Customer story: Glénat

How Glénat Automatically Converts a Hundred Book Previews a Month with the Help of FlippingBook Automation

Glénat is a French publishing house that specializes in comics, manga, children’s books, and illustrated non-fiction. Founded in 1969 by Jacques Glénat, it is now the second largest comics publishing group in France.

Challenge

All French publishers have a website. It is an important way for us to control and spread information about our publications and promote our books.

According to Matthieu Nicolas, Project Manager at Glénat, that’s why they have chosen to invest in their website and why it matters to them so much.

Indeed, they do strive to provide the best online experience to their readers. When searching through their website, you’d likely appreciate smart design, intuitive navigation, and so-called extracts – nifty previews of comics and books, 10 to 15 pages long, that help you decide whether this or that comic book is your cup of tea or not.

However, these extracts were somewhat less helpful in the past. Prior to the redesign of their website in January 2019, Glénat used software that, although did its job, lacked in efficiency and comfort.

We used an in-house program, based on the first version of the Internet Archive BookReader. But we had mobile usability issues with it. And there was no link to the book’s product card nor a share button.

So, as they were rethinking their digital space, Glénat decided to search for an alternative solution. And, apart from being more advanced and mobile-friendly than its predecessor, an ideal replacement had to solve the big challenge Glénat faced.

Due to the upcoming redesign, all the extracts were to be re-uploaded onto the website – all 4,000 of them. To do that by hand would be simply impossible. So, first and foremost, a new tool had to allow massive automatic uploads.

Search for Solution and Solution

When Glénat discovered FlippingBook, they browsed through the provided publication samples and liked what they saw. Online flipbooks looked great, could be embedded into a website, and were comfortable to read even on mobile devices. However, before Glénat could consider this new solution they had to know: was FlippingBook capable of batch-conversion?

Luckily, just a couple of weeks before Glénat made their inquiry, FlippingBook had introduced their new product, FlippingBook Automation. It could convert multiple PDFs into HTML5 documents at once, without any manual work. All Glénat had to do was to upload PDFs into a folder that was connected to FlippingBook Automation, and the software did the rest.

With saved templates, Glénat easily created different types of previews without having to change customization settings for each one. For example, they could automatically convert a batch of mangas with a preset right-to-left page flip direction, and then a batch of comics with traditional left-to-right page flipping.

They also had control over such details as unique titles and links in contact buttons for every PDF they converted.

With all of the above taken into account, Glénat felt sure in their choice. Not only could they transfer their archives safely now, but they also found the tool that would help them with their future monthly uploads.

We create about 100 previews per month and they are not deleted unless the title is taken off the market.

Results

With FlippingBook Automation, Glénat has successfully moved all their existing extracts, about 40,000 pages in total, onto the website, saving themselves hours and hours of manual work.

The process of monthly updates when fresh items are added runs as smoothly. Most of the new arrivals are presented with extracts made via FlippingBook and embedded directly into product cards, thus creating a seamless experience for a reader. Glénat really appreciates that.

Browsing the first pages or selected pages of the book is very important for a customer, especially with the online purchase. Our goal is to make you want to read the book. And FlippingBook works well for that goal.