Issuu – Experiments With Publishing Software
by Adam Robbert
I have just recently been made aware of Issuu, an online publishing service for magazines, websites, books, and journals. Having only briefly used the site this afternoon I cannot give a full review of the services yet, but so far things look promising.
In addition to offering users an intuitive interface with which to publish their work, the site also has a number of features that may be appealing to academics, freelancers, and writers who are interested in open-access or self-publishing models of content distribution. For example, the bottom border of the page contains options for sharing and embedding articles through email and social media sites directly.
One of the features that I find particularly compelling is that the software allows the publisher to generate live links within the article itself. The essay I tested the service with, for example, contains a link in the byline that takes the reader straight to my email. Similarly, one of the sources I cite in the essay is posted online, and if someone wants to click the link the original source shows up instantly in a new window.
As scholars continue to publish work online more frequently, I can see this kind of sharing, embedding, and linking becoming a standard citation practice that connects the article to the larger network of information from which it emerges. I have embedded a test essay below (it’s my first attempt at an object-oriented ecology that has been sitting on this site for some time now).
If you have a moment, it would be great to hear any feedback or thoughts you might have about the presentation, interface, and overall usability of the format. Feel free to leave comments below. Cheers.
Thanks, much obliged. I tested it by publishing my review of Harman’s THE THIRD TABLE, and it was quick and easy.
http://issuu.com/terenceblake/docs/how_to_philosophize_with_a_table
Looks great!
I just looked briefly at your paper and at the site more generally, and while I agree that it’s visually quite nice, I’m still left wondering what exactly the advantage is of using issuu instead of just setting up an academia.edu site and posting PDFs there. You can also embed hyperlinks into PDF documents, and you can link to your documents from all your favorite social media sites, blogs, etc. And you’re not dependent on another service that might at some point end or start charging. (Of course, that could happen to academia.edu as well, but you’d still have PDFs that work on any platform.) Maybe I’m overlooking something, though, and I’d be glad to hear what it is.
Best,
Shane
Hey Shane,
Some great comments. I don’t use academia.edu so I can’t be sure what the exact advantages or trade offs are, but it seems to me that a service like Issuu might be useful because it allows for multimedia content to be easily incorporated into your design layout creating the potential for everything from text-based essays, full journals, and visually intensive, magazine-style lay outs (of course some of this can also be done with the Adobe software, though I’m not sure how streamlined the user interface is).
Another thing I like about the share features on Issuu is that anybody can use them — whether they have an account or not — and this lets anybody reading the article embed it into any medium they want. For example, someone could read the article I have posted above, and share it to whatever networks they are a part of directly just by using the features found on-screen. This is appealing to me. At the end of the day I’m sure an approach that utilizes a diverse set of mediums/methods will be the best one, so there’s probably room to do both!
Thanks, Adam. You’re probably right that a mixture of methods/outlets is useful for many things. And I can definitely see your point about why you might consider hosting (open-acess) journals or magazines there. (Though one might want to look at the fine print to make sure that it does remain truly open access, and can’t be restricted at some point in the future…). As for hosting single essays and that type of thing, you should really check out academia.edu. I’m not trying to sell you on it, but I will say that what appeals to me about it is that it’s not such a walled community like Facebook or whatever, but that anyone – including people without accounts – have access to papers that I upload there, including the ability to download the full PDFs. The “social” side of the medium is not without benefits (I can see when people I “follow” upload a new paper or whatever), but the “social” side isn’t so dominant either (I don’t spend much time on the site, and there’s no time-consuming wall-banter or that type of thing). Still, it’s always nice to see what else is out there, so thanks for posting. And I’ll definitely read your take on “object-oriented ecology”!
[...] can see there are many different applications ISSUU publications offer. But that is not all. Adam Robbert points out the networking possibilities ISSUU can enhance. As scholars continue to publish [...]