A couple of years ago, I had a problem. I was working on a newspaper that went out to a community of people that were part of a social group that sometimes specialized in food. I had been creating PDF documents using my word processing program and then publishing them online on a regular basis and posting them in forums or e-mailing a link to a subscriber list without a flipbook animation. I was happy with that until it seemed like everyone switched overnight to use smartphones and tablets as their primary computing device during the day. Because our PDFs did not display or allow navigation that well when they were viewed on a smaller screen, we started to have fewer people read our magazine.
Options we looked at
I started out looking at the responsive design for our website because it makes sense to develop and write once for all size formats without having to make any changes. Responsive websites are a pretty good way of keeping yourself in front of people.
At the same time, I wanted a longer-term solution because working with marketing data from our clients, I discovered that people do not use their browser on their smartphone or tablet as much as they do when they are working on a full-size PC.
I also looked at using an Android or IOS application. The upside is that you can completely control what your audience sees and get really good marketing data back from them. You can render your pages better as well so that they can be navigated.
Unfortunately, when I started to look at development costs, I either needed to spend hundreds of hours perfecting an application or pay more than our yearly budget allowed to create applications that I could then update every few months.
So I started to look at flipbook animation
Flipbook animations are a type of application that can run on any platform and are designed to allow magazine publishers to take advantage of their animation features in the same way that the Amazon Kindle program works for e-books or flipbooks.
After I started working with various flipbook animation software, I decided that the format, the cost, the ease of use, and the portability were exactly what I needed to be able to present my clients with the best of the best experience possible.
Here are some of the things that I worked into my list
When it comes down to it, a 3D Flipping book is a type of application that features the capability of uploading a PDF paper that is then rendered into the native application format. In most cases, you are able to use an editor either online or on your computer to make layout changes in a more professional way than most word processors allow for.
You can also take advantage of some cases of features that allow you to customize advertising pages so that you can run direct marketing campaigns for clients from inside your magazine page. The key for you when you are building a set of format requirements is to understand how you would really like to work in the future. In other words, what types of post upload features will make you more efficient.
If you are a perfectionist with a heavy investment in a flipbook software package that allows you to create a perfect format for your page, then consider finding the right partner and finding out how you can change your formatting so that your PDF page requires zero changes when you upload it to make flipbook animations.
As for my research, I tried Joomag.com and then this special platform and found that importing a PDF so that I could minimize the edits I needed to make afterward was quite simple. I started out by uploading and then comparing what the PDF was rendered into and then making changes on my own computer and uploading it again so I could understand what the layout rules were.
I only needed to upload twice the first time I tried before I was happy with the native rendering on a regular basis. I did decide that I preferred to place and edit my advertising online- and so I now just upload my finished PDF and then I use the partner that I am working with to put the advertising that is life in. By doing this I can create captivating ads that are easier to sell to my clients.
The cost
If you want to create a Flipbook Animation as an alternative to publishing in PDF format as a paper, one of the first things that you will find out is that it is free on most platforms. The dynamic seems to be that if you accept advertising from your partners like flipviewer.com or issuu.com, you can create your magazine and then build your audience globally before moving into a tier that allows you much more control.
Although today, I pay monthly for my subscription, it is because I was able to create a much larger audience and attract quite a few more advertisers. Consequently, our margin is much higher than it was when I was not using this format.
Ease of use and portability
First, you have to create an account and watch the terms of use. From the upload process to the design process, I find that creating 3D flipbooks takes less than an hour for every issue that I publish. If I were not placing all advertising into the imported copy, it would likely take less time with our 3D flip book partner, but it would take more time on my personal computer.
I did a survey of our users a few months after we started to use flip book animation. I was worried because some providers allow you to use Android or IOS applications at the top tier of payment and I wondered if we would lose people before we got the revenue to be able to afford that level of subscription. What I found was that our readers were ecstatic about the ability to navigate online and backed that up by spending more time with our animated magazine.
I also found that our partner offers the capability of embedding or adding our presence on social media for example in form of a video quite well. The portability of this software to Facebook and other social media platforms should therefore probably be a criterion in your requirements because you will reach a larger audience.
Conclusion
Changing to a 3D Flipbook Animation format for your paper magazine or graphic design illustration is normally free, easy to use, and most of the potential partners offer sophisticated digital publishing features that allow you to add video and audio and text to your magazine, making your publication come alive. Because of these facts, I think the future will bring a flipbook festival to online readers.
I would recommend using it as a long-term solution because there is a roadmap using the format to create a kiosk that will allow you to grow as a publisher and start to publish other people’s magazines. The revenue return that we have received so far makes me happy that there is a new platform out there that allows people to focus on publishing and advertising and growing their revenue instead of coding.