As an educational assistant at the Edmonton Public School District in Alberta, Canada, Irene Read has plenty of experience in educating children with special needs — children with autism, in particular. She noted early on in her teaching career that these youngsters struggle to focus — and the importance of simplicity in communication.

To help increase the children’s comfort and comprehension levels, Read began taking photos of various objects and using them as part of how she communicated. “If we were going to the washroom, for example, I’d show a picture of the washroom,” she says. “For some, these photos did help them make the connection much more quickly.”

With photographs making such a difference in her classroom, Read began thinking about applying the same concept to children’s books.

“Books with fantasy illustrations are gorgeous, but children with autism have enough trouble relating to the real world, let alone sorting out graphic interpretations of reality,” Read notes. “And they can’t process visually complicated, busy pages. I thought that seeing real photographs on the pages would make more sense to them — just as we’d seen in the classroom. And I also thought that not just autistic children, but all children could really appreciate the merit of one photograph presented on a single page.”

An avid photographer with a willing model in Wally Dog, her family’s 10-year-old Jack Russell Terrier, Read put together a simple story using large photographs of Wally and short captions to describe him. She wasn’t sure what to do with it until her husband mentioned reading about MagCloud in their local Edmonton Journal newspaper.

The idea that she could produce a magazine about Wally with no upfront costs seemed like a perfect fit. She uploaded her first 12-page issue of Wally Dog’s Tale to MagCloud’s Web site and, when it was ready for printing, began telling her friends and family members.

“I got a lot of positive feedback and a lot of smiles,” she says. “Everyone who knows Wally loves the magazine. My mother-in-law sold a few copies at her senior center. And a couple of friends bought copies. One friend purchased a copy because he says he thinks I’m going to be famous!”

Read followed the first edition with a 16-page issue, this time introducing Wally’s friend Bird — the family’s pet dove. The issue features photos of Wally and Bird with simple captions describing them playing, eating and taking naps together.

The next four issues are based on a true story of a missing Bird and all the places Wally searches for him. The tale ends well — Wally finds Bird trapped under a basket and rescues him.

Working with MagCloud, Read says, couldn’t be easier. The responsive staff is always on hand to answer any questions. And since the magazines are primarily for children, she’s especially pleased with the thick, durable paper stock.

Read promotes Wally Dog’s Tale through word of mouth and hopes to attract the autism community and pet lovers everywhere. When she returns to school next year — she’s on leave at the moment — she’ll be eager to see firsthand how her students respond to Wally Dog.

“I hope that adults who love to read to children and talk about what they see in the pictures will enjoy the magazines,” Read says. “And I hope that children with autism find them attractive and informative as they try to make sense of the world. It’s thrilling to see something that was initially just a little hobby come together in material form.

“MagCloud lets anyone turn ideas into reality,” Read adds. “Unlike big magazine publishers that must please the tastes and interests of the ‘majority’ to increase sales, MagCloud gives everyone the opportunity to publish regardless of interest area or niche.”

Check out the latest issue!

In the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries, ethical practices directly affect patients’ lives. One incorrect use of a drug to treat a disease for which it’s not approved could result in a significant adverse reaction — even death. To help ensure their products are used properly within the healthcare community, companies often employ medical science liaisons (MSLs) to build and foster collaborations with hospital and university scientists, researchers and physicians — and even government constituents.

No one, perhaps, is a better expert in, and advocate of, the contributions of MSLs than Jane Chin Ph.D. A former MSL herself, Chin created the Medical Science Liaison Quarterly (mslquarterly.com) in 2003, the first Web site — in fact, the first resource — devoted specifically to MSLs.

“Even though MSLs connect with so many people, it can be an isolating job,” Chin says. “Most work from their home offices. When I was an MSL, there was nothing on the Internet or in print that pertained to our field. So I started my own Web site.”

Chin researched and wrote articles and reports that she knew would interest MSLs, and she even conducted surveys and shared best practices. Her site became so popular that she left her job and founded the MSL Institute (mslinstitute.com) the very next year.

Along with offering MSL hiring, training and consulting services, Chin continued to publish the MSL Quarterly online. Eventually, she noticed bits and pieces of her valuable work appearing in other consultants’ training binders and presentations. She needed a publishing medium that would offer more copyright protection than the Web — one that would be immune to simple copy and paste computer keyboard commands.

“A friend told me about MagCloud, and while I know that a print magazine won’t eliminate plagiarism, it certainly makes it more difficult,” Chin says. “Plus, I liked the idea of offering clients something tangible. MSL Quarterly isn’t for leisure reading. It’s something you really want to concentrate on. Having it in print means readers can underline helpful passages and make notes in the margins.

“For mass distribution, yes, digital is a good way to go,” Chin adds. “But for a focused audience like mine, I was very excited to move to print. There’s nothing like holding paper in your hand.”

Chin published her first print issue of MSL Quarterly in January 2009 ($47), a 28-page issue focused on MSL training and business acumen. She quickly followed with nine more issues covering everything from compliance and clinical trials to metrics and salary surveys.

