Barnes & Noble plunges into magazine subscription business; digital, too
Barnes & Noble, the giant booksellers in the U.S., are going strong into the online magazine subscription business, offering more than 1,000 titles through BN.com, including digital subs. Fulfillment of print subs will be handled by M2 Media Group and of digital sales, Zinio.
According to a story from Folio:, Barnes & Noble today announced that it will begin selling magazine subscriptions online to more than 1,000 print and digital titles.
Chapters.indigo.ca, Canada's largest and equivalent bookstsore chain, does not offer online magazine subscriptions.
According to a story from Folio:, Barnes & Noble today announced that it will begin selling magazine subscriptions online to more than 1,000 print and digital titles.
The story says that the subs will be offered at a deep discount; however, a cursory examination of the site indicates that the print and digital sub prices seem consistent with the usual discounts offered by other sub services online and by the publishers themselves. However, BN also offers an additional discount to members of their (paid) affinity card club.What sets this apart from other discount magazine sites, BN.com, CEO Marie Toulantis says, is that Barnes & Noble will be the only retailer to offer both options in an "integrated shopping experience."
In addition to the subscription offers, more than 12,000 back issues of hundreds of titles will be available digitally for single copy purchase at BN.com.
Chapters.indigo.ca, Canada's largest and equivalent bookstsore chain, does not offer online magazine subscriptions.
Labels: Circulation, subscriptions
posted by D. B. Scott at
11:32 am
3 Comments:
At least BN doesn't seem to be planning to solicit renewals (most publishers' only profitable source of subscriptions), as was (is?) the case with that weird Amazon.com (not .ca) arrangement through some subsidiary of Ebsco.
But who's "our trusted partner, M2 Media Group", who will be fulfilling the print subs? Does anyone know? Is that a subsidiary of some existing subscription agency? Or will M2 be clearing these subs through some existing agency? Or has M2 (or BN) already approached US publishers for authorizations to sell subs?
The only Canadian mags I can find on here are e-ditions through Zinio.
I don't want to find out that some sub agency has mousetype on one of their contracts allowing them to sell subs online, to the general public, without explicit authorization from the publisher.
Jon,
No Canadian magazines? Is it possible you didn't search for OWL Magazine? We're on there - B & N carries our magazines. I'm sure Charmaine knows what the deal is...
You're right, I didn't find OWL. I scrolled through a handful or more of different categories, but neglected "children". Then I searched for magazine with Canada or Canadian and didn't find any. (Well, no print magazines, anyway.)
But OWL has a US presence, so it's moderately exceptional (I mean in this situation -- of course it's thoroughly exceptional in the other sense of the word).
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