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Video narration is very popular with our Business plans. As such, we didn't want to restrict this capability to only our Business plans, and are making it available to our PRO plans as well now. PRO plans can now record up to 15 seconds of video narration per page of their booklet. Business plans can continue to record up to 1 minute of video narration per page.

We've released a new update for the map view in Collections. This is the feature where you can display your collection of Simplebooklets on a map and the booklets are placed based on their address.

This new update will allow you to put in a distinct physical address for each brochure you create. Previously we used the address you would add in your Business/Contact Card, but that didn't work in situations where the business card and the brochure required different addresses (for example with property feature sheets for realtors or menus for franchises).

To set up the correct address for your brochure, open it in the DESIGN tab and select Navigation. Then select COLLECTION ADDRESS and enter in the location address you want your brochure to appear in the map view of your collection.

Now when someone views your collection in the map view, your brochures will appear in the correct location.

Just a quick update today. We've rolled an improvement to our lead gate tool. Now you can select to have the lead gate appear on any page in your booklet. So a reader can flip through the first 2 or 3 pages, and then you can popup a lead gate requesting their email address or other information before they can continue to flip through your booklet.

To use this feature, open your lead gate in the DESIGN tab, then select a page you want it to appear on.

Stay tuned for some bigger updates next week.

We're excited to release two new updates today. A new Paywall Feature so you can charge people to access your Simplebooklet content with no fees, and a new way to quickly access Canva designed templates to import into your Simplebooklet account.

Sell Your Simplebooklet

Sell your magazine, newsletter, elearning course, or any content you publish on Simplebooklet. Readers from all over the world can purchase access to your booklet directly. You have total control of when the paywall appears and price you charge. Collect your revenue through Paypal. Simplebooklet doesn't charge any fees on your transactions.

You can add your own logo, your own price, a short description, and choose which page it is shown on in your booklet (so you can provide a preview of a few pages before they arrive at your paywall). All pages after the display of the paywall are hidden.

Once a purchase has been made, the reader is given a password they can use to access the booklet from any device. You can manage and track access of these purchases from the purchase management button in the publish tools.

You'll need a Paypal account and a Simplebooklet Business account to use this feature.

Canva Templates

You can access canva templates right from the Simplebooklet dashboard. It's now an option in the dropdown menu when starting a new Simplebooklet. Select the Use A Canva Template to get started.

You'll be able to choose what kind of template to start with and then will go to Canva to create your content. When done, make sure you have added the simplebooklet plugin for canva and export your new template design back to your Simplebooklet account so you can design the presentation and start sharing it everywhere.

BUSINESS plan update

We've made a change to how our Business plans work on Simplebooklet. Now, you can add an unlimited number of team accounts to your Business account. We are no longer charging for additional team accounts. This means you can add as many team members or clients to your Business account.

We have moved to a pool model for business account booklets. Your account starts with 200 concurrent simplebooklets. You and your team accounts can all pull new booklets from this pool of booklets. When you need more, simply purchase additional booklets for your Business plan and they will be available to you and your team accounts to pull from. We found this model will actually be more cost effective to our business plans, easier to manage, and will allow you to better balance your total concurrent booklets across accounts.

General Updates

We've updated a few features and fixed some bugs.

The launch icon for your installed booklets is now updated to better select the logo from your logo library. The launch icon will pull from the menu icon you add to your logo library.

The homepage and some of the sub pages have been updated. Stay tuned as we plan to keep updating our industry and features pages to make them easier to understand and provide guides to how to use Simplebooklet in your situation.

We've added some new clip art stickers to our EDIT tool. Examples are a SOLD sticker for our realtors and SOLD OUT for our retailers and event managers.

First and foremost, Simplebooklet was designed to make your boring old print communications more engaging and influential. We've added features like interactive buttons, embedded videos, and a whole lot of branding. We want your content to impress people and be authentic to who you are and what you are trying to communicate.

Over the last 10 months, one method of communication that we've all come to rely on is video conversations. They don't need high production values and we've all looked into a few home offices and living rooms during this pandemic. But one thing these videos have done is given us a face to see and a confidence to believe in the communicator on the other side of the video. We wanted to bring that same authenticity to your Simplebooklet presentations. So after a lot of work, we're excited to release our latest feature, video narration of your Simplebooklet.

https://simplebooklet.com/videonarrationdemo

simplebooklet.com/videonarrationdemo

Now you can narrate your Simplebooklet using your webcam and microphone.

We've taken a different approach to our video narration tool than many others.

Per Page Narration

Instead of trying to narrate the entire booklet as a video, you can record your video narration on a per page basis. This means you only have to record your narration on the page you want it to appear.

Auto Play or Manual

You can set your video narration to automatically start to play when your reader opens to your page. By default it requires your reader to tap on your video to start playing your narration.

Auto Page Flip

Want to keep your booklet flowing? You can set your page to flip automatically to the next page after your video narration has completed. This is a great way to walk a person through a presentation or slide deck.

