I have spent a considerable amount of time crafting and curating my magazines. I sell advertising space in them to bands that require absolute perfection – so I can’t cut corners. I thought flipbooks would be cutting corners, I was very wrong.
I have loved the process of making my readers something really beautiful and a thing people want to enjoy and treasure. My gradual loss of readers was something I always denied and ignored before, but I knew I had to keep up with how people engage with information today, and that meant getting my magazine online.
Yes, my magazine has a place in people’s homes as a physical form to enjoy the tactile experience of but, I knew I had to make it available online. Not for the readers alone, but more for the advertisers who demand larger audiences monthly. I just did not want to compromise on something I had taken so long to make so beautiful but, if I did not make a change I would lose my all-important advertising revenue.
So, I took a leap of faith and I was amazed to find out I was totally wrong about creating flipbooks. Yumpu.com not only kept my magazine just as I created it aesthetically, they optimised and improved it at the same time and it was so easy to do.
Beautiful & powerful flipbooks, what a combination!
Publishing has been, and still can be, a bit of a battleground for any of us who once relied on printed versions of our materials. It’s been an internal fight for me between a heritage of the craftsmanship I refuse to compromise and a huge awareness that I can’t stop change from happening. I felt so scared of not being able to keep up with change, so much so I stuck my head in the sand and upset a few very important people along that way.
Advertising revenue, if I am 100% honest with you, supports what I do entirely. By not having a digital library of flipbooks with the huge online audience of readers I was losing revenue hand over fist because my advertisers need to see a bigger increase in return on their invests from me. They wanted my content to be in front of all the right people so not only did they want digital versions of my magazine online, they wanted them usable, agile and engaging.
I knew what I had to do and I was just so scared that by taking a step in to flipbook publishing I would lose all the care and beauty that goes into my work and ultimately become what I hated, which is a bad magazine. I was an idiot! It has done nothing but increase my audience and my earnings. Creating flipbooks through Yumpu.com has opened my eyes to the joys of online publishing and it has opened the wallets of advertisers who now want to increase their investment in my magazine. It’s so exciting, and you simply must do it today.
Embedded video has brought my magazine to life
It’s amazing how quickly I adapted and despite all my past terrible behaviour to ignore the digital world, I am a complete convert now. I love working with Yumpu.com to create my magazines and I had never really thought that I was able to do what Yumpu.com has allowed me to do.
Video has changed everything for me! From a complete technophobe I have become the proud owner of a library of fully interactive magazines. People who read my publications today have choices and we all know that is what consumers really want – they want choices. They can love the feeling of a magazine in their hands, but they can also love to see a well-made video bring an online flipbook to life.
I have tailored advertising packages to allow my clients to also work in this new format and they are so happy with the results. Why just have beautiful flipbooks when with Yumpu.com you can have a fully integrated interactive experience for your readers? Video and audio embedded in the Yumpu.com flipbooks allow your magazine to be so much more that it could have been off line, it can be really alive.
Embedding video is not all I can do now. I have also received wonderful reviews from my online readers about the standard of the usability of the flipbooks. All my concerns I had had about the aesthetics where totally unfounded. Yumpu.com has given my readers something they really enjoy using and best of all sharing!
Don’t be alarmed if you think this all sounds like a huge investment on your part– it really isn’t. Believe me. Your flipbook comes to life at the click of a button– it couldn’t be easier. Flipbook publishing and ‘interactive’ ones at that may seem to be daunting but it really isn’t. I can’t recommend enough that you just try the service with their Free Plan – play with it and see how much you can have. I thought it might help if I gave you this little guide to using its services so you can see for yourself how easy it really is.
Here is how you can create your first flipbook:
Go to yumpu.com and follow the instructions to create a free account. This takes only a few minutes and only requires your basic information to get started like your email address or you can login in via social media or your Google account if you have one. You simply click on the link and upload the PDF format of your magazine.
Depending on how large the PDF file is the upload may take around 1-5 minutes and then as if by magic you have a flipbook ready to be embedded into your website, social media sites and even in emails so you can send it directly to customers. You can also direct your readers to your online Yumpu.com account so they can see all your publications in one delightful suite.
Now, to embed a video to your magazines once they are online all you need to do is go to the home page and select the menu item “My Magazines”. This opens the Document Manager. Choose the magazine you wish to embed video in and then click on the button “Edit Magazine” on the right-hand side.
Click on the button “Add Page element to your magazine” in the category “Add multimedia to your magazine”. This opens the editor for multimedia elements which is named “Hotspot Editor”. Here, you can embed videos – for example from YouTube or Vimeo, into your magazine.
Then simply flow the instructions you get from Yumpu.com…if you have any problems, they have a brilliant online support team who are so well trained. Yumpu.com allowed me and it will allow you to really embrace the huge potential of online publishing. I was wrong to be scared of change – the change is already here and it is a brilliant one.