10 Signs You’ve Outgrown Flip Book Publishing

You put a lot of time and effort into every issue—writing stories, obtaining images, selling ads and carefully arranging it all onto the printed page. It’s fair to say that your content deserves more than relegation to a flip book replica, isolated from other content as an underwhelming reading experience.

Freeing your content from the page gives it equal footing with the rest of your branded content, allowing it to live up to its pedigree. It can connect it with new distribution channels, reaching more sophisticated, connected audiences.

If you still aren’t sure, here are ten signs that it may be time to look at a more comprehensive publishing solution like Turnstyle.

1. You want your digital edition to be more engaging

Flip books are limited to the format of your existing print document, and replica pages lack engagement beyond basic page-turning. Content that is trapped on pages can’t take full advantage of digital distribution channels, rich-media and other enhancements that increase reader engagement.

Turnstyle transforms your print-ready documents by extracting all of the text, images, links and advertisements and storing them in the cloud, then reassembles them as responsive HTML – no coding required.

And with easy, real-time editing you can insert images, video, and other rich media then push everything live instantly, across every platform. Turnstyle publishers have said that this level of customization opens up a whole new world of opportunities for engaging with their readers.

Video usage by Turnstyle publishers saw an increase of 332% in 2021 compared to last year.

2. You’d like to deliver a better mobile reading experience

Your digital edition is expected to be visually appealing on every device, and a flip book looks out of place next to the rest of your brand’s mobile content. Your readers share content on social media, but flip books aren’t optimized for those distribution channels.

Turnstyle solves this issue by displaying your content as responsive articles, just like any other website or blog. So everyone with a smartphone can read and share engaging articles on the web or in a branded native app, and you extend your brand far beyond what any flip book can offer.

Nearly 67% of the world’s population have a mobile device and generate about half of all website traffic globally.

3. You need to reduce costs and decrease turnaround time

Your digital edition competes with everything else readers can access online, so delivering your content quickly and efficiently is more important than ever.

Turnstyle’s streamlined workflow has minimal touch points – simply upload your document and we’ll do the heavy lifting. Your team can access all documents, view analytics data, track workflow status, get automated reminders, customize articles and publish from a single dashboard.

This centralized approach makes it easy to integrate Turnstyle into your existing production process takes the workload off your team so they can focus on other tasks.

4. You want to leverage content automation technology

As a publisher, you’re always looking ways to help boost engagement and grow your business. Content automation can transform traditional tasks into automated processes that can save your team time and money. Flip books were never intended for this use, so they are inherently insufficient for this kind of work.

With Turnstyle’s article syndication, you are able to generate custom RSS feeds based on issues, date ranges, categories, sponsored content and more. Coupled with the power of your social media, email, marketing, CRM or CMS platforms, this powerful feature gives you the capacity to distribute content without increasing labor cost.

Turnstyle publishers have leveraged article syndication for CMS content creation, email marketing and content archiving.

5. You have to monetize your digital edition

One of the main reasons to invest in a world-class publishing platform like Turnstyle is to grow your revenue. Advertising dollars are finite and print ads that were sold at the time of publication need to be able to capture new digital advertising dollars. Your flip book replica ads just take up all of your ad space without generating any revenue.

Turnstyle bridges the revenue gap between print and digital by automatically converting full-page and fractional print ads into responsive, clickable digital ads. You can also introduce web banner ads to your digital editions to generate new revenue, with the option to choose stand-alone images or leveraging Google Ad Manager.

If your business relies on subscription revenue, Turnstyle offers multiple access models. Lock down your issues to non-subscribers, choose the number of articles for public preview, or require readers to login through your own association’s website or portal.

Full-page, fractional and banner ad impressions on the Turnstyle platform increased 514% between 2020 and 2021.

6. You need relevant audience insights

Flip book platforms often rely on a third-party platform like Google Analytics to track reader engagement, and you may have found this to be complicated and cumbersome. This is because it’s not always configured to meet the specific needs or standards of publishers, and it can be a struggle to sort through the data to determine what insights you can use.

Turnstyle analytics was built specifically for publishers, and gives you access to key performance indicators so you can easily see exactly how readers engage with your publication. And you won’t have to worry about deciphering complicated data sets because they are presented in your own easy-to-understand visual dashboard. You’ll get detailed reports on page and article views, ad performance and reader duration so you can quickly understand your audience and make data-driven decisions in the future.

7. You need more flexibility in displaying your publication’s content

If you have multiple channels of content, such as a website or blog, video channel, podcast or even social media accounts, it makes sense to want your digital edition to be part of that mix. A flip book is simply not designed with that sort of flexibility.

With Turnstyle you will get a content hub that displays articles from your digital edition alongside content from any other channel. Without any additional work you will get a content hub with several modules, including an cover grid of your archive, featured articles (as categorized by you), and recent articles.

Or you can choose to go with a more customized approach and integrate social media feeds, videos and podcasts, banner ads and more. This sort of digital experience can build your brand, encourage reader journeys, and create additional streams of ad revenue.

8. You want a tool that is easy to learn and use

Turnstyle makes publishing, tracking, editing and distributing your digital edition simple with a single publisher dashboard. There’s no need for special plugins, third-party tracking tools or cumbersome embed codes.

Simply upload the PDF to your dashboard and we’ll notify you as soon as it’s ready to publish. You or your team can log in and edit or enhance article content then publish with a single click. Built-in subscriber management tools let you upload subscriber lists and mail templates. You can even create custom push notifications to send to all of your app users, all from a single dashboard.

And since we’re constantly innovating and adding new features, our platform is continuously improving, helping you stay at the top of your game.

9. You would like to increase your brand’s visibility

It’s not only about the bottom line – a digital edition might also make sense as a branding strategy because it can help drive loyalty with readers and increase awareness among potential subscribers. Print editions lack this kind of flexibility and mobility, leaving them at a disadvantage compared to digital editions. Flip books get very little viewership due to their small size and their mobile unfriendliness.

With Turnstyle, you control the brand of your digital edition on all platforms, including native app. From the color palette and logo, to the font choices and typography, your digital edition will be consistent with the rest of your brand’s portfolio.

This level of customization, along with the flexibility of your content hub, will make your digital edition an integral part of your branding strategy.

10. Your digital edition has to meet web accessibility guidelines

Web accessibility is a simple, yet powerful idea: that all web content should be equally accessible to everyone.

Turnstyle has built-in tools that help your digital publication meet accessibility standards, so that you are able to make your content as friendly to assistive technologies as possible.

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Learn more about Turnstyle and how it can unlock your content’s potential and get more value from your digital editions.