Whether you’re publishing spontaneously or following a planned schedule, there are key things to have in place before your magazine goes live. How do you know when you’re ready? Here’s a handy dandy checklist of basics. Do you have…
…an amazing, illustrative cover image?
…a clear, relevant magazine name?
…an interesting topic or point of view?
You don’t have to know your selected topic inside and out when you make a magazine. However, you should be aware of the quantity and quality of content available. Is it a hot topic and does it have a lot of material to spare, or is it something that’s going to take you some time to research? If your category leans toward the latter, it may be worthwhile to keep your magazine private until you have enough material to constitute a few flips—in other words, you’ll probably want at least a few pages’ worth of content to make it feel like a real magazine. In the editor tools, you can toggle privacy on a new or existing mag by checking “Make this a private magazine” in the settings.
On mobile, visit any of your magazines by tapping “Edit,” then “Edit Magazine.” Move the slider left on “Let everyone see my magazine” to make it private.
When you’ve got everything in place, when do you make it live? Let’s take a lesson from journalists who ask themselves: “Is this newsworthy?” Similarly, is your magazine relevant? Is it timely? Giving your magazine temporal context can make a difference upon impact.
Time of day, week, month and year can matter for your readers on Flipboard. For example, record labels typically release new albums on Tuesdays. Strategically posting a music magazine could line up with people who are actively looking for new songs to listen to on that day. A coffee magazine would do better in the morning than at night. Halloween mags make more sense in the fall than in the summer and so on!
Don’t overthink the publishing process, either. Making magazines should be fun! If you’re into “evergreen” articles or material that is applicable year-round, you can pay attention to your readership and apply what you’ve learned to your next magazine. For instance, if I look profiles of the people who follow, like and reflip my posts and notice the majority of them are from a particular country, I can flip new items when our time zones overlap.
If you’re updating constantly then it also helps to set aside 5 minutes to review, clean out or reorder articles to augment the momentum and accuracy of your magazine.
For longer timelines of weekly or monthly magazines, you can mention your publishing schedule in your description so others know when to come back.
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How do you decide when you publish your magazines and articles? Tell us in a tweet @Flipboard !
~jdlv is curating “National Sneak Some Zucchini onto Your Neighbor’s Porch Day.”