Digital Self-Publishing Platform Blurb Expands to Offer Magazines and Brochures. From @wired

As publishing transitions into the digital space, that doesn’t mean we’ll have to abandon print entirely. In fact, Blurb has built a successful business by offering “accidental authors” an easy way to write and self-publish custom print books on demand, all through a digital platform. In May, the company added e-books, giving people a tool to publish their work as iPad and iPhone versions.

And now they can do the same for magazines and brochures – in both print and e-book formats.

Beginning Tuesday, Blurb will support magazine and brochure publishing using a plugin for Adobe InDesign. The company plans to have its own publishing tools eventually, but for now it wants to target businesses, creative professionals and photographers who are familiar with InDesign and want a streamlined and cheap way to publish their own content. It’s very similar to what HP has been offering with MagCloud, a print-on-demand service that independent magazines like Longshot Magazine have used.

“It’s an expansion play,” Blurb CEO Eileen Gittins told Wired. “Unlike a book, where for the most part it’s a solo effort, a magazine, because you can get contributions from others, is collaborative. That material can be more consumable. They will be much faster to produce, but more community-driven and with more issues. You might do four issues a year. We’ll see more volume and community-driven projects.”

Read on here....http://wtr.mn/TuzNoi