Magzster is one of the largest digital magazine companies and it relies on publishers to effectively self-publish their content in order to distribute it on worldwide basis. The company has just unveiled a new tool called MagEnhance.
MagEnhance easily integrate real interactivity into modern magazines, which includes rich text, videos, animation, links, slideshows, and more. It’s basically a drag-and-drop platform that requires no coding, so it’s accessible to anyone in a publisher’s organization.
This makes it a lot easier for publishers to optimize print content for the web. Plus, it’s free for any Magzter publisher, taking on Adobe’s Digital Publishing Suite in terms of price and functionality.
The essence of this new platform is being able to get magazines to buy into the whole enhanced content scheme. In order to distribute the content properly, it basically has been turn into a dedicated app, which would likely shine on the Apple Newsstand, where media content tends to garner the most sales.
Here is how the enhanced magazine distribution system works. Publishers use the Magzster tools to create digital editions from the same template they use for print. All of the Magzster creation tools are free to use, such as their MagEnhance and OREY Click Publishing System. Once the apps are created, they can be distributed by Magzter to Apple Newsstand, Google Play , Windows 8 devices, Nook and Amazon App Store. In exchange for the tools and distribution, publishers simply enter into a revenue share system which is currently 50/50, which is a huge stumbling block.
Magzster might make sense for small publishers, looking to digitize their content for release on many different app platforms. For medium and large sized publishers likely they are using their own in-house tools, or are paying over $2,875 a month for access to the Adobe Digital Publishing Suite Enterprise system.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.