no agent necessary.
Advantages of an online platform
Digital publishing is an important part of the online ecosystem. So it’s no surprise that there are many options to help you make and publish content digitally, including traditional software. However, there are several serious advantages to an online platform.
First, your digital publications are accessible 24/7 on the web. Second, you don’t need to take care of hosting your publications. In other words, there are no finicky details for hosting set-up and maintenance to handle. And finally, you don’t have to deal with separate software to download, install and keep updated.
A true online platform should offer you all the features of digital publishing right on your favorite browser. To sum it up, these three advantages add up to major convenience for your content.
Choosing a digital publishing platform
Once you’ve decided to begin using digital publishing for your online content, it’s time to decide which tools are right for you. If you’re searching for a platform to produce and host HTML5 publications, start by considering your main needs. For instance:
Storage. How many digital publications are you planning to create? How large are the files that you work with?
Reliability. How fast do you want your publications to load?
Security. What privacy options would you like to have for your publications? How do you want your audience to be able to access them?
Support. What guidance would you like to receive? What kind of assistance is available if you need help with your publications?
Of course, there are many other potential questions you might ask according to your specific objectives. Say that you have high-quality video content to include in your digital publications. In that case, you may want to make seamless integrations with YouTube a priority. When you have a good idea of what you’re looking for in a digital publishing platform, you’ll be well prepared to find the best fit.
Digital publishing UX
A good digital publishing platform will provide you with smart options to optimize the UX of your online documents. An important part of web design, UX or user experience covers everything that shapes how people interact with digital products.
In this case, there are key UX elements to consider in the publication viewer. Most of all, you want to ensure that your audience can read your publications comfortably. Choices like Right to left reading, scroll and slide views, sharp zoom and full screen availability allow you to always define the right UX for your publications.
But another big factor to keep in mind is how flexible these and other UX options are. Since everyone’s needs are different, watch out for platforms that limit you to a “one size fits all” solution. In fact, with just a little basic tech know-how you should be able to customize the UX of your publications. From the viewer to embed options, online publishing gives you an incredible opportunity to enhance the reading experience for your audience.
Publishing in multiple languages
Thanks to the Internet, the world is growing more connected every day. Even small businesses can serve global customers with ecommerce tools and online communication. However, it can take some extra effort to make sure you’re speaking your audience’s language.
For successful multilanguage publications, prioritize platforms whose features help you organize and manage your online documents. Double check that the languages you publish in are supported for display and search so that your readers aren’t frustrated by text mistakes and missing results. And don’t forget to match the viewer language to your publications—or create your own.
Ready to start?
We think you’ll love digital publishing on Calaméo. But don’t just take our word for it! You can start publishing today. It’s free, fast and easy to join.
To see great digital publishing features in action, browse our Guided Tour.
What comes to mind when you hear the name Gutenberg? If you work on a website, you might think about the blogging platform WordPress and its Gutenberg content editor. If you’re a fan of e-books, you might think of the Project Gutenberg library of free titles. And if you’re a fan of the Police Academy movies, you might think of Steve Guttenberg.
But only one Gutenberg was the original tech mogul who disrupted the publishing industry. In 1439, this German inventor developed a kind of press that made it possible to print text in multiple copies. Of course, like many tech icons, Gutenberg was actually the second person to invent his device. Although it wasn’t widely adopted at the time, Bi Shengcreated moveable type 400 years earlier in China.
It may seem funny to talk about books like a technology, the same way we talk about smartphones and apps. Despite their low-tech material of paper and ink, books are technology: an object invented to store information. That’s why we’re taking a look at how innovation has shaped the history of publishing, from ancient eras right up to today.
Handmade books
Before Bi Sheng and Gutenberg’s printing inventions, every single book around the world was made by hand. These manuscripts, or hand-written texts, came in two main formats. Scrolls had writing on a single, rolled-up surface. On the other hand, a codex would look much more like a modern book. They had multiple pages inside a pair of wooden boards. But compared to printed books, very few manuscripts existed.
In large part, handmade books were rare because of the time, effort and resources required to create them. Not only did you need someone who knew how to write—not easy to find thousands of years ago—you’d also need something to write on and with. Some common materialsincluded clay and wax tablets, papyrus paper and parchment. Besides quill and ink, styluses and calames were also used to write. And once you gathered the materials and found a scribe, it could take years to copy out a text.
Because books and writing were advanced technologies most people never encountered in the handmade era, cultural information was stored in other ways. For example, the art and decoration on buildings like churches told visual stories to their viewers. Music, folktales and good old memorization were also important forms for sharing knowledge. However, the arrival of the printing press was about to revolutionize books.
Publishing revolutions
Printing wasn’t special to the printing press, but the concept of moveable type was. For centuries, artists knew to carve a flat image onto a block of wood, cover it with ink and press it against a paper page to make a print. Gutenberg and Bi Sheng’s innovation was to produce images of individual letters, or characters. Then, these letters were arranged into the text of a page and set into a frame for printing.
Although it might not sound like much, this moveable type technology meant that printing a page took minutes instead of weeks. Printing a book of 100 pages took weeks, not years. Plus, making copies was simple. As a result, more and more books entered circulation. Books held more information and, in Europe, more people read them throughout the Renaissance and Enlightenment. Publishers began to print and sell books on a bigger scale than ever.
One reason why the audience for books exploded? Education expanded dramatically in many places across the world. A growing number of people could read and they bought books. History, science, fiction, philosophy, dictionaries, travel guides—publishers offered books in every genre as printing technology advanced. Presses improved, paper became cheaper and by the end of the 20th century, the business of making and selling books had spread into a global industry worth billions of dollars.
Digital experiments
But the story of publishing innovation doesn’t end there. The invention of computers and the Internet created new tools for writing. From the clay tablets and calames to desktops and digital formats, another huge technological shift has been changing publishing over the past several decades. Unlike printing, however, digital publishing has taken lots of different directions as audiences try new experiences.
For example, publishing books on CD-ROM was a major trend in the 1990s. As old-fashioned as that sounds today, CD-ROM publishing let users access a large amount of information easily. In fact, an early digital encyclopedia set was priced 86% cheaper than the equivalent 21 volumes of printed books. And the format could include multimedia audio, video and links.
While CD-ROMs were replacing traditional encyclopedias, more experiments were happening online. Twitter launched in 2006 and by 2008, people were using it to write novels 140 characters at a time. The Kindle launched in 2007 and by 2010, e-books made up an important part of sales. New channels, formats and ideas are still developing and evolving online very quickly. After all, who needs a CD-ROM reference publication when you have Wikipedia?
To be continued
In short, the book is a technology that has been renewed to meet the needs of readers for hundreds and thousands of years. As publishers face digital challenges in the 21st century, there’s plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the future. Handmade, machine-printed or digital: books are always adapting so that more people can access them—and the knowledge inside.
Read this article in our 7th issue of Calaméo Magazine, as well as many others on the theme of renewal and innovation:
And if you haven’t read all the other issues of Calaméo Magazine yet, you can find them right here.
