New eBook from the National Magazine Awards
on Richard Johnson (India), 05/Sep/2012 17:06, 34 days ago
This summer I helped develop and edit aneBookanthology for the National Magazine Awards Foundation. The result--Best in Magazines 2007-2012--is, I think, quite a page turner, and it's available completelyfreevia the iTunesapp storeexclusively for iPad users.The collection includes more than30 award-winning stories, covers and photography/ illustration collections: 4 of the top winners from this year's National Magazine Awards, and the rest collected from among the best of the past 5 years.You candownload the appdirectly to your iPadhereand read more about it on the NMAF sitehere.One of the most striking elements of the collection is that each individual piece maintains thelook and feel of its originalpublication (The Walrus, Explore, This Magazine, Maisonneuve, etc), while the platform allows for some dynamic interface with the content. It's an example of where digital magazine publishing is now, and a set of ideas as to where it may go in the near future.Theportabilityof the content is the other great feature. The NMAF maintains anonline archivewhere most of the finalists and winners from the past 5 years are available for free download in PDF format. The eBook is, in part, a repackaging of that archival content in a more user-friendly platform, one that travels well as both aneducational tooland aleisure pursuit.Finally, it's a great way to extend the naturally long life ofquality magazine content, as well as to promote those writers, artists and publications who produce it. Readers, I'm sure, will find themselves introduced to new mags, writers, photographers and illustrators that they might not otherwise have encountered.Unfortunately, for now this eBook isonly available to iPad users(not other eBook and ePub platforms), which is as far as our resources could stretch in the initial development. The hope is that this is the start of something bigger, both for theNMAFand for Canadian digital magazine publishing.If you have anycomments or feedbackon the eBook, post them here or send them to me atrichard.johnson[at]magazine-awards.com.