Citizen Caned

Citizen Culture, which apparently is a "magazine for the young intellectual" - an oxymoron if I've ever heard one - is aiming to go digital in September.

Good news you might think ; but no, this is yet another example of publishers reaching for the digital opportunity as a last resort. Evidently the New York based publisher is in "hiatus" following a disastrous debut on the newsstand, so naturally enough they are looking to a digital version to give them a more sensible cost base and a wider readership.

Which of course begs the question - why didn't they do this in the first place ?

Future Imperfect

Unbelievably, Future have decided their new magazine "Click4More" (sic) should be published on the NXTBook platform.

Having tried (unsuccessfully) to woo readers with a downloadable magazine on Zinio for 99p, they are now evidently changing tack and going for an online product with yet another propietary system.

Have these people never heard of open source ?

April Fools

Zinio's attitude to the UK publishing fraternity lurches from the ridiculous to the absurd.

According to sources, in the early days of dealing with Zinio in the US, you had to basically get on a plane at your own expense and then present yourself at their offices if you wanted to use the system - the ultimate in self referral.

Now, having puffed the launch of a UK office, it appears that they are using a third party to approach smaller publishers.

Which is particularly ironic considering that their agents appear to have handled no one smaller than Associated Newspapers.