iPad Magazine Sales Drop

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Now that the initial "cool" factor of getting a digital magazine has worn off, sales of iPad magazines are dropping. Wow, I had no idea that circulation for some of these big name magazines was so low.

Vanity Fair sold 8,700 digital editions of its November issue, down from its average of about 10,500 for the August, September and October issues. Glamour sold 4,301 digital editions in September, but sales dropped 20 percent in October and then another 20 percent, to 2,775, in November. GQ’s November edition sold 11,000 times, which was its worst performance since April (when the iPad was released) and represents a slight decline from its average digital sales of 13,000 between May and October.
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I called this one a while back. Inevitable relay as the novelty ended.
 
When people come to their senses and realize they're not saving nearly as much as they'd hoped and, well, a real magazine just feels better in the hand I suppose, they do that typical backtrack and wonder "Ok, what did I get myself into with this thing..." ;)
 
You left out the part where most magazines are total crap. 60 pages of ads in an 80 page magazine doesn't work any better in digital form. On top of that most magazines are either about doing something, or lifestyle stuff. For the former, a web forum on the subject full of enthusiasts goes a heck of a lot farther than a magazine article. For the latter, you have a ton of blog type websites, and social websites. Even the most obnoxious versions of any of those has a better ratio of content vs. ads than any magazine I have seen lately.
 
*shrugs*. I use Zinio for Photoshop Users and would rather use it that way. I can open it up on my PC, store it on an monitor and follow along with some of the tips on the other two monitors. My wife uses it for her equestrian magazines.

IMO, the killer w/ the iPad versions is like raz-0 said. And I'd be willing to bet most of them aren't long term subscribers of those magazines. I'd bet money they are the monthly grocery line buyers.
 
Plus it's alot cheaper to smack a spider with a real one.
 
It's all about the price. What the hell are these publishers thinking when they price these things?

I'm not going to pay, in some cases double the news stand price when they are saving a lot of money on distribution and printing.

I'll stick with the news stand version.
 
I picked up an issue of Rolling Stone recently in my apartment building office and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised at it. I'm not a subscriber but I really was blown away from the fact that that magazine is literally about 95% content and not ads. Yes there are some ads in it but my god, the issue I had - this year's October issue with President Obama interview - had like 9 freakin' pages of pure content from that interview in a row without any interruption, and then again in another article it had 7 pages in a row without ads. In fact there only seemed to be 4 full page ads in the entire issue as well as the back cover - the rest were very tiny and not really much of a bother at all.

Damned impressive magazine, it really is.

Now compare that to something like GQ where it's the opposite with 95% advertising and so little content that it's not even worth picking up to flip through anymore.

I thought the whole concept of paying for a magazine was to pay for the content in the magazine, and the ads in the magazine paid the publisher to produce the magazine with the content I'm paying for... silly me, that's kinda convoluted and twisted back in on itself three times over. ;)
 
raz-0 said:
You left out the part where most magazines are total crap. 60 pages of ads in an 80 page magazine doesn't work any better in digital form. On top of that most magazines are either about doing something, or lifestyle stuff. For the former, a web forum on the subject full of enthusiasts goes a heck of a lot farther than a magazine article. For the latter, you have a ton of blog type websites, and social websites. Even the most obnoxious versions of any of those has a better ratio of content vs. ads than any magazine I have seen lately.
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QFT!!!
 
Rhyme said:
Just more natural and easier to read a magazine in print.
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Yes, and I like doing so sometimes. But you look at the lead time for it to get to press, and the news is at least 2 months old by the time you're reading it.
 
Joe Average said:
I picked up an issue of Rolling Stone recently in my apartment building office and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised at it. I'm not a subscriber but I really was blown away from the fact that that magazine is literally about 95% content and not ads. Yes there are some ads in it but my god, the issue I had - this year's October issue with President Obama interview - had like 9 freakin' pages of pure content from that interview in a row without any interruption, and then again in another article it had 7 pages in a row without ads. In fact there only seemed to be 4 full page ads in the entire issue as well as the back cover - the rest were very tiny and not really much of a bother at all.

Damned impressive magazine, it really is.

Now compare that to something like GQ where it's the opposite with 95% advertising and so little content that it's not even worth picking up to flip through anymore.

I thought the whole concept of paying for a magazine was to pay for the content in the magazine, and the ads in the magazine paid the publisher to produce the magazine with the content I'm paying for... silly me, that's kinda convoluted and twisted back in on itself three times over. ;)
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Rolling Stone is still one of the best for pop culture and amazing articles. It's the tech magazines I'm usually disappointed with.
 
