It's really big. We're giving you some amazing new tools to customize the presentation of your simplebooklet, improving workflow so its faster and simpler to make a simplebooklet, and improving a number of promotion tools. First, the big one.

Microsite Presentation

So, what is a microsite layout for your simplebooklet?

First impressions matter. Think of the microsite as the stage your booklet is displayed on. It's what makes the first impression before customers even start to read your content.

But sometimes its easier to see it to understand it. Here are three examples of the exact same booklet using five different microsite layouts.

• Modern Presentation
• Minimalist Presentation
• Icon Only Presentation
• Embedded Presentation
• Mobile Presentation

You can now customize the whole presentation of your booklet at its URL. This is all done from the new DESIGN tab.

You can do the following:

1. Add custom backgrounds or choose one of our hand picked backgrounds.
2. Choose where the nav buttons that support your booklet are located (along the top or bottom, icon buttons or text).
3. Choose which buttons appear with a simple toggle on or off switch.
4. Customize each button's content that appears in the popout modal when tapped.
5. Customize the page turn button that flips pages in your booklet (choose size, position, arrow type, color, and shape).
6. Choose the page animation when a user transitions from one page to the next.
7. Choose the size the page default opens when a customer opens your URL.
8. Add or remove a page shadow (helps to integrate a booklet page into the website background).

We've also improved the presentation control you have over the embed version of your booklet. You can:

1. Turn on or off the supporting nav buttons.
2. Choose to display those buttons either on the top, bottom, or in both top and bottom navbars.
3. Add page turn buttons that float on the sides of the booklet in embed.

Configurable Embed Code

You can now configure how your navigation buttons and layout work with the embedded version of your simplebooklet. You'll be able to choose where your nav bar appears, which buttons appear on it, and if your booklet has page turn buttons. All of this in a more updated, modern toolset and look.

Improved PDF Conversion

We've improved the conversion process for your PDFs to use our advanced link enabler in existing PDFs (this is a beta feature and doesn't work for all PDFs).

Improved Authoring

We've reduced the number of steps involved in authoring your booklet. Anything that involves content inside your pages is edited from the EDIT tab. Anything to do with how your booklet is presented is configured from the DESIGN tab.

Get a glimpse of what it looks like in the PREVIEW tab, then start distributing your booklet through all the channels available in the PROMOTE tab.

Improved User Interface

We've cleaned up and improved a number of the tools and the buttons that activate these tools. Hopefully they are more intuitive and consistent across the app as you use the various customization features.

New, Simpler Pricing

We've improved the subscription plans we have for simplebooklet. You can now choose between two plans. With either plan, you can purchase additional booklets to add to your account. Only purchase as many more booklets as you need. Each plan contains features specifically requested by users, so you don't have to pay for features you don't use, and you can get the features you really want at a well priced value.

We're excited to see what our users create and promote with their simplebooklet account.

Thanks, Scott

We've made some updates to the simplebooklet platform for our PRO plans.

Pro subscribers can now download in an excel spreadsheet the data collected through a lead gate in their booklet. The email, phone and name of the person who completed the lead gate will be listed under the booklet it was captured on. The spreadsheet will also contain all the booklets and their corresponding data. As an xlsx file, you can import it into any crm or sales funnel program you use or just leave it in the spreadsheet format.

We've also implemented wildcard custom domains. This means when you set up a custom domain on simplebooklet for your booklet and galleries, we'll automatically update them to https:// secure links. This is very important as Google has made it mandatory that sites are secure or will be marked as unsecure and also ranked lower in their database. You will not need to purchase an SSL cert for your custom domain as we will automatically do this for your account at no cost (SSL certs can run to 200$ a year at some hosting providers).

Going PRO with simplebooklet just became even better.

Thanks, Scott

Okay, we've been busy. We're rolling a new update that adds new features and improves existing ones.

Images

We have completely rebuilt the way images are handled in your booklet pages. Now you can upload an image from your computer or from a link on the web. This is handy for pulling in images from various cloud drives or web sources you have access.

You also add and manage your images differently than you did in the past. Now, you select an image block from the image menu and drag it onto your page. You can select from:

1. Small - this is an image that is optimized for 240 pixels wide.
2. Medium - this is an image that is optimized for 600 pixels wide.
3. Large - this is an image that is optimized for 800 pixels wide.
4. Fit To Page - this will scale the image to fit within your page.

Select an image block that is closest to the size of the image you want on your page. This will allow us to better optimize your image for clarity and size so your booklet loads faster and still looks great. You can still resize the image on the page once it's there, but this will help optimize that image closer to your intended use.

Images will not scale beyond their natural size (except in the fit to page image block) so the quality of your image doesn't degrade.