While most issues contain new content, Chin likes that she can revise and print popular articles and reports from the more than 100 in her MSL Quarterly Web site archives. She’s even published popular chapters from in-depth research reports as their own individual magazines.

Chin promotes each issue through both her MSL Quarterly and her MSL Institute sites. She includes links to MagCloud’s site, inviting readers to preview the issues before placing orders.

Because MSL Quarterly is a scholarly publication, Chin appreciates MagCloud’s easy-to-use layout template and the print quality. “My readers are just interested in content — not the design — so a simple template works fine for my purposes,” she says. “The print quality is what’s important. My magazine is semi-glossy with full color. I’m very pleased by the quality and consistency of each issue.”

And, of course, the price is right. “I really need to keep my overhead as small as possible, so I love that MagCloud has no upfront fees,” Chin says. “I’m willing for MagCloud to take a percentage of each magazine I sell. I feel much better about that than having my profit eliminated all together by people illegally sharing my work.”

So has the magazine eliminated all MSL Quarterly copyright violations?

“Obviously, if someone wants to plagiarize or otherwise violate copyrights, there’s little I can do to prevent it,” Chin says. “However, a company training department recently placed an order for a large quantity of magazines to distribute to its MSL team. Before, they’d probably purchase one of my articles online and then email it to everyone. So, overall, I’d say that printing the magazine has reduced copyright infringement and the illegal sharing — both of which were cutting into my bottom line before.”

Check out the latest issue!

From Prague to Paducah, large cities and small towns around the world play host to 4,000 film festivals annually, attracting millions of filmmakers and cinema lovers eager to see their favorite artists unveil their silver screen masterpieces. While Variety and other mass media outlets cover the likes of Cannes and Sundance, only film and festivals magazine covers them all, even the smallest of festivals, spotlighting independent filmmakers who wouldn’t normally attract attention from the mainstream press.

“We were getting a good reputation for the quality of our coverage, so we decided to carry on,” Patmore says. “We opted for a digital format magazine, which happened to coincide with our already planned ‘green issue,’ in which we covered the environmental impact of film festivals and the movie industry. So we thought that would be a good tie-in as we relaunched the magazine in digital format.”

Recognizing the value of print, however, Patmore was hesitant to give it up entirely. When he searched the Web for print-on-demand resources, he found MagCloud.

“I thought it would be a good complementary option to the digital version because we could print with MagCloud without any upfront costs or any minimum orders,” Patmore says. “So we decided to give it a try, and here we are.”

Each issue of film and festivals features a specific theme, including that first environmental issue. Other topics so far have included filmmaking in Australia, Latin America and in Asia, children’s film festivals, microbudget British films and a spotlight on women filmmakers around the world. Thanks to the affordability of MagCloud, Patmore now publishes 10 issues a year instead of the original four.

A small team of writers and regular freelancers, along with guest contributors — usually indie filmmakers, themselves — provide the magazine’s content. Patmore solicits story ideas from them and makes assignments, tapping into each writer’s area of expertise. After editing the incoming pieces, he spends about five days designing the magazine and sourcing the photography. He then uploads the files to MagCloud for the print-on-demand version of the magazine, as well as to Yudu (yudu.com) for the digital version.

“I’m very impressed with MagCloud’s quality,” Patmore says. “I used digital printing for other jobs years ago. The technology has certainly improved. And you can’t beat having a magazine you can hold in your hands. I still feel the best way to read anything is on paper. I also like the archival advantages of print. However, I suspect that at the moment most of our magazine sales are to people who appear in the magazine and want to show it to others.”

And print publications, Patmore has learned, have higher credibility among publicists than Web sites. “It seems that the public relations companies still have far more respect for print — print journalists are always accorded more talent access despite the fact that we now have far more online readers,” he notes. “In those terms, it is important for us to remain in some sort of print format just to ensure we can get the best content for the articles.”

Patmore promotes the magazine by word of mouth, the film and festivals Web site (filmandfestivals.com) and through Facebook. And these days at festivals, instead of handing out free issues, Patmore and his team distribute promotional postcards detailing how to order copies.

The result? “The sales of our print magazine have been very slow to start with, but are increasing,” Patmore says. “And we’ve had nothing but positive feedback for both the quality of the content and the design. Since most of the feedback is coming from film professionals, it’s very heartening.

“The print magazine was never intended to be a major source of income for us, but to serve as an alternative to the digital version,” Patmore adds. “It has certainly turned out to be more profitable than our previous print version, which only lost money. Most of our readers access our free digital version, but we see a growing number of people buying the print-on-demand version.”

Patmore’s advice to aspiring magazine creators: “If you want to do it, then do it — it can be done now almost without any capital outlay,” he says. “But make sure the content is worthy of your intended readers. Quality should be the driving force — well written, grammatically correct articles; good photography and good design with legible, correctly formatted typography. If the design aspect is not good, then it might as well be a Web site or blog.”