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eMagazines was founded three years ago to create mobile magazines for smartphone and desktop platforms without the need to develop a bespoke app. The company has always had a virtual ethos, making it especially suited to helping publishers during the Covid-19 lockdown especially those who need to pivot their publications to digital quickly. WNIP caught up with its founder, Andrew Degenholtz, to find out more…
Can you give us some background about your company?
I graduated from Northwestern University’s Medill School, where I studied marketing and developed a lifelong love of good products and good storytelling. I have always been a “product guy” and I am comfortable talking about practical tech solutions with engineers. I turned my attention to magazines when I saw that digital and mobile readers were getting a disjointed experience trying to access the same content with a smartphone that you could pick up at a newsstand. We read magazines to be captivated, informed or inspired, but none of those experiences were possible with so many hoops for a reader to jump through en route to their mobile content. I founded eMagazines to make those stories and experiences more readily and easily accessible.
As regards our company, we currently have ten team members working out of our main office in Chicago with six more spread across the U.S. from New Jersey to California.
What business problem is your company addressing?
Covid-19 and the resulting worldwide quarantines have forced many magazine publishers to find new ways of remotely reaching their audiences. eMagazines solves that problem with a replacement digital edition that looks good on every device from smartphones to desktops.
What is your core product addressing this problem?
eMagazines has created a frictionless way for readers to access high-quality magazine stories while keeping the content secure for publishers. Subscribers can read full issues on or offline without needing to download an app or create an account requiring another password to remember. In the middle of a pandemic, digital and mobile content that’s both vibrant and easy to access has taken on a whole new significance. Whether providing content for educators working to reach students with virtual lessons or making your favorite magazine safely and easily available, eMagazines can meet the need.
Can you give some examples of publishers successfully using your solution?
Children, parents and teachers today face the unprecedented challenge of redefining remote education in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. To give them the resources they need, eMagazines partnered with TIME for Kids to make their digital library freely accessible to parents and teachers of children in kindergarten through eighth grade. Now available in both English and Spanish, our mobile-optimized digital editions support audio and allow teachers to securely share their library with students.
Pricing?
eMagazines has built its own internal software that not only makes processing magazine content more efficient, it also enables us to transfer savings to our customers, charging only for production and a nominal fee based on subscription list size. We keep our costs low and our production quality high, optimizing content for mobile platforms and maintaining the integrity of all fonts, images and layouts. But because our competitors don’t have our software automation, they pass the work and costs on to publishers.
What are other people doing in the space and why?
Most digital edition providers use static replicas of print magazines that require a reader to pinch and zoom their way across a mobile screen to read it. Others sell expensive software that builds native apps which users will have to download before they can access any content. Both requirements result in a fragmented, frustrating experience.
We’re using our passion for content and appreciation for vivid storytelling to bridge the gap between the reader and digital magazines – something even more important as people look to digital publications for connection, inspiration and information.
How do you view the future?
eMagazines partners with magazine publishers because we believe in their work. They create high quality content that is reliably sourced by ethically driven journalists, and it is their compelling stories that inform and educate us, inviting us to see the world in a new way. Facts and their clear presentation are more vital than ever before as people across the globe navigate the Covid-19 health crisis and seek connection and inspiration through well-researched, beautifully produced content. eMagazines is on the side of the storytellers, making their narratives available remotely to all.
Thank you.
