CatStone Press

That said,  having been designing digital publications for small businesses for 3 years now, I felt the need to comment on the projected "simplicity" of the whole endeavor. Yes, publishers out there desperately NEED some simplification and need to begin wading into the waters of digital workflows. But to pretend that digital publishing is being handed to everyone on a simple, silver platter is doing publishers a disservice to say the least. The whole industry is somewhat of a murky ocean of potential and budding solutions right now. I felt this was on the verge of misleading with its "This is all you need to do."

First, to view the tutorial for yourself - and it is a nice, concise explanation if you want a broad overview of what Adobe is working on - go here.

Now that you're all excited about the possibilities - and you SHOULD be - let's think on it all for a bit. Here are my additional pointers as you try to evaluate what's a good solution for your publications:

1. You must consider the fact that, as a publisher in this scenario, you have likely already paid to design and publish your print magazine (unless you are brilliantly ahead of the pack and have monetized a purely digital magazine - in which case, please get in touch because I would love to talk more), so the work here is going to be IN ADDITION to the print design work already done. Whether that should be considered "simple" for the average joe's staff and budget, I'm not so sure. While designing several versions (and in this case complete layouts for vertical and horizontal orientation) of your magazine may turn out to be the necessary workflow in the near and foreseeable future, I firmly believe that a digital publishing workflow should strive to publish broadly with as few strokes as possible. I don't pretend to have even a "good" answer to this one yet, but I feel the jury is still out on the publishing options available and how they address the question of making your content as "nimble" as possible - meaning how easy is it for you to design and publish individual or aggregated articles that will reach the widest possible audience, brand your publication and create a loyal readership as well as pay for itself. It's complicated. 

2. I also firmly believe that you should aim your publications at ALL viable and popular reading platforms and that would include not just the iPad and print, but also desktops, laptops, mobile and tablets with other operating systems, like Android. And don't forget that e-readers such as the Kindle and Nook are popular and it wouldn't hurt to have your article content available on those as well. There is no mention here of the availability or the potential work involved in using Adobe's solution for numerous platforms. So even if it is "simple" to go to the iPad, what about the big picture?

3. Lastly, and I feel they are working to cover their own legitimate production costs while still developing a sales model; but there is no real discussion of COST here. Numerous products, rather widget-like, are mentioned as being components of getting to the iPad. How much will each of those cost in addition to the Creative Suite itself? I know for a fact that the projected costs of just one or two of these necessary components is very expensive. It has stopped in their tracks most small publishers with whom I've discussed this possible solution. I think Adobe (and other platforms) need to start coming clean with the ramifications of their cost structures to the publishing industry as a WHOLE and not just try to sweep in the big guys and then the masses with glossy tutorials and free BETA versions. The potential(?), imminent(?) departure from using Flash and/or PDF as a basis for digital publishing is presently a very costly change and the publishing community could use more straightforward information on the cost of doing business. 

Some platforms will tell you it's a necessity for smooth tablet or mobile reading (is there such a thing as easy mobile reading?) that we leave behind Flash's heavy use of bandwidth. Other's will tell you that the Flash issue is easy enough to overcome if everyone would work together on integrating the proper tools. In either instance, and I think there is legitimate work being done on both of those paths, I don't feel that rashly jumping on a platform just for its apparent simplicity with one digital reading option - the iPad - is the long-term, sanest move for any publisher who doesn't have a lot of cash and staff to throw around with experimenting. I do think Adobe products will likely offer a good nimble solution at some point - they are committed to their products and they will have to - but I'd like to see more honest discussions (and tutorials) on the options and costs and directions of their development. And in the meantime, they DO have some competition, so my advice is to look around before you make a leap.

My favorite options thus far are service providers (and software options) that are working towards true cross-platform solutions, that put that information out there clearly with what they have to offer right now and what's coming and that are thinking long term by marketing to the entire spectrum of publishers, from individuals to agencies to niche markets. 

Cross platform publishing is considerably more costly right now than Flash-based digital publishing, but in deciding, don't stop at cost but also carefully consider your target reader demographic - do you NEED the iPad or just want to hurry up and get there?  Then make an informed decision using these variables: your readers' preferences, the cost to you for the software or service provider, the training possibly needed for your own staff if you bring it all in-house,  the ways you can monetize your content on the various platforms and the long-term time and cost commitment of getting all your content versions out there. 

Take a deep breath, don't be fooled by "simple" and then embrace the new potential in a way that's best for your company.