In the previous article, we talked about what you need to prepare when you want to publish a digital magazine.
This time, Rafael and I decided to share our takes on digital publishing mistakes that you should (at least actively try to) avoid making when publishing a digital magazine.
Biggest Digital Publishing Mistakes: Content Not Compliant!
Publishing a digital magazine means that you will be publishing them as mobile apps on multiple platforms. The most widely used platforms are Apple App Store, Google Play Store, and Amazon Store. One of the most important keys to remember here is that you have to ensure that your content complies with their policies.
These platforms have stated that it’s in their best interest to make people feel safe to install an app from their stores. If your magazine contains offensive content, it might not be approved for live publishing and get rejected. The same goes if your magazine contains overtly sexual, discriminatory, or overly violent material.
Before going forward with your magazine issues, it doesn’t hurt to check their content policies first (Apple, Google, and Amazon). It rarely happens, but we have experienced clients with content deemed inappropriate by these platforms. In their cases, we have no other choice but to be satisfied with using a web-only platform. The other option would be for them to change their content completely to avoid this digital publishing mistake.
Static Layout
A lot of people think that digital magazines are simply digital scans of magazines initially created for print. Another one of the common digital publishing mistakes that leads a lot of publishers to simply upload their PDF files and call it a day.
However, we believe that digital magazines should be more than that. When it comes to creating a digital magazine, one of the most overlooked options a responsive design. Although we’re not entirely sure why.
Using a responsive design means that your magazine layout will adjust depending on the devices it’s being read on. Your readers will have a great user experience no matter what devices they’re using to read your magazine. Isn’t that awesome?!
If you are a publisher currently using PDF for your digital magazine, check out our page here to see more information about why we think responsive HTML format is the best choice for your digital magazine, and to avoid more costly digital publishing mistakes!
Not Enough Budget
This one is kind of obvious. However, it seems that there are many platforms out there advertising ‘free and easy’ online publishing services. This gives a lot of people the impression that publishing or launching a digital magazine would cost little to nothing.
It is true that digital publishing costs significantly less than traditional print publishing. However, publishing a digital magazine will still cost you some money.
There are team members or staff that need to be hired, app developers, marketing campaigns, purchasing website domains, etc. Another challenge to the list of digital publishing mistakes is thinking that it’s free or super low cost.
One of the ways of saving money in this area would be for you to use a digital publishing platform. Instead of hiring app developers and team to work on the app build process, these platforms take care of it. Some even provide a ready-to-go Web App for your online shelf, which means you don’t have to build a website.
But even so, there are still some fees that you need to consider in your budget. Especially if you are just starting out and do not have a strong reader and subscriber base yet.
This is not to say that you can’t start a digital magazine if you don’t have an abundance of money. Of course, we’d encourage you to try and start your own magazine if that’s what you want to do! However, not having a realistic budget might lead to a painful end halfway through.
Ready to Publish a Digital Magazine without Making Digital Publishing Mistakes?
Check out our blog for more tips on digital publishing. Think MagLoft might be the one for your digital publishing partner? Don’t hesitate to reach out to us via live chat or send us an email at support@magloft.com 🙂
