Digital Magazine Publishing for Publishers

What Is a REAL Digital Magazine?

Before getting into this, let's define what "digital" means. Some might assume digital is anything electronic, a website, a PDF download, an e-newsletter, etc., so let's be clear with each other from the start.

A REAL digital magazine means an app—an app for iOS and Android that lives on your readers' favorite devices (i.e. phones and tablets) as standalone icons of your magazine brand.

Why Your Print Magazine Needs a Digital Magazine App

As a print publisher, you already have an existing business, and you might be skeptical of what benefits adding a digital edition may have, but you're reading this article, so you're at least open to the idea.

Notice we're talking about adding a digital edition, and not switching to digital (but that is an option, too, if you're so inclined).

For many magazine publishers a digital edition is meant to compliment your existing business, not replace it.

Magazine apps excel in areas that print magazines do not, and in ways that can offer tremendous benefits to traditionally published titles that would be otherwise unobtainable.

Benefits of a Magazine App

Magazine apps go where your readers go by default.

Readers can also read traditional magazines just about anywhere, but they are far less likely to carry them.

Apps go where phones and iPads go, and your content goes with them, on the train, in the cab, elevator, doctor's waiting room, wherever they go.
Your digital magazine app is an opportunity to increase client ad spend.

A digital edition created with MagCast means the ability to include rich media like audio and video, links, click-to-dial phone numbers, and more, making it a separate and unique opportunity for your advertisers.
Similarly, digital opens up new revenue opportunities from your existing print readership, and vice-versa.
Your back catalog has the potential to bring huge value in a magazine app.

Your current business probably doesn't involve warehousing and distributing years' worth of back issues.

It doesn't make sense in print, but digital doesn't face the same overhead and logistical challenges.

With an app, you can make your entire back catalog available for sale at full cover price with zero concerns over warehousing and shipping.

Platform Tour

How do I make a magazine app?

Thankfully, this is the easy part: If you can upload a PDF, you can publish a magazine app to the Apple and Google stores, as well as to our proprietary MagsFast store.

We do all the heavy lifting, including app submission and maintenance.
We serve every download from nodes on six continents.
We cover every update and upgrade required for every new version of iOS and Android.
We're your IT and publishing software infrastructure, and we're good at it.
We've been doing this for over a decade and have ironed out all the kinks, so you don't have to. We're ready to be your partner.

Things to Think about When Starting a Digital Magazine Edition

One of the most important differences between print and digital magazine publishing is in production and distribution.

(This is also an area where MagCast stands out among competing publishing platforms.)

In print, selling 20,000 copies of an issue costs more than selling 10,000, and the other magazine app publishing platforms have taken advantage of that mindset and adopted the same model. With competing platforms, you sell more, you pay more, but it doesn't have to be that way.

At MagCast, you pay one annual membership, with no extra fees.

If you sell 20k, 50ks, 100k issues, we don't add any additional charges for serving that content. It's all covered - unlimited bandwidth, unlimited downloads, unlimited updates - all included.

Apple and Google both charge reasonable developer fees ¹ to establish your relationship with their stores.

These do two things:

Puts YOUR brand front-and-center in their stores. Prospective readers see YOUR magazine's name, not MagCast.
Establishes the financial relationship so they pay YOU not us for sales you make in their stores.

With most other platforms it's THEIR brand that's featured in the stores, and they take a piece of your revenue before passing along your cut.

With a magazine app published through MagCast, Google and Apple pay you.

1At the time of writing, Google charges a one-time $25 fee; Apple charges $99 annually.

Why Launch a Digital Version of Your Magazine Today?

In print, you know there's an appetite for digital content.

The Internet has been chipping away at the edges of traditional media for decades, but that landscape has also changed.

What was once hailed as "The Information Superhighway" has become a content cesspool where everything is written for Google's search algorithms.

Search for any topic, and you're more likely to find an Amazon affiliate top ten list rather than anything relevant.

The imagined superhighway is now little more than a maze of billboards and doom-scrolling.

It's in this environment that digital magazine apps are uniquely suited to thrive.

Readers want great content. They're having a hard time finding it and are LOOKING for a trusted source to bring them the best content in the topics they're interested in.

Putting your magazine app icon on their device home screen gives readers one-tap access to your terrific content.

Your icon and brand own virtual real estate on their devices.

It's right next to Instagram, Uber, YouTube, TikTok, and their other favorite brands, and they carry it with them everywhere they go.

If the notion of adding a digital version to your brand makes sense to you, book a free, zero-pressure, platform tour to see if MagCast might be a good fit with your existing print publications.

Does it make sense?

It makes sense.

It's a low capital and low labor investment that adds multiple new revenue streams to your publishing business. Back issue sales alone is worth the price of admission.
A magazine app gets you on-screen real estate, in your readers' pockets.
Membership includes six months of MagCast Academy, small group live sessions on the business of digital publishing.

pricing platform tour

Why Print Magazines Need a Digital Version

And not just a website or PDF download