[...]Books, no matter how much the e-books devicer makers, electronic makers and publishers like to boast, are here to stay. [...]
Agree. Because books are meant to be permanent.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Galbi
[...The same applies to magazines.[...]
Wrong. Because magazines are meant to be disposable.
I think you need to look at the newspaper and magazine publishers' business model. In one aspect it is very similar to radio and TV. They provide topical, short-lived information and entertainment for a small price or for free. Car and Driver probably loses money per subscriber on their $9.97 yearly subscription fee. It's a loss-leader to get you to subscribe and hand over your demographic information.
Magazine and newspaper publishers make money by selling their subscribers' demographic data to advertisers. Not for ads in their publications. For physical junk mail spam. They're trying to do the same online now. Apple has thoughtfully provided an opt-out setting in their magazine apps, but about 50% of magazine app users still choose to opt-in.
Sure, there will always be magazines. There will always be horses too. The auto industry didn't kill off all the horses in the world.
That's kind of a useless article, as it was written the latter part of January, using numbers that were somewhat older. Now there are subs for the iPad, and many single copies go for $2. After we give it a couple of months to get settled, and for all of the magazines to appear on the dates they're promised for, we'll see how it works out.
A pretty good article from the NYT that I missed at the time. A very believable explanation why the Nook may be a much more successful platform for magazines compared to the iPad (or Xoom or other full-fledged tablet)
Interesting, but as they stated, magazine subs on the iPad have only just started. And all we're getting is estimates for Nook sales, and subs, no actual numbers, so we should be just a bit skeptical. These articles tend to be a bit self serving.
Trees are organic, good for the environment, necessary biomatter for landfills and most importantly - a renewable resource.
iPads and other electronics are the exact opposite. They are toxic, made with plastics, and engineered to be thrown away after an extremely short period of time. They clog landfills and the amount of waste is horrendous.
There is no such thing as a 'green goal of a paperless society'. Not among those with IQ's above 12.
One should not listen to such complete bullshit brought to you by your friendly gadget selling PR consortium's that focus on profit at the expense of our planet.
Huh? iPads and tablets don't save trees? That make as much sense as skiing at Mamoth in July is caused by Global Warming!
There's a huge advantage for a music magazine to be on the same device that has your music collection and you could hear a preview of the music Rolling Stone is reviewing... Oh I get it, that would be a problem.
I always thought it was insane for a magazine to give away 30% of its sales to Apple, simply for selling through the App Store.
If I were the magazine industry, I would threaten to only support Android until Apple came up with a more reasonable fee.
Android people don't buy anything. That's been proven over and over again. Magazines on the Ipad are a fail. They should just sell their shit through the ibooks store. People don't need a website written in iOS. That's a fail. In reality they should be doing the HTML 5 thing. One app that hits both Android and Ipad and will work on the traditional web as well.
He said even a success story like Popular Science sold only 16,000 subscriptions, well less than its 1.2 million print subscriptions.
Yes but were those 16k replacement subscriptions (ie they dropped the print for the digital) or 16k added ones (folks have both or folks that didn't want to pay for print were willing to pay for digital)
and just what are the subscription fees, the costs, the ad revenue etc. This guy is pushing a lot of talk with no real evidence to back up his rhetoric
In some ways he's not wrong, but the main reason no one was buying magazines on the iPad is because they cost too much ($4.99 for Wired... ha ha ha). BUT... now that Wired is $19.99 for a year, and the Economist is the same price as a print subscription, people will start buying them. I subscribe to Wired, The Economist and The New Yorker and read them all on my iPad.
Exactly!
I usually get wired for about $12/year. I expect to pay no more than that for the digital version (which I can't share with anyone!) And then there's the fact that many of the e-versions are essentially abridged versions. The publishers are simply afraid to make the leap and make a viable offering. When they do, customers will bite.
[And BTW, far from what Wenner thinks, the transition to digital is well under way, just not the way he thinks. Although I tend to prefer physical media for cost reasons, my 78 year old Mom has already made the leap. She has a Kindle does almost all of her reading on it. She loves it because it is so light and she can adjust the print to a larger size. The is the compelling value of the product for her. When the publishers provide all of us with such a compelling value offer, we'll all take the leap.]
I'm wondering why so many people bring up the 30% that Apple charges for hosting, distributing, collecting sales and making payments to it's media suppliers.
These people always make it seem that Apple is ripping someone off?
