ZinePal Hyperlocal Monetization Tool

Frank Worsley, is the founder and CEO of ZinePal.com, an online service which allows you to create printable PDFs and eBooks from any online content! Not only can ZinePal help you create your own hyper-local niche paper, but it also allows you to monetize this publication by adding advertisements and more.

Having worked with a web2print model (LocalsGuide) for the past 3 years I was excited to discover this service and thought you would find it interesting to learn more about how ZinePal.com might be able to work for you.{{{gold}}}

Frank, thanks for taking the time to do this interview with us. Can you tell us a little bit about the inspiration behind ZinePal.com?

My initial aim with ZinePal was to provide a way for alternative media to reach a larger audience. I read a lot of my news on the Internet, including some alternative sources besides the main stream media. I noticed that people are very receptive to reading when they are waiting somewhere, for example sitting in a coffee shop, riding the bus, waiting in a doctor’s office, etc. I thought it would be great if online media could easily turn their content into print publications and thereby reach this casual audience. This works particularly well for hyper-local blogs, although that is not all I had in mind. I figured anyone should be able to create their own niche paper and then distribute it as they see fit. Call it newspaper activism if you want. Wouldn’t it be cool if you could ride the bus or sit in a cafe and read an interesting niche paper with alternative content?

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How did you first start to get involved in publishing and where do you see it going with tools like ZinePal.com now available?

I don’t actually have any publishing experience prior to starting ZinePal. I got involved with publishing just through starting the site. One hope I have is that technologies like ZinePal will help newspapers find new ways to earn revenue. I think quality journalism is very important and it is sad that many newspapers are struggling to survive. I could see the ZinePal functionality be integrated into existing newspaper websites to enable users to create their own custom papers. That is a new value added feature that they could then charge for.

Do you see online communities, professional social networks starting to generate their own private label publications?

Absolutely. I think in a lot of cases they already do, except they manually convert their online content into PDFs for printing and emailing. A lot of users still like to receive a weekly or monthly e-mail newsletter that is formatted for easy reading. With ZinePal organizations are able to create their content once on their blog and then ZinePal automatically creates a PDF for them. The time savings here are significant.

How would you describe the end result of what ZinePal can create and how are most of your online clients currently using this service?

I think a blog “newsletter” is the best way to describe it. Most of my clients are using ZinePal to publish newsletters based on their blogs. This includes businesses, large institutions and individuals. It’s a great way for them to reach out to their customers by sending a regular e-mail newsletter or handing out printed copies.

Users with eBook readers are also using it to receive custom eBooks on their devices. This takes it more into the “personalized newspaper” space. The users basically build their own custom paper based on interesting feeds and then it is delivered to their eBook reader on a regular basis.

ZinePal – Now you are the editor! I like this quote, can you tell us more about your intention here in giving the editorial power over to what has traditionally been the user?

Haha, this really goes back to your first question and my initial ideas for ZinePal. I had imagined a site where anyone can create a newspaper and distribute it. This aspect is still possible since you can go to ZinePal.com and subscribe to papers created by other users. Instead of reading many different feeds to find interesting content you can subscribe to an “expert” user on ZinePal.com that publishes a zine that interests you. There are some users that do this, but I have not been focusing on that aspect of the site.

How do you see ZinePal growing and what niche is your company seeking to fill?

I think it’s really filling the niche between creating content online and reaching an offline audience. I know many businesses and professionals have started blogging, but they still have to create paper newsletters for their clients. With ZinePal you only have to create your content once on your blog and it automatically turns it into a nice printable PDF. Now you can e-mail the PDF, send a newsletter by mail or leave copies on the sales counter. It’s a really simple way to each new and traditional audiences.

The other aspect is crossing the boundary between web content and eBooks. ZinePal is an incredibly easy way to turn your existing content into an eBook. That opens up another growing market segment.

Right now I’m working to improve the formatting options for zines. I have some common requests from existing users that I want to address. I think this will allow people to take ZinePal to the next level and create even nicer publications. Another big features that I plan to add is a ZinePal API. This would allow the web-to-print and web-to-ebook functionality to be directly integrated with existing web sites. Both of these features should allow ZinePal to continue growing and attract more users.

Can you tell us a little bit more about the Pro version of ZinePal?

The Pro version includes additional features for customizing your zines. It also increases the limits on the number of stories you can include in a zine. For example, Pro users can add a custom logo and advertising images to their zine. That is very important for anyone that wants to monetize their publication. All new users receive one free month of Pro usage so they can get an idea of what’s possible.

I also understand that media that is generated from ZinePal can be read on the Amazon Kindle?

That’s correct. ZinePal outputs PDF, Mobipocket and ePub files. The Amazon Kindle uses the Mobipocket format, whereas most other eBook readers use the ePub format. Together the two formats cover most of the eBook readers on the market today and for everything else there is PDF.

What can we look forward to in 2010?

As I mentioned above I’m working on adding a lot more functionality for formatting and customizing zines. This includes things like cover pages, table of contents, variable paper sizes, etc. I hope to finish this in the near future. These are some missing features that have been frequently requested and should allow users to create much nicer publications.

After that I’m planning to roll out a ZinePal API. This will allow other developers to integrate the ZinePal functionality with existing web sites. I think this opens up some very powerful possibilities for content delivery via e-mail and eBook readers. In future I hope to see websites integrate this functionality to directly allow users to create their own customized newsletters from the site’s content.

Learn More At: ZinePal.com