E-Editions

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Permalink Reply by Arjun Basu on December 1, 2008 at 6:56pm

We do it but we don't get extra advertising for it. Our experience is just as you suspect - you can't really monetize e-editions. Unless you're smart and do something extra special, make it part of some larger e-strategy, incorporate social media, update the e-edition, put on exclusive content, etc. Then you might have something. Right now, our e-editions are simply value add propositions for advertisers.

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Permalink Reply by Kevin Heslin on December 1, 2008 at 9:12pm

We haven't seen anything additional from the e-edition. Of course, ours is just an addition to a web site, not an alternative. Its existence does help us save some money on overseas mailing and samples, etc.

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Permalink Reply by Cynthia Cheng on December 3, 2008 at 9:06am

e-editions = PDFs of a print mag?

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Permalink Reply by Justin Thurman on December 3, 2008 at 9:15am

Yes basically. Usually the services make them where they aren't PDFs, but are representations of the actual magazine pages. They usually have clickable ads and some video capabilities.

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Permalink Reply by Rory Brown on December 5, 2008 at 5:37pm

I had a big discussion about these on my blog - some interesting perspectives come out in the comments.

http://rorybrown.wordpress.com/2008/12/01/digital-editions-trying-t...

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Permalink Reply by Aneel Tejwaney on December 12, 2008 at 12:47pm

We don't use e-editions as a separate product. We use e-edition primarily as money saver (printing cost etc) and to help grow "overall" circulation by providing more options to our readers. Example, even with e-edition, users have to "subscribe" to it and we get Texterity to host our e-edition which is done in a way that conforms to BPA audited rules and regulation. When we generate the BPA stats, the overall circulation stats include both e-edition and print. BPA backed is what most of our advertisers are looking for these days. Overall we campaign to move people from print to e-edition and some do, so we save incrementally by lowering print costs.

We also post articles up on the website but thats not audited and measured as "an issue".

Aneel

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Permalink Reply by Rob Gallagher on December 18, 2008 at 11:18am

Justin-

I can help. I have some case studies to share.

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Permalink Reply by Maverick G. Greissing on December 21, 2008 at 7:55am

I do an e-edition (as you call it) but "instead of a traditional web site". THe magazine is called eMOTO MAGAZINE and it's a online only digital magazine, conceived and designed exlusively to be online. Although only recently launched it's already a hit with advertisers and readers alike.
I think the US publishing community is far too conservative about digital, totally uncreative, and in general just complains that the technology and the business model does not work for REPLICATING print media. My feeling is that the periodicals format and business model has to be creatively remodelled/adapted to what the technology has to offer.
Perhaps there are just too many pubishing managers involved (just look at any US masthead)

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Permalink Reply by Josh Gordon on December 21, 2008 at 9:18am

I agree with Maverick G. Greissing on this, digital magazines only succeed as ad sales vehicles if they are conceived as digital magazines , not as digital clones of print magazines.


http://jgordon5.typepad.com/blog/2008/12/the-three-questions-digita...

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Permalink Reply by Maverick G. Greissing on December 21, 2008 at 9:30am

glad you agree... the problem is at the decision making level... in a nut shell MANAGERS
WHY ON EARTH ARE THERE SO MANY MANAGERS IN MASTHEADS OF US MAGAZINES
ITHOUGHT MAGAZINES WERE MADE BY CREATVE STAFF... MKT, EDIT, DESIGN
THESE ARE THE PEOPLE MEDIA ENTREPENEURS SHOUDL BE TALKING TO ABOUT DIGITAL TRANSITION

ALL THE MANAGER IN FOLIO PRO ARE ASKING ABOUT DIGITAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS BEFORE GETTING STARTED... WHY CAN'T THEY GET STARTED WITHOUT A SYSTEM? AREN'T THEY THE MANAGERS???????????????

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Permalink Reply by Alberto Mosquera on March 31, 2009 at 12:13pm

Good point!

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Permalink Reply by Eric Gervase on December 30, 2008 at 12:23am

Here's an article from Folio about one of our customers who does a print and digital companion that is making money. And, Arjun makes a good point... You do need to do something special (ie extra content to attract readers, interactive experience through multimedia if warranted, updates). But, that's pretty natural. There is a portion of your readers that will just naturally flock to the digital edition, a portion that will say "never... and then the in between. It's the in between that you should be most interested in. If you can win the readers over with a good product (editorially), the advertisers will follow.

Look at it this way... if you have converted 10-15% of your audience to a digital edition, do you think that your advertiser would be missing out if he didn't go after it? Not only that, it is measurable and more dollars are going to the web right now. Not a bad idea to have multiple options to show your advertisers when offering web products (digital editions, webinars, web inventory, etc.)

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