Issuu has become a pretty popular site for magazine publishers. I checked them out recently and found their offerings to be reasonably priced when purchased with a valid promo code. What didn’t meet my needs was the notion that when you scale, you are still locked into their application for your mobile users. In other words, you can start out publishing and put your publication with everyone else without problems. Later, however, when you grow into having more publications and want to capture mobile users by using an Android or IOS application, you are still stuck with the Issuu application, which shows all the publications. So I went in search of a service that could handle the requirements that I wanted as a publisher. I soon found Yumpu Publishing while looking around and decided to give them a try. Here is what I found out:
Issuu Promo Code, no thanks!
While Yumpu Publishing is similar to Issuu in that they also provide a free option for those just starting out, they differ when it comes to creating opportunities for their clients. Customers that choose one of their payment options are allowed to create their own kiosk that will not only display online with only their own material but will allow them to receive a customized application for mobile that will show that customer’s own branding and content only.
Online is important, but the tablet and smartphone readers that are available as applications today are specifically the users that we want to see reading our material. You might think that it isn’t important, but many of our advertisers, although small, are quite savvy in preferring to buy from us when they know that the bulk of their advertising is going in front of an audience that came specifically to read one of our publications.
E-paper Works!
When it comes to the digital format that people are publishing in, PDF is universal but also huge and difficult to move around quickly in. Yumpu Publishing is based on E-paper and allows all users to use a lightweight reader that is standards-based to move through the magazines that you create. I noticed this as I began to convert documents from PDF on a trial basis. I also did some SEO testing. During the course of the testing, I wasn’t looking for Yumpu Publishing features to stand out because the keywords are created by us. Just the same, what I was surprised to discover was that the documents were being indexed fast and well by the Google search engine because they are in e-paper format. Another feature that I did mean to look at when I first tried Yumpu Publishing was the ability for a page to be seen on both sides like a regular publication. I was happy to find out that whether printed or online, the results were up to my standards.
I also looked into how interactive e-paper was. I wanted to know how easy it was to put forms, video, and audio links into the magazines that I was creating. What I discovered was that the steps to create links and transition them into the material were a time-saving process over what I had been doing. As a feature, for me, it also gives me more flexibility with my advertisers because instead of working with just businesses that want to advertise, I can now also approach direct marketing firms and offer them the capability of running some of their print campaigns through our publications. I have already put together some short surveys and contact forms that I will be showing potential clients who might want to advertise.
Creating My Own Viral Campaigns
There is no substitute for having good material to lead readers into a great experience. But having the ability to share that information easily across multiple social media platforms is something else that I realized is quite easy with Yumpu Publishing. Of course, for me, it isn’t just that it is easy to share, it is also how the shared material looks in terms of presentation on the social media platform that I am using. After creating a few embedded pieces, it was easy to see that my readers agreed with the design that the Yumpu Publishing team has come up with.
Overall, I decided that I would recommend Yumpu Publishing to others because:
• Their e-paper platform is cutting edge in both performances and in terms of how it looks and behaves.
• They offer the features that I need to grow
• Their service does not require me to have a computer engineering degree in order to use