Joe Average said:
I picked up an issue of Rolling Stone recently in my apartment building office and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised at it. I'm not a subscriber but I really was blown away from the fact that that magazine is literally about 95% content and not ads. Yes there are some ads in it but my god, the issue I had - this year's October issue with President Obama interview - had like 9 freakin' pages of pure content from that interview in a row without any interruption, and then again in another article it had 7 pages in a row without ads. In fact there only seemed to be 4 full page ads in the entire issue as well as the back cover - the rest were very tiny and not really much of a bother at all.

Damned impressive magazine, it really is.

Now compare that to something like GQ where it's the opposite with 95% advertising and so little content that it's not even worth picking up to flip through anymore.

I thought the whole concept of paying for a magazine was to pay for the content in the magazine, and the ads in the magazine paid the publisher to produce the magazine with the content I'm paying for... silly me, that's kinda convoluted and twisted back in on itself three times over. ;)
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Isnt that the same magizine that effectivley ended the carear of one of the greatest Generals known to the US in recent history and jepordized our war in Afghanistan by handing it off to an Idiot?

Oh wait....
 
:):) said:
Isnt that the same magizine that effectivley ended the carear of one of the greatest Generals known to the US in recent history and jepordized our war in Afghanistan by handing it off to an Idiot?

Oh wait....
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Rolling Stone fired him? Wow they have a lot more clout than I thought.
 
Most of the magazine content is ads. That's why they are dying not only in print but in digital format as well. Why the fuck do I want to spend money on a magazine only to be bombarded by 75% ads and little to no content.
 
:):) said:
Isnt that the same magizine that effectivley ended the carear of one of the greatest Generals known to the US in recent history and jepordized our war in Afghanistan by handing it off to an Idiot?

Oh wait....
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Are you talking about General Patreus being an idiot?
 
:):) said:
Isnt that the same magizine that effectivley ended the carear of one of the greatest Generals known to the US in recent history and jepordized our war in Afghanistan by handing it off to an Idiot?

Oh wait....
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Rolling Stone didn't make the General say anything he didn't want to say. They just published what he said.
Its like calling your boss a dumbass shitface on Facebook when he/she is also your friend on there. Facebook didn't get you into trouble, you did.
 
Reading magazines on a 30in 2560X1600 monitor is a revelation. The image can be about 20% larger than an 8X10.5 print magazine and you get to see the two facing pages at the same time, just like the print version. I've changed all of my mag subscriptions to electronic and download them as pdf files. Easy to store, easy to search, easy to transport, easy to read.

BTW on a 1920X1200, 24in monitor it just doesn't work for me. Too small for easy reading.

So where can I get a 30in ipad that folds in half for carry?:D
 
I have an iPad and I don't really see the point in reading magazines on it, books are much better, i love reading books on my iPad, magazines just don't have quite the same feel as ebooks do for some reason, I think it's just all the touchscreen stuff you have to do to access whatever you want in the magazine.
 
Don't worry, Jobs will wave his magic wand and whip up some more fancy crap to distract the masses once again...
 
The major issue has been Apple's method of selling the magazines. They have no subscription service so you pay for individual issues and the publishers are using newsstand prices. Who would regularly buy a magazine at newsstand prices?

There have been a ton of articles over the last month about the iPad's next update, which was supposed to happen this month, that would enable a subscription service. I believe it is tied to some deal with Newscorp (ugh!). I think once they put a subscription system in place there will be a big uptick in magazine purchases, but at a year subscription price not newsstand price.
 
the-one1 said:
Rolling Stone didn't make the General say anything he didn't want to say. They just published what he said.
Its like calling your boss a dumbass shitface on Facebook when he/she is also your friend on there. Facebook didn't get you into trouble, you did.
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They gave him a beer or two and had an attractive female reporter ask him a lot of entrapping and leading questions In an informal setting then took a bunch of stuff out of context. It's hard to see when someone is being sarcastic/joking in print.

And McCrystal is 100 times better q candor than Petreus can ever hope to be. I fear for our war in Adghanistan under the control of Petreuas.
 
:):) said:
They gave him a beer or two and had an attractive female reporter ask him a lot of entrapping and leading questions In an informal setting then took a bunch of stuff out of context. It's hard to see when someone is being sarcastic/joking in print.

