As readers' habits evolve, digital editions are making serious inroads into mainstream culture, encouraged by the growth in eReaders like Amazon's Kindle and Apple's new iPad. The major challenge now facing publishers is how to monetize digital editions and generate additional revenue, above and beyond the cost savings digital editions already demonstrate. This whitepaper looks at seven key ways of making digital editions pay.

1. How to make money from digital editions
Robert Elding ®
Marketing Director
YUDU Media

2. ®
How to make money from digital editions
Print magazines and newspapers are described as being in a ‘death
spiral’ with print inflation, advertising decline and online readership
migration seriously threatening their ability to operate profitably.
Print inflation across ink and raw pulp has been significant whilst biennial
Royal Mail post increases have further eroded margins. The latest postage
increase, in April 2010, will see rises of 8% for larger items.
Meanwhile, advertising publishing revenue has plummeted by an average
of 10% or more in the UK, with some groups like Trinity Mirror seeing
declines of as much as 25%
Overlaid on top of this is a structural transformation with many readers
choosing to consume media online rather than in print. In January 2010,
the UK’s Daily Telegraph reported sales falling below 700,000 for the very
first time yet its website is seeing visitor numbers in the tens of millions per
month making it, ironically, one of the world’s most popular news sources.
1

3. Digital Editions
As readers’ habits change and evolve, one technology making rapid
progress is the digital edition, also known as ‘digital magazines’ or ‘e-books’.
Essentially an online publication that allows users to turn pages as though
reading a printed version, the technology is making serious inroads into
mainstream culture. Encouraged by the growth in eReaders like Amazon’s
Kindle and Apple’s new iPad, The US Book Industry Study Group found that
one in five US books were now being bought as digital edition ‘eBooks’.
Digital edition technology is being used by newspapers, trade and
consumer magazines, as well as catalogue retail companies. The versatility,
global reach and cost savings (80% or more over the printed versions) of
digital editions make them an ideal solution that responds to the structural
changes in publishing as well as the precipitous decline in sales and
advertising revenues.
There’s also very little additional work for companies and publishers to set
up online and test the effectiveness of digital editions - it can be as simple
as uploading your current print content; a digital edition can then be
created in minutes.
The major challenge now facing publishers is how to monetise digital
editions and generate additional revenue above and beyond the cost
savings digital editions already demonstrate. This whitepaper looks at
seven key ways of making digital editions pay, both on a day-to-day
operating basis and on a yearly net profit basis.
2

4. 1 Sell Digital Ad Space.
The simplest way to make money
using digital editions is to sell
advertising space within the digital
publication itself. Publishers can
charge advertisers an additional
fee to include interactive or
multimedia elements on the ads
that appear in the printed edition.
Digital editions also make
it possible to easily include
additional digital-only pages of
advertising, enabling you to sell even more full page/half page/quarter
page ad space than your printed edition.
There are also numerous other possible advertising or sponsorship opportunities
within a digital edition - including ‘page 0’ that sits to the left of the cover, the
edition loader, the toolbar and even a digital ‘belly band’, which acts as a wrap-
around the publication, much the same as it’s offline counterpart.
In addition to the prime spaces mentioned above, or perhaps for those who
prefer not to use those spaces for advertising, there’s also SmartTABS. Essentially
these are tabs that sit within a digital edition, without obscuring its content,
which allow for almost unlimited additional advertising space. The tabs run along
the inside edge of the page and can be opened automatically as the reader turns
the page or when the reader clicks on them. These can include video advertising,
static or flash adverts.
3

5. 2 Ad Network Streaming.
One of the most powerful methods of monetising digital editions is
through ad network streaming. What is it? It is the process whereby
a third party ad network streams its relevant and targeted advertising
inventory into the pages of a digital edition. There is no need for
publishers to have a sales department, sales manager or front line
sales staff. There’s very little time or effort needed from the publisher
to set it up, and the ads can be streamed in without re-laying or
obscuring the publication’s content.
Once the ad network have placed the advertising inventory, publishers
will earn a percentage of ad revenue, based on the publication, audience
and page impressions.
Up until 2010, the technology never existed for ads to be streamed
directly into digital editions from an ad serving network. However,
unique developments by YUDU Media has seen the world-first ‘flash in
flash’ technology for digital publishing – allowing static, flash or video ads
to be streamed into digital editions from an ad serving network.
It’s a quick, simple and incredibly effective means of making money from
digital editions, made even more powerful by the minimal input required
from publishers.
Please email smartads@yudu.com for further information.
4

