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We produce a monthly magazine for a local society and most of the readership are UK based so postage is no problem. They do have a small number of overseas subscribers (40 odd) and overseas postage is getting a bit expensive for them.
They are looking to put the magazine online for these overseas members, but this risks lowering their membership as people could read it for free. Is there any low-cost system out there that allows password protected online magazines?
Ta!
Do you host the website that the magazine is published to, or would it be possible to create a PDF of the magazine (instead of printing it) and just e-mail it out to people?
What format is it in?
What format is it in?
It's done in InDesign and normally output to PDF. Its not currently published on-line, just printed conventionally and posted to members.
would it be possible to create a PDF of the magazine (instead of printing it) and just e-mail it out to people?
Problem with this is people would just forward it on to other members and membership may decrease.
Password protect the PDF?
Problem with this is people would just forward it on to other members and membership may decrease.
They can do that with passwords too. They can also do that with physical copies of the mag to an extent.
The question to ask is how realistic is that? Do al your overseas subscribers know each other? Do they live close to each other? Are they ever likely to get together and start sharing digital copies of your mag (or share passwords to an online version)?
I'd guess that they probably wouldn't. In which case I'd suggest an emailed PDF as the simplest answer.
We use FileOpen at work for sending confidential PDFs to clients. You can restrict who has access to the download, restrict saving the file, even printscreens in some cases. It probably won't be economical for you though with 40 subscribers as you'd have to pass the costs on to them...
[url= http://www.fileopen.com/ ]FileOpen[/url]
[url= http://www.v-rooms.com/ ]V-Rooms[/url]
Depending on the size of your user-base you could invest in an "App Reader" which requires the user to login to read the magazine. Each user would then need a subscription to use the App.
Edit: Just seen the figure of 40 overseas readers.
You can limit access by geographical location, so if they're viewing from the UK then it shows the content, else redirects them to login and pay. BBC iPlayer and various other streaming sites work this way too.