Digital Newsstand has 153 magazines signed up and sold 2,138 subs in first 9 months
Some nine months since Magazines Canada partnered with Zinio to launch the Digital Newsstand, we were curious about how the program for its members is going and what kind of results it was achieving. Here's where things stood as of June 16:
- 153 titles have signed up to participate in the program with 117 magazines live on the site
- Almost all are selling both single copies and subscriptions; a handful offer single copies only.
- Since the site launched in September 2009, there have been 2,108 back issues, 2,051 single copies and 2,138 subscriptions sold.
- Magazines Canada says it's not possible to establish an average price, but that there's a wide range in pricing, from free to heavily discounted off print subs, to charging the same digitally as in print.
- ARC Poetry ($20 for 3 issues; single issue $7.95)
[Disclosure: Magazines Canada advertises its Digital Newsstand on this blog]
Related posts:
- Magazine trend is selling digital editions on magazine-branded storefronts
- There's not a lot of consistency yet in digital sub and single pricing
- Digital Newsstand allows readers to buy Canadian subs and single copies online
Labels: digital, online, single copies, subscriptions
posted by D. B. Scott at
6:00 am
6 Comments:
Get this through your thick skulls, publishers: after the novelty wears off, nobody is going to pay the same price for an electronic version of your mag as they do for the print version.
Here's the mentality, since you clearly haven't figured it out: We are doing the earth, and you, a favour by not going the dead tree route. You have eliminated much of your production and distribution costs. Unless your online version is spectacular -- and very different fro your print version -- we will not reward you by paying the same rate.
Fools.
Hear this dear reader: there is a cost to create my website and put content on it. I also have to pay extra for any online or multimedia rights, staff time researching links, producing podcasts,and I also have to pay for online marketing and promotion so you can have a digital option.
Here's the insanity: We are providing you, and the earth, with a service, which so far has not eliminated much of our production and distribution costs, rather it has increased them. I believe our editorial content is indeed spectacular, and doesn't diminish in value because of the media format in which it appears. Unless people are willing to pay for online content-- it's not likely to be very different from the print version -- we cannot reward you with new and innovative content if you refuse to pay for it at any rate.
Save the tree and buy digital if you want. But don't turn around and tell me our magazine doesn't have any value without that tree.
You're doing all that so I "can have a digital option," eh? And they said altruism is dead.
First off, you don't even produce a digital magazine. You have a website that is pretty much umbilically tied to your print content. You're not even in the game, Deb. So really, my comment didn't apply to you.
However.
Frankly, I haven't read the Beaver (sorry: "Canada's History") in a long time. But I looked at your site. Maybe your articles are spectacular. The site is a long way from that. I reiterate: you're going to have to do a whole lot more than repositioning your print version (by the way: how much do you pay for digital rights?) to get any eyeballs headed your way.
Look, I wish the Beaver well. It's certainly a valuable addition to the Canadian magazine scene, and it has been since Dafoe ran the show. But a ho-hum website is a long way from an iPad magazine app that someone will go out of their way to purchase. Have you seen any of the magazine apps that have been specifically designed for the iPad? You should.
And again, you don't get it. YOU have to adapt to the changing expectations of the world around you, or be buried in the process. Lecturing your potential readers about the downside of a faulty business model will get you nowhere.
Again, I don't mean to pick on the Beaver. But you opened the door.
Sadly Ms. Morrison has tried to raise the comprehension level of someone who seems blissfully unaware of how our business (any business) must both respond to consumer demand while remaining viable. Also, the writer seems to avoid contact with the big world beyond the iPhone screen. Try venturing out to a newsstand to buy and then read Canada's History Magazine. It rocks. Finally, from the "don't let fact get in the way of a strong opinion” department, Canada's History Magazine has a digital edition. I just found it on the i..n..t..e..r..n..e..t.
What worries me for magazines in the long term is not the efforts, successes and failures as innovators grapple with change, but the arm chair critics with no ideas or skin in the game who just spew.
This is why I will now only look at these blogs once a month but only on a Thursday after an earthquake and only on the eve of a G20 weekend in Canada.
Have a nice day Ms. M.
@anon 2
"Canada's History Magazine has a digital edition. I just found it on the i..n..t..e..r..n..e..t..."
Yes, you're right: a pdf version that is identical to the print version, complete with all the ads, is on Zinio. (Although there is no way of knowing that if you only peruse Canada's History website.) This is what you think a digital edition is all about, huh? Maybe it's you who should get out more.
Regarding your "big world beyond the iPhone screen" (actually, I was talking about the iPad, but to those who think things still "rock" because their seven year-old uses that phrase, I suppose it's all the same)? This, I assume, is the fairy kingdom where you live, a land where your magazine business model is innovative and responsive, and where rivers of sanctimonious drivel (see your post, above) run as clean as clear as the prose in Canada's History Magazine.
Well frankly, the way you do things is a horse with a broken leg. Your business model does not work. Not for you (how's your line of credit?), not for the consumer (numbers down again? shame...), and certainly not for your stable of writers, whose rates you have kept a lid on for the past three decades.
As for having "no skin in the game"? The unfortunate fact is that I do, although clearly it's becoming a bit thin.
I don't expect you to respond, since, as you have warned us, you only grace us with your presence on a blue moon-basis. See you soon. Or seasonally, at least.
Such entertaining comments! Excellent. It's great but amazing that people care so much about the topic.
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