6. 3 Sell your publication in an
online store.
Putting your digital magazine into an online subscriptions store is
hassle free, quick and has a number of associated benefits. First, the
online subscriptions store will typically be a high traffic website so you
immediately get a readymade audience. Commission rates will vary
but expect a 75%/25% sales split in your favour.
A second benefit is that
an online subscriptions
store will make your
publication available to
a worldwide audience,
helping you to increase
your circulation and
attract more subscription
sales.
This gives you access to literally billions of English speakers across Africa,
Asia, Europe, the Americas and Australasia. Worldwide demand for English
and UK-sourced content has never been higher with more than half of
many UK news publishers’ audiences originating from abroad. As one
example, nearly 70% of the Mail Online’s readership is based outside the
UK.
Online digital edition stores are often well ranked in search engines and
so can greatly help your publication’s search engine visibility, giving you
access to billions more customers than you could possibly achieve offline
or if you sold your editions from your own website alone.
5

7. 4 Use digital editions to
build a prospect database.
Digital editions can allow you to collect email
addresses and therefore build an invaluable
opt-in database of readers or interested
customers. It’s quite straightforward - you
make it a condition for readers to input their
email address before being allowed to open
and view the digital edition.
If your content is strong, readers will be happy to give their email address
away in order to read it. The cost of buying-in such high quality data
- people who have a guaranteed interest in your title or products – is
extremely high and so the savings are immeasurable. In addition to that,
you can subsequently use the data to generate additional revenue.
Another clever trick is to offer free back-issue, or some other kind of free
content, in return for an email address. If the people viewing the back-
issue don’t subsequently purchase or subscribe, you can target them with
special offers via email. Conversion rates can be extremely high as it’s
a quality database of people who are already interested in your title or
products.
If you build a large prospect database, you can also consider sending co-
branded emails and third-party offers from relevant parties. This can all
add revenue to your bottom line for little effort.
6

8. 5 Reach new audiences
‘Cross-platform’ .
Digital technology is progressing and more platforms are becoming
available for users to view material on. This will allow publishers to
monetise their digital editions more easily through wider reach.
YUDU Media will this year announce a digital edition solution that will
allow publishers to ‘publish once to everywhere’; meaning your readers will
be able to see your publication on all mobile and eReader platforms. The
technology will do away with the need to produce a new and expensive
digital solution for separate mobile platforms. This will save on costs and
simultaneously allow- publishers to monetise their digital editions more
easily through wider reach.
7

9. 6 Utilise Search Engine
Optimisation. (SEO)
If your online publication is highly ranked on leading internet search
engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN etc it will mean that more people
will find it more easily. This in itself can help you monetise your digital
edition in different ways.
For example, increasing
its visibility could lead
to increased title or
subscription sales
and also increased ad
revenue if using ad
network streaming,
due to higher page
impressions.
A few digital edition providers such as YUDU Media use search engine
optimised technology. This lets consumers find your publication
and its content directly over the internet using keywords thereby
enhancing page views and readership levels.
Reciprocal web links from a digital edition to your main website will
additionally help your site’s SEO ranking.
8

10. 7 Earn from ‘in-title’ or digital
catalogue sales.
One of the secrets of digital editions is that products can be sold from
within a magazine’s pages – this isn’t just a feature available only with
digital catalogues. Products that are showcased in magazines can be
directly hyper-linked to the retailer’s e-commerce sites and purchased
immediately.
Magazine publishers can charge retailers a percentage of the sales
generated via the digital magazine, in essence acting as an affiliate
marketing channel - so long as the relevant deals can be set up with the
retailer(s).
This allows digital magazines to (almost) fulfil the same functions as a
digital catalogue – more than one high street fashion giant is using its
customer magazine to allow readers to purchase merchandise via direct
click-through from the product photos to the product on the ecommerce
site.
For catalogue publishers or retailers, YUDU Media has recently launched
an eCatalogue add-on entitled ‘SmartCAT ®’. Already a winner at the 2009
ECMOD Supplier Awards, the technology is an intelligent management
system that gives catalogue publishers or retailers a variety of swift
product ordering options direct from the digital edition. SmartCAT
harmonises the prices and product details between digital editions and
websites, saving retailers from wasting hundreds of man hours trying to
ensure both channels match each other in terms of data and prices.
9

11. Conclusion
At a time of huge structural change, new opportunities are born as the
old ways die. Publishing is no different and those publishers who rely
on old paradigms will soon find it too late to change.
Digital editions are part of the new paradigm and provide a far greater
range of monetisation possibilities than many people realise.
By using some or all of the digital techniques and solutions outlined in
this whitepaper, not only will you have a far greater chance of sustainable
revenue for your publication, you will also be far ahead of many of your
competitors.
Allied to the fact that the entry level cost of a basic digital edition is
free - all that is needed is a PDF – the question to ask is “are you using
digital editions? If not, why not?”
If you would like to see your publication transformed into a digital
edition for free, please contact the YUDU team on:
(+1) 888-367-9838 (USA) / (+44)0870 760 9258 (UK)
email sales@yudu.com
10

12. ®