MagCloud: Online Magazine Publisher, Printer, And Marketplace
This is the first review in our series of online magazine publishing applications. For an introduction to this category, including a rundown of features common to all four applications reviewed this week, please see: Publishing Magazines Online With Web 2.0.
MagCloud sets itself apart from many online publishers by acknowledging the world has not gone completely digital - its purpose is to offer digitally produced magazines to you, printed and shipped the way traditional magazines are. Unlike the large print houses that handle magazines, however, MagCloud is a print-on-demand service, which means that money (and trees) can be saved.
Users looking to promote their magazines will find that MagCloud is more difficult (since viewers have to pay) than other venues, but that there is a payoff for their efforts. If MagCloud users set their price above the production cost (estimated at 20 cents a page), they can make a profit on every magazine sold. Also, printed proofs are available to check your work before sale.
Viewers - we could say buyers - are able to browse by category, search, or find magazines by url (username.magcloud.com). When they have found ones they like, MagCloud offers a viewer to see sample pages of the magazine, which usually are the first five to ten pages. Visitors can see the latest magazines with an RSS feed, and a one click button for buying a publication is on every page of the site.
The downside to MagCloud is twofold; first, publishing accounts are subject to approval while the application is in the beta stage, and secondly, the MagCloud marketplace is truly a marketplace, designed to sell rather than share. As such, interested users can sample only select pages of the magazines. The good news, however, is that the magazines are generally priced at a reduced cost, since on demand printing has less overhead than traditional magazine printing.
To read more about MagCloud or to find similar applications, there is the Listio search: publish+magazines.
Previously in this series: Publishing Magazines Online With Web 2.0
Next in this series: Issuu: Online Magazine Publishing With Strong Design
Application: MagCloudListio Profile: http://www.listio.com/web20/app/MagCloud/
Website: http://www.magcloud.com
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Tags: buy, magazine, marketplace, online, publishing, sell, share
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