Advances in Electronic Publishing

[autocoach]

Steve and Andy

 

I hope you have had an opportunity to see the new format for the US Model Railroad Hobbyist January edition. It is the first time I have truly enjoyed reading an electronic magazine publication. Granted they do not have to support a paper version, subscription services, and an audience that is not highly receptive to change. (I know the demographics of the hobby. I am almost 70 but then I have worked in software since the early 1970's and change is just the normal way of life.)

 

The pages flowed fast and well. There were no page sizing problems (and I am using a Windows 7 PC with an old fashioned 4x3 ratio monitor.)

 

I get British Railway Modelling, Hornby and now Railway Modeller electronic additions and all need to somehow re-work/ret-think the electronic versions to take advantage of capabilities the non-print media affords.

 

Hopefully someone out there is working on a software solution that will automatically reformat traditional paper publications to electronic media.

 

best

[Andy Y]

Hi Ken,

 

Thanks for that, it certainly works well and there are lessons therein. I'll be honest and say it would mean increased workload/resources to re-format a traditional mag into that format (more pages, restructuring of text/images) but perfectly do-able if it were being designed from the ground up. If it were designed from a brand-new starting point there are certainly things I'd do differently (landscape format / single page) but the interactive elements are sound and there's a lot more that could be done with content.

 

At which point I have to shut up.

[AngryMeerkat]

Something I'm very surprised about, from a reader and an advertising revenue point of view, is the e-magazines don't have clickable website links in the advertising sections.

 

Reading the latest issue of BRM on my iPad last night I saw an advert I wanted more info from, but because I couldn't just click the advert and go direct to the company website I carried on reading, and now can't remember what the advert was for!

 

How difficult would it be for the people who create the e-mags to add in clickable website links for adverts in exchange for an increase in the advertising cost the company pays to the magazine? And is this feature a feasible addition?

 

Mark