Double tap on the image placeholder to replace the image placeholder and upload your own image.

Editing Images

When you drag an image block over to your page, it is represented with an image placeholder. By double clicking on the image placeholder, you will reveal the image toolbar.

Tap the replace button. This will open the upload menu to select and upload a new image.

You can upload an image from your device or from a weblink to an image somewhere on the internet. You can also open tap the folder icon to access images you've already uploaded previously to your simplebooklet account. This is great for images you use often, like logos.

The new image will resize the image to fit within the constraints of the image box.

You can also add alternative text to the image to ensure that your images are also available to screen readers.

Image Templates

We've also included image templates (and will add more soon). These are pre-formatted layouts of images and text combined to help speed the creation of pages in your booklets. These include an image and a text block, both of which you can edit.

Clipart

The new image functionality has allowed us to add clipart to our Content tools. These are SVG images that can be scaled to any size without losing their quality. You can drag and drop any clipart item onto your page, then resize and rotate it to fit your page. You can even overlay text boxes to provide additional information in the clipart (like badges).

Clipart is also very useful for creating your own buttons. By using the element toolbar link function and the style toolbar, you can make engaging buttons that trigger an action you want to happen when the reader taps on your new button.

The old shapes tool has also moved into the clipart menu. You drag a shape onto your page, then resize it and layer it on your page, then use the style tools to change it's background color and other style features.

Settings

We've added a few more controls in the booklet settings menu. These tools allow you to universally apply certain settings to all your existing and future booklets (they set booklet defaults so you don't have to every time you create a booklet).

New features include:

1. Ability to set the visibility of your booklets to search engines (basic subscription required).
2. Ability to set your logo for all new booklets (pro subscription required).

When you use a booklet setting, you can still override them on a per booklet basis. Just open the booklet and modify that particular setting.

Odds and Ends

We've also added a few more improvements during all of this work.

1. Two new text blocks to add to your page.
2. Improved naming to the menus in the Content Tab.
3. Moved shapes into the clipart menu.
4. Changed the Advanced tool name to Code.
5. Changed the toolbar buttons to squares and moved the element buttons to the top left corner of the content element.
6. Bug fixes, so many bug fixes.

Just a quick update that rolled friday before a more significant one coming in the next two weeks.

Email Notifications

As part of our commitment to GDPR, we've made your email notification options more obvious on your dashboard. You can now turn on and off the various emails we send you about your booklets from the right hand column of your dashboard. Just select a toggle to turn it on (bright orange) or off (grey).

You can change these settings at anytime. Also, all your GDPR information is available and manageable by you in the YOUR ACCOUNT menu.

Deleting Booklets

Deleting booklets from your dashboard is much faster now. Select the delete button beside your booklet then hit enter. The booklet will be removed. You don't have to wait for the dashboard to refresh, it's automatically updated.

Improved Element Toolbars

The element container is the box that holds your actual content. Every image, button, text block, video, and code is stored in an element container. We've made it easier to style and manage the container (not the interior contents) by simplifying the left hand toolbar and displaying a new style toolbar.

These two toolbars open the moment you single click on any content element (you can tell it is selected when the 4 yellow dots appear in each of the corners). Double clicking allows you to edit the actual content.

The element toolbar allows you to turn the container into a hyperlink to weblinks, phone numbers, emails, and even to other pages. You can also move an element container above or below other elements on your page. You can use the copy and paste tool to duplicate your element and contents onto other pages. You can also set your container to repeat on all your pages.

The style tool that appears on the right allows you to style the container. You can style the border and the background of the element. This can be terrific for putting text elements into cards, a frame for your photos and videos, and even style your call to action buttons.

We hope you enjoy these new updates.

Thanks, Scott

We've been busy working on an entirely new way to add and edit text on your simplebooklet page. Our goal was to make text editing more intuitive and robust. To do this we've implemented on page editing (you don't create your text in a separate popup anymore), improved the toolbar, and created templates to help you add text faster and with the layouts you want.

Adding Text To Your Page

This still takes place in the CONTENT page under the TEXT menu. However, when you select this option, you will now choose between a number of preformatted text boxes. These text boxes all contain prebuilt layouts to make adding custom text to your pages faster.

There are four categories of text boxes, found by clicking on the corresponding tab along the top of the text menu:

1. paragraphs
2. headers
3. lists
4. columns

Paragraphs

You can add a blank text box onto your page. This allows you to add any content you want on your page and use the text editing tools to style it as you want.

You can also add a pre-formatted text box to your page. This has replaceable text copy in the text box. You simply highlight the text and type in the content you want.

Headers

There are a number of headers you can choose from to add to your page.

