So far, so good for digital magazine marketing launch Next Issue Media

A lot of publishers and magazine industry-watchers have been keen to know how Next Issue Media would work. It is a consortium of the bigger magazine publishing conglomerates (Hearst, Conde Nast, Meredith, News Corp., Time Inc.) created to market digital editions of magazines for tablets and mobile devices. (NIM's business model is often called "all-you-can-eat", though it would more properly be called "all-you-can-read".)

On Monday, the CEO of NIM revealed to the American Magazine Conference the results of the startup's sales in the first three months. The story was  reported by MediaDailyNews. Morgan Guenther cautioned that it was early days, but said

• the number of titles has doubled to 72 
• the first wave brought in 45,000 subscribers plus 25,000 who converted from free trials, for a total of 70,000
• 60% chose the "unlimited premium model" -- all 72 titles, including weeklies, for $14.99 a month. The remainder chose the monthly/biweekly option for $9.99
• the premium plan skews 60% male
• in a sample of 5,600 new subscribers,only 3% were already active print subscribers; 13% expired; 84% new to the titles
• among those new to titles, 58% had never had a relationship with a magazine
• 93% pronounced themselves satisfied with NIM and said they were likely to continue subscribing

Guenther said all of this had been accomplished almost entirely without the benefit of marketing or advertising, though that is being launched; in particular a friends and family program whereby people would gift access to 72 magazines a month. 

So far, all of the magazines in the NIM storefront are American.