Owing to the massive response we’ve had from users who publish newsletters and mini-mags, we’ve added a new pricing plan. Called ‘Tiny’, it costs just $15 per month. It allows 90 pages per flatplan in five active flatplans.
Go to www.blinkplan.com/pricing for more info.
A user from Ireland sent us a great idea, which we’re sure many of you will be able to use:
“I’ve made five different editorial page categories, all in different colours. I use these colours to track our progress – for example, blue pages have been sent to print, and green ones have still to be designed.”
We’ve had loads of positive feedback for Blinkplan (http://www.blinkplan.com). Here are a few samples:
“Bloody brilliant idea. This is a winner.”
“You’ve certainly nailed a basic industry need that was surprisingly hard to find on the web. Building these things in Excel or Word is not impossible, but not nearly as simple as you make it.”
“Love the software. Well done!”
After a few user requests, we added a “spanning” feature. It saves time if you’re flatplanning a long story, for example a fashion shoot. If you’re putting content on a page with a full-page template, and the following pages are empty (ie, they have question marks) full-page pages, an option will appear in your page menu. You can use this menu to choose whether you would like the following pages to be repeats of the first page – anywhere from two to ten repeats can be done.
Blinkplan went live just under two weeks ago, and the response has been very positive. We’ve upgraded our server capacity to cope with the number of sign-ups. It amazed us how quickly the news spread: within a few days of launch, magazine folks from the UK, the USA, Germany, South Africa and Russia had signed up. Quite a few big international consumer titles are using Blinkplan, as well as many custom and contract magazines.
The Blinkplan Blog is now launched. Not to a huge fanfare - more or less just to a click of the “Publish” button - but nevertheless - it’s launched.
Now what - you may ask - does this all mean? Well, it means that here Kerry and I will let you know about product updates, news, and tips & tricks. You are welcome to comment on any of our posts. We like meeting our customers.
And if you are wondering what Blinkplan is, then let me tell you: Blinkplan is the easiest way to create pagination - or flatplans - for magazines. Or in other words, flatplan software. It’s real cheap, it’s real easy to use, and we love it. Especially the PDFs it creates - that’s my favourite part.
Anyway. Be sure to subscribe to our feed to keep up to date.
From BizCommunity:
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The brains behind the program are Joerg Diekmann, a ninja software designer with over 12 years’ experience in building web applications and Kerry Rogers, a former managing editor (and flatplan-maker) of one of SA’s top-selling magazines, with eight years’ editorial and production experience in consumer and custom magazines.
Says Rogers, “As far as we can tell, there is nothing else like it on the market - most other options either expensive or not tailored to magazines. Blinkplan is a 100% South African product. A year and a half of tech expertise has gone into it, and it has been extensively tested on a major SA consumer title.”
Little puzzle with eight squares
A magazine flatplan is like one of those little puzzles with eight squares that, when arranged correctly in their plastic frame, form a picture. It takes a lot of shuffling to get one right. And like the puzzle, a flatplan usually involves a lot of re-doing, time-wasting and hair-pulling. Normally there are three ways of generating a flatplan: spreadsheets, design packages and all-inclusive systems.
Once you think you have the correct number of pages, you need to count the ads to make sure you haven’t missed one, and you can count on someone interrupting you just as you reach the end, causing you to have to start again.
And just when you’ve established that you have the correct number of ads, editorial pages, advertorials, etc, chances are you’ll realise that the DPS on page 100 would be better off on page 10. Then begins the process of manually shifting 45 DPSs along one slot in order to relocate the spread.
In the meantime, an impatient team is asking you, ‘What’s taking so long? It’s just a bunch of blocks!’
Blinkplan is a secure online package that is supposed to be cost effective and simple, and, among other things, it:
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