Lists

There are some premade lists you can add to your page. These lists have a number of different formats for the bullets.

Columns

These are paragraph text boxes that automatically distribute your text across two or three columns.

Click and hold then drag any text box onto your page. It will be placed in the location you drop it on your page. This is much more intuitive as it places your text content where you expect it on your page.

Once you've added your text box to the page. You can then double click to start editing the text content.

In Page Editing

There are two ways to start working with your text and text box once it is on your page.

Single Tap

This will activate your text box so you can move it and resize it on your page. You can also use the layering, rotation, and linking tools in the content toolbar on the left. You cannot edit the text with a single tap.

Double Tap

This will activate the text editor. The page will focus on the text and you can update, edit, and use the text editor toolbar to style your text. Tapping anywhere outside the text box will save your edits.

When you want to edit any text on your page, all you need to do is double tap anywhere in the text box. This will isolate the text on the page and insert the cursor into the text.

You can type in new text or highlight and replace existing text.

When you highlight any part of the text, it will open up the text toolbar. This will give you access to a number of style and formatting tools you can use with your text.

Once you are done, click anywhere outside your text box, the save button, or the save disk in the text toolbar. This will save your text to your page.

Resizing Text

You can resize the text box on your page to fit your layout.

Grab a corner of your text box from one of the little yellow dots, then drag it in any direction to fit your page. The content will respond to the new size and fit within the confines of your text box.

Font Themes

We've added new font themes to simplebooklet. These themes will change the font family and sizes of all the text in your booklet. It sets a theme for your booklet.

Select a theme from the themes menu. It will automatically apply to your entire booklet.

Themes are not applied to text that you have customized using the text toolbar. For example, if you selected a font family and a text size using the text tool, it will use that formatting and ignore the theme formatting.

Delete Multiple Pages

We've just updated the delete pages tool. You can now delete one or many pages all at once.

To use the new delete pages tool, go to the CONTENT tab for your booklet.

1. Tap PAGES then DELETE PAGES.
2. You'll get a popup window displaying all the pages in your booklet, including the current page you are on in the top left corner.
3. Tap on all the pages you want to delete. A red trash can will appear over the page.
4. Tap the DELETE SELECTED PAGES button at the bottom of the page.

Poof, your pages are gone.

You can also use the keyboard shortcut to tap shift, then select a range of pages you want to delete all at once.

New Blog

We've also started a new blog to help people get more from their account. We'll be filling it with tips and tricks so you can use some less known marketing and design ideas to boost the promotion of your booklets. These are all suggested strategies that we've seen great results from in other booklets promoted by our users.

https://simplebooklet.com/blog/index.html

UI Updates

As always, we're constantly working to improve the UI, so we've tweaked a number of buttons and layout issues to make the app easier to use.

1. Removed the tooltip on the tabs along the top.
2. Added the link account button to the dashboard nav bar.
3. Unified some modal colors.
4. Improved image handling on the server.

Please, don't hesitate to contact us with feature improvements you think we can make.

Thanks, Scott

We've just rolled a new update to your dashboard and the placement of the nav bar for your published booklets on a desktop. these updates should make the dashboard more accessible and bring consistency to the navigation experience across all devices.

New Dashboard

We've cleaned up and streamlined the display of the dashboard on simplebooklet. We did this for two reasons: 1, to improve the focus and user interface and make it easier to make and manage your booklets, and, 2, to prepare for our major update we are planning to release this quarter.

The dashboard has a much bigger upload tool, with a clearer display of the file types you can upload.

The display of all simplebooklets you have already created are also cleaned up and placed down the left column of your dashboard. You can search your booklets if you have quite a few.

You can go immediately to the sharing tools of your booklet from the PROMOTE button. This gives you access to all of the sharing and promotion tools for your booklet, as well as editing the URL of your booklet.

The EDIT button takes you to the presentation of your booklet. You can then select the CONTENT editor or add new ACTION buttons and links to your booklet from this tab.

Along the right side of the dashboard, you can access your account, access the booklet galleries you've created, and set your custom domain.

New Navigation Bar For Desktop Booklets

We've updated the navbar used to navigate your booklets for desktop users. We've moved it from the top of the screen to the bottom. This is to maintain consistency with your mobile and tablet views of your booklet. It's also a best practice when displaying content horizontally instead of scrolling vertically. It should allow for your content to be even more in focus for your readers.

The nav bar now extends across the entire bottom of the screen. It is also opaque to allow the background color to come through yet not interfere with the visibility of the buttons.

