This summer I helped develop and edit an
eBook anthology for the National Magazine Awards Foundation. The result--
Best in Magazines 2007-2012--is, I think, quite a page turner, and it's available completely
free via the iTunes
app store exclusively for iPad users.
The collection includes more than
30 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 can
download the app directly to your iPad
here and read more about it on the NMAF site
here.
One of the most striking elements of the collection is that each individual piece maintains the
look and feel of its original publication (
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.
The
portability of the content is the other great feature. The NMAF maintains an
online archive where 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 an
educational tool and a
leisure pursuit.
Finally, it's a great way to extend the naturally long life of
quality 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 is
only 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 the
NMAF and for Canadian digital magazine publishing.
If you have any
comments or feedback on the eBook, post them here or send them to me at
richard.johnson[at]magazine-awards.com.
