In response to a client request, we've just rolled out one of the most exciting new features in the history of StatReport -- Detailed User Reports!

This new report generates a pdf containing all of the data about every user who has registered for an eBook -- including their registration info, what pages they viewed, and what links they clicked. You have to see it to believe it. If you're currently a client, just go into StatReport and you'll see a new box under the Visitors and Visits report. Just click on the PDF link next to Mass User Detail Report, and a PDF will be created in real-time.

Our StatReport programmer wizards have been working around the clock and have come up with a great new feature for us to announce to you today!

Effective immediately, all of our digital editions have Page Tracking enabled. What this means for you is that you can now view how many times each page of your digital edition has been viewed, the average view length, AND who viewed it.

This feature has been standard in our custom eBooks for years, but we are now very excited to be able to bring it to our digital edition customers as well--at no additional cost!

In the near future, we'll be rolling out additional metrics based on page views. These include: click paths, session length, and more!

Minnick Web Services' eBook product development team is working on a new version of StatReport that will be specific to reporting on visitors and subscribers to our new digital editions. We're putting the finishing touches on the new system now. Look for it in the coming weeks!

It's now possible to give a user access to individual eBooks in StatReport! This is useful if you want to give an advertiser access to view the registrants and stats for their eBooks only. Contact your eBook project manager to find out more!

New Feature: Inbound Link Tracking
What it is: Records and reports the sources of inbound links
How does it work: Simply append "?linkcode=[yourlinkname]" to an inbound link to your ebook. For example, if your eBook is at http://demo.ebookhost.net/demo/ebook/1/, you could track an inbound link from an email by linking to it using http://demo.ebookhost.net/demo/ebook/1/?linkcode=emaillink. Track as many different links as you like!
Benefit to the customer: Allows you to see how people are getting to your eBook.

Web site and electronic publication service provider Minnick Web Services (MWS) increased eBook sales by 84 percent in 2006. eBook hosting sales also increased in 2006, by 91 percent.

"Our substantial increase in eBook sales in 2006 shows that electronic publications are maturing into an integral part of the publishing world. It’s still a new format that a minority of publishers are using, but it is becoming more widespread and accepted," said CEO Christopher J. Minnick.

Unlike other digital magazine producers, Minnick Web Services doesn't simply convert a printed magazine to an online format. MWS works with the publishing team to create a custom product that's designed to be read online, doesn't require scrolling, and has an extremely simple user interface.

Now MinnickWeb clients can watch the status of their projects as they progress from the beginning stages to completion, in one handy, informative page. This new, free service improves communication, and allows our clients to launch their eBooks whenever they desire. Ask about eLauncher for your next project!

First of all, Margaret and I will be attending the Folio Show in New York October 23-25. If you'd like to schedule a meeting with us during that time, please email or call me. Many of our clients are in the NY area, and many others will be in town for Folio that week. We're hoping to get a chance to visit with as many of you as possible.

In other news: we're continuing to roll out new features for the eBookhost system. The biggest changes have been to the tools we use to produce eBooks. These improvements have made it possible for us to produce more eBooks in the last 2 months than in the 6 months prior to that.

This week, we rolled out a few new reports for you to become familiar with and love!

1. Clickthrough ratio: in the Clickthrough report, we're now calculating the ratio of Clicks to visitors for each ad.

2. Page view time! In the page view report, you can now see how many seconds, on average, people spent on each page spread.

3. Engagement Factor. We used the formula: (visits/visitors)*duration to compute an Engagement Factor (EF). Engagement is one of those things where no one has really come up with a standard definition yet, but I read about this formula somewhere and it seems useful as a gauge of how valuable people find each page. This is displayed (along with a cool graph) in the page view report.

Last week's eProofer press release got quite a bit of attention. The story was posted on AJAX World, printondemand.com, jaxmag, The Daily Dog, nextwebgen.com, and a lot of other places. The people who have emailed me with questions and comments are confirming my belief that there's a real need for a better way to proof digital publications.

Have you used eProofer? Do you have suggestions or ideas for how it could be made better? Please send me an email or post a comment!