Other bug fixes and UI improvements

1. When switching between content, actions, and presentation, you will now stay on the same page of your booklet (no longer goes back to the first page).
2. We upgraded our text editor to support copy and paste from Word better, as well as adding the underline and italics format.
3. We've added the download button to the mobile nav bar so your mobile readers can download your booklet as a PDF to their phone and tablet.
4. We updated the page flip tool to be a little easier to use.
5. We made the color palette more consistent across the application.
6. We improved our WIX plugin tool to make it quicker and be better integrated with the simplebooklet app itself.
7. We cleaned up the Contact Card toolset.
8. We made it possible to log into your account on your mobile device and open your booklets from your dashboard straight from your phone.
9. All buttons and icons have been turned into svg icons from font-family icons. This improves the clarity and sharpness on all devices and when scaled inside the booklet.
10. WIX users who upgrade through WIX will now see their upgrade status as PREMIUM WIX to conform to the naming on WIX plugins. This is equivalent to a BASIC account on simplebooklet.
11. Improved the instructions and workflow for setting up your custom domain.

All of these updates will help us prepare you for our next release, containing improvements in conversion, more page flip options, a complete overhaul of the content creation engine, and improved emailing capabilities as well as call to action buttons.

As always, your feedback is very important to us. Email us anytime at support@simplebooklet.com and we'll respond as quick as possible.

We've improved the navigation and button icons on simplebooklet. We are now using fontawesome5's new svg icons. This allows our icons to stay sharp at any scale and be faster to load.

They also look more modern for today's web design. You don't need to do anything to start using them, they automatically are integrated into your simplebooklets.

This is a pretty big update that sets us up for some bigger releases in the coming months. A lot of updates took place under the hood to improve the peformance of simplebooklet, but you will also see a significant update to the User Interface, the Workflow, and some new tools.

This update focuses on the distribution and promotion of your simplebooklet, designed to help you get more eyeballs and follow ups from readers of your great content. To make this happen, we've made the following updates:

User Interface

The dashboard has been streamlined and now includes a highlights section, screenshots of your booklet cover page in the list view of YOUR SIMPLEBOOKLETS, and a clearer upload box so you know you can upload different formats.

The Workflow

We've also updated the workflow. Now, the focus is on promoting your booklet. With that goal in mind, we changed share to promote, created a new performance tool to improve your distribution called Optimize, and got everything working on the Analytics page.

In the menu for your simplebooklets, you will now select from two drop down menus. PROMOTE has quick access to all the ways you can promote and distribute your booklet, as well as access to your optimization and analytics tools.

The second drop down menu is EDIT, which contains all the tools you need to create and configure your simplebooklet for promotion.

This has allowed us to mentally create two stages for your booklet. The stage where you create the booklet "EDIT", and the stage where you distribute your booklet "PROMOTE".

Promotion Score and Optimization

This new feature is designed to help you get your booklet out in front of as many eyeballs as possible and to evaluate how well you are engaging those readers. The promotion score is calculated on a sum of a reach score and an engagement score. This measures you against similar type booklets and how effective they are. This also suggests actions you can take to improve your promotion score.

We hope to help you get more activity with each of your booklets so they deliver on the promise of driving more business to your business.

Video Teasers

We have also created a new promotional tool. This is the video teaser of your booklet. This will create a video of your booklet flipping through the first 25 pages. You can customize the time and flip action and then generate your video. You'll get a video that automatically flips through the pages. You can download this video and post it to youtube and vimeo, and share it on social networks like twitter, facebook, and instagram.

These videos are very lightweight and optimized for mobile, so you'll find that often they are smaller than a large image.

Check out an example on Youtube and facebook.

We'll also be releasing a number of new features shortly that will make video sharing of your booklets even easier and quicker. We hope to see people really push the limits with creating booklets specifically for video shows.

You can now customize the page turn buttons for all page transitions and add your gallery into any page in your booklet.

With the customized page turn button, you can force the page curl and double page transitions to show the page turn button. Previously, the page turn buttons would be suppressed by the curl animation. Now they appear at the edges of your landing page and on the edges of your embedded booklets.

To customize the page turn buttons, go to the BOOKLET PRESENTATION tab and select LAYOUT > PAGE BUTTONS. You can select to have your page turn buttons appear along the top or middle of the outer edge of your booklet landing page. You can also choose to have no page turn buttons so that only the curl animation is the indicator to turn pages.

You can now insert any gallery you've created into any page you have in your booklet. Go to the PAGE CONTENT tab and select GALLERY. Then from the pulldown, select the gallery you want to add to your page. The gallery will cover the entire page. You can then resize it like any other element to fit the layout of your booklet page. The gallery will automatically resize to fit within your page. If the gallery is large, a scrollbar will appear on the right side of the element container.

September 25th, 2017