Time Inc. to accept bitcoin for some of its subs

Time Inc. has announced that it will now accept Bitcoin, the digital "virtual currency" in payment of subscriptions for some of its magazines. A press release said subs for Fortune, Health, This Old House and Travel + Leisure can be paid using the bitcoin wallet platform Coinbase.

“For a major publisher like Time Inc. to embrace bitcoin sends an important message to both its readers and to the broader media community,” added Brian Armstrong, CEO & co-founder of Coinbase. “In addition to providing consumers with an easy, convenient way to pay for their subscriptions, it also opens the door for Time Inc. and publishers like it to familiarize themselves with the Bitcoin technology and explore new applications across the industry.”

Crow Toes Quarterly offers 4 PDF copies for $5

It's nice to see little magazines, with limited resources, innovating. Case in point is Crow Toes Quarterly, which offers a one-year, four-issue e-zine subscription to its magazine (which is about children's literature) for $5.

We’ve taken all those great words and illustrations and we’ve crammed them into this magical doohickey and we’ve turned them into these little files called PDFs, which can be opened and saved on any computer.

Now, as soon as an issue of CTQ is complete, you can have it on your computer, in all its amazing amazingness. Isn't that amazing?

 It also sells single PDF copies of back issues for $1.50. The magazine also sells individual single copies of the print edition.

While this may not be the absolute answer for other small magazines and their wrestling with back issue inventories and guesstimating print runs, it's worth considering, along with print-on-demand copies served through a third-party provider.