Some great ways to use Video Narration are suggested below:

Learning Management Content

Keep people engaged with your content by guiding readers through the content found on your page and helping them better understand what's important. People retain an order of magnitude more information via video than text.

Presentations

Take your Google slides or Microsoft powerpoint and turn it into an automated presentation system. Record your talking points for each slide and automatically flip the slides when you are done. No need to be there when your Video Narration walks your audience through your deck.

Realtors

Let potential buyers and sellers see your passion for the properties you represent. So much of real estate transactions are built on confidence and trust in the realtor, so put yourself forward and let your clients know how much you are committed to what is most likely one of the biggest transactions in their lives.

Magazines and Ad Supported Content

Create video narration for your advertisers, highlighting a sponsorship of your magazine page. Just like we're used to podcasters and youtube personalities promoting products, you can do the same with video narration.

Product Highlights

Use your video narration to point out features or benefits of your product that aren't communicated on your page. Or even if they are, most people don't want to read a thousand lines of text to get to what you know is the most important part of the decision.

Travel

A quick testimonial or a personal reference of why a destination or activity is so great will go a long way to highlighting the benefits of your hotel, activity or tour. People are more excited when they get to hear from an expert before taking on a big trip or adventure.

We are making video narration available on a limited basis right now only to our Business plans as we learn how we can continue to improve and enhance this feature.

We were busy over the holiday break adding new features to make your Simplebooklet's even more engaging.

Slideshow Button and Link Hotspot

Now you can add a button or a link hotspot that triggers a slideshow of images and captions to launch fullscreen from your page. It's a great way to add additional photos to your page from a click of the mouse or a tap of the finger. To add a slideshow, open your booklet in the EDIT tab, then select the image button feature or the link hotspot feature. Upload your images, add optional captions, then place it on your page. Your slideshow will play in a fullscreen lightbox.

The slideshow feature is an enhancement to the old image button and image link hotspot feature. Select those same tools and you have the option of adding multiple images to your lightbox popouts beyond just a single image.

Cookie GDPR Notification Option

To meet the requirements of some customers, we've added the option to display a GDPR cookie notification when your booklet is first opened by the user. This will display a popup window with your cookie notification and the acceptance button to continue to view your booklet. It works even if you have a password requirement or a lead gate set up for your booklet.

Automatic Page Turning for Narration

Voice narration of your simplebooklet is a very effective way to keep your audience engaged. In our efforts to improve this feature, we've added a new automation feature. You can now set your booklet to automatically flip to the next page once your voice narration has completed playing on the page. This will help keep your presentation flowing as the pages will automatically transition. To use this feature, go to the DESIGN tab and select narration, then toggle on the automatic page flip. You can set the automatic transition per page.

We've updated how you can display your logo on your Simplebooklet. Instead of just one spot to place your logo, we've made it possible to upload up to 4 versions of your logo to be used in specific places on your Simplebooklet and the microsite and menus that go with it.

Previously, you could only upload one version of your logo to have it displayed in the browser tab, the navigation bar, the popup menus, and the microsite background. Now, with this update, you can have different logos that appear in each of those 4 areas. This means you can upload a properly sized logo for the browser tab, a different logo for the navigation bar, a different logo for the menus (about, contact, loading screen), and for the background of your Simplebooklet microsite.

To upload your logos, open your Simplebooklet in DESIGN, then tap the new LOGO button in the left hand column. Toggle the tabs to select which logo you want to upload and you are set.

You can also add a hyperlink to your logo. So when a customer taps on your logo, it will take them to your website (or really anywhere you send someone from the link).

We've released an update to our Simplebooklet replace tool. Now when you need to update your Simplebooklet with a new version of your PDF, but want to keep all of the elements you added to your pages through the EDIT tool (like link hotspots, buttons, etc..) you can. We've made it possible to choose to replace everything or to just replace the pages while keeping anything extra you've added.

To use this new feature, simply click the replace button for the Simplebooklet you want to update, then in the select menu, choose to replace only the pages and keep the elements, or choose to replace everything.

Thanks again for using Simplebooklet. We're excited by the features we are going to release in 2021, as suggested by you, our users.

Scott

Our Business Plans can now track analytics for each page in a booklet. We are providing analytics for each page with timelines and click actions taken by readers.

To access per page analytics, simply open your booklet in the analytics tab, then scroll to the bottom. You can then select a specific page or a range of pages to retrieve data. We'll generate an analytics card for each page you request. This page analytics card looks like this:

The date range of your page analytics are set by the date range in your booklet analytics page.

You can now create a custom form for your Simplebooklet. You can add multiple different fields, including select menus and file uploads, all from a drag and drop form builder. Once you've built your form, you can have form submissions sent to multiple email recipients as well as have all completed forms stored in your account.

Every field is customizable, so you can make each field collect the information you need.

When you add a form to your page, you can apply styles and customization so it looks completely integrated with your page.

You can add multiple forms to a single booklet.

You can learn more about forms here in our help section or go ahead and try creating one for yourself. Custom form builder is only available in our Business Plans.