BattleGrip Magazine: Has Anyone Used Issuu?
As part of preparing for the BattleGrip magazine launch (first mentioned here) I’m investigating distribution options and, fortunately, a suggestion made on Facebook strikes me as a good approach to take. The Issuu website allows you to upload and share magazines with people, and examining the site and looking at the samples makes me think this would work very well with the PDF approach I want to take.
My question, though, is have any of you used this site before? That’s not vital to my planning, but if any of you have used the site I’d love to hear your thoughts. The actual BattleGrip issues would be posted here using their reader system, so you wouldn’t have to go to another site if I use this distribution system.
I’ve only ever used it when reading a comic 5-page preview on occasion. It’s okay, though I’d want to make sure that it’s accessible enough for mobile readers (I can’t recall if it is offhand)
The newspaper where I worked for many years used Issuu and it was nothing but trouble for our tech folks. Personally, I don’t think it’s anything special. It’s just a fancy PDF viewer which all browsers and platforms support anyway so I really don’t know what they offer shy of just exposure for your magazine.
I guess Issuu wouldn’t hurt but I’d put more stock into offering your PDF from your site and through existing mobile channels, if you can. I for one do a ton of reading on my iPad so whatever I want to read needs to be easy accessible through non-desktop devices.
I agree with Brian. PDF (while still Adobe) feels less proprietary a platform for your work, and more accessible.
Back when tfw2005.com released their magazine, pdf worked well. When I’ve located copies of CerealGeek magazine in .pdf they display well on my iPad as well.
Thanks for the feedback, guys!