And McCrystal is 100 times better q candor than Petreus can ever hope to be. I fear for our war in Adghanistan under the control of Petreuas.
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Tried to write comander then Mu IPhone's autocorrect owned me....
 
I never get digital copies of magazines. To me that makes them almost exactly the same as various websites in PDF form.Which I can get for free, usually closer to the events in question in greater depth. The only thing they have to offer would be their level of journalistic ability and writing skills. Which they largely lack. It's like selling snow to eskimos, in greenland.

The only few times i've bought magazines recently was when they came with something free, or had a poster, (or I was in it) or something like that. But being digital theres going to be less to offer. I got playstation magazines monthly back when they had a demo disk every month of game demos, plus to read about new releases. Now I can get them off the PSN for free and read game previews off a number of different sites (or forums) for free. Theres no need for them.
 
^ What about people to stupid to use this newfangled
Internetty thingamagib?
 
^ 41% of Amerixans do NOT reguarrily use the Internet, either because
1. They live in very low income areas and cannot afford Internet/computer.

2. They are 89 years old and trapped in the 1930's.

So I guess there's still those people to sell to, however, low income people wot be buying mags....
 
But that is people unwilling/unable! Not too stupid to use the intertubes! :p

Theres supposed to be 77.4% interwebs use in america. Literacy rates are harder to get exactly because of testing methods (how bad you have to be at reading to be illiterate) but the NAAL says at most " 65-85%" with as much as 40% at or below "basic levels of proficiency". Though other places say 80%. You have to consider that these are random tests with random samples, and that a large proportion of people will be children/ill/whatever.

But looking up income/internet use is kind of surprising :eek: Thought that does look like a load of crap (only 15% of $150,000 income people use the internet from home :confused:)

But anyway, even if you earn $75 or $75,000 a year, buying a magazine full of images and content you can get elsewhere more rapidy at the same quality, for free is a bad investment. It's an outdated form that doesn't think it should have to adapt.
 
It's hard to buy Internet connections and a computer if youre making 75$ a year.
 
Most Libraries have free access (or schools). Which also might have magazines (I haven't been to one for years) but still, if you had $75 a year then youd be really pissed off if you bought a magazine of free content.
 
Magazines are just another delivery method for content. They are especially convenient for storing and using off-line. The cost of delivering magazines electronically is so low that advertising supported publications don't need to charge the reader to make a profit.

I pay nothing for the magazines I read and the advertisers are pitching products that I'm interested in. So everyone wins.

You tekkies who think week old content is ancient history need to realize there is an entire universe outside of electronics. No seriously, there really is!:D
 
Week old news is ancient. If youre a day trader, for exmamle, you need price updates to the miliecond or even nano second so you can track and see buy/sell orders/
 
But by the time a week has passed you would have heard it on the news, read it online, been told by your work collegues and seen the hollywood production and the satire that goes with it. Do you really need to pay money for the slow train to hear the dilluted echo? They are directly competing with free media with a simlar product paid for with money/annoyance. If you were downloading a file would you go to a free website and download, or a free ftp where you had to sign up to the site, sift through a load of adverts and enter account details into a client that let you download?
 
None of you have any clue about this novelty....

Why would you buy a digital magazine.. when they are being pirated up the ass anyway? I've seen copies of most major publications.. and a lot of obscure ones on torrent sites... same with ebooks.. you can snag ebooks by the THOUSANDS in one nifty file anymore... i love my books...but ebooks are going to be the future...So its not so much this whole novelty thing... they are one of the most increasing number of pirated items online.... and you can thank the iPad for opening up this... but also greedy assed publishers who want ridiculous amounts of money for a product that costs them 1/100 to publish...but who still expect joe consumer to pay just 50% less...

Think about it a little bit... one server... hosting tiny files of a couple megs for each book in your catalog...which could be thousands.. or tens of thousands... and they still want you to pay X? LOL.... get the fuck out of here... even music is still a rip off per song... and thats why pirating is not going to go away... and electronic media forms like ebooks and emagazines... are going to be dumped by the thousands online for anyone to snag free of charge...

If you have stock in a major publishing house.. SELL SELL SELL now...
 
You can get the same calibre of content on the web for nothing and in most cases without ads. Magazines don't compete with websites on speed of content delivery (magazines are written months in advance), price, features, or accessibility. I expect that they will probably die out eventually but all the smart magazine producers will move their content online.
 
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