Dont they realize that when they buy something in a store... that the store (depending on the location and product) is charging you from 15 to 60 %
I spent many years in magazine publishing and what people don't know is, mag distributors take about 50% of the cover price. The magazine still eats the cost of printing, paper, staff, etc.etc. So, to produce a digital issues is far more cost effective. ROLLING STONE is obviously trying to cut costs due to subscriptions losses and newsstand losses. They trimmed the size down to a much smaller format to save costs. I don't understand why a company that used to be so cutting edge wouldn't embrace a new platform to sell issues?
Yes but were those 16k replacement subscriptions (ie they dropped the print for the digital) or 16k added ones (folks have both or folks that didn't want to pay for print were willing to pay for digital)
and just what are the subscription fees, the costs, the ad revenue etc. This guy is pushing a lot of talk with no real evidence to back up his rhetoric
Doesn't really matter which way you slice it. 16k is pretty shitty number, if it is to be believed.
I spent many years in magazine publishing and what people don't know is, mag distributors take about 50% of the cover price. The magazine still eats the cost of printing, paper, staff, etc.etc. So, to produce a digital issues is far more cost effective. ROLLING STONE is obviously trying to cut costs due to subscriptions losses and newsstand losses. They trimmed the size down to a much smaller format to save costs. I don't understand why a company that used to be so cutting edge wouldn't embrace a new platform to sell issues?
The other thing everyone seems to forget is that no more than 1 or 2% of current subscribers [buyers] even own an iPad. Popular Science's 16k digital subscriptions[purchases]/month is probably more comparable to 800k+ subscriptions[issues]/month when you consider that.
This may have already been mentioned, and it's just a technical detail, but...
Popular Science has a *circulation* of about 1.2 million, not a subscription level of that. Circulation includes *unpaid* copies and tons of those copies on the newstands that never sell - and get thrown away.
Comments
[...]Books, no matter how much the e-books devicer makers, electronic makers and publishers like to boast, are here to stay. [...]
Agree. Because books are meant to be permanent.
[...The same applies to magazines.[...]
Wrong. Because magazines are meant to be disposable.
I think you need to look at the newspaper and magazine publishers' business model. In one aspect it is very similar to radio and TV. They provide topical, short-lived information and entertainment for a small price or for free. Car and Driver probably loses money per subscriber on their $9.97 yearly subscription fee. It's a loss-leader to get you to subscribe and hand over your demographic information.
Magazine and newspaper publishers make money by selling their subscribers' demographic data to advertisers. Not for ads in their publications. For physical junk mail spam. They're trying to do the same online now. Apple has thoughtfully provided an opt-out setting in their magazine apps, but about 50% of magazine app users still choose to opt-in.
Sure, there will always be magazines. There will always be horses too. The auto industry didn't kill off all the horses in the world.
B&N's Nook Color does appear to have more success with magazine and newspaper sales than Apple's iPad according to this recent article.
http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/m...tions-on-nook/
That's kind of a useless article, as it was written the latter part of January, using numbers that were somewhat older. Now there are subs for the iPad, and many single copies go for $2. After we give it a couple of months to get settled, and for all of the magazines to appear on the dates they're promised for, we'll see how it works out.
But, as of now, everything is changing.
Try the nook web site. I think that's where I saw it.
As you made the statement, it's your job to post the link.
A pretty good article from the NYT that I missed at the time. A very believable explanation why the Nook may be a much more successful platform for magazines compared to the iPad (or Xoom or other full-fledged tablet)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/23/bu...ref=technology
Interesting, but as they stated, magazine subs on the iPad have only just started. And all we're getting is estimates for Nook sales, and subs, no actual numbers, so we should be just a bit skeptical. These articles tend to be a bit self serving.
Trees are organic, good for the environment, necessary biomatter for landfills and most importantly - a renewable resource.
iPads and other electronics are the exact opposite. They are toxic, made with plastics, and engineered to be thrown away after an extremely short period of time. They clog landfills and the amount of waste is horrendous.
There is no such thing as a 'green goal of a paperless society'. Not among those with IQ's above 12.
One should not listen to such complete bullshit brought to you by your friendly gadget selling PR consortium's that focus on profit at the expense of our planet.
Huh? iPads and tablets don't save trees? That make as much sense as skiing at Mamoth in July is caused by Global Warming!
There's a huge advantage for a music magazine to be on the same device that has your music collection and you could hear a preview of the music Rolling Stone is reviewing... Oh I get it, that would be a problem.
http://blogs.forbes.com/jeffbercovic...about-tablets/
I always thought it was insane for a magazine to give away 30% of its sales to Apple, simply for selling through the App Store.
If I were the magazine industry, I would threaten to only support Android until Apple came up with a more reasonable fee.
Android people don't buy anything. That's been proven over and over again. Magazines on the Ipad are a fail. They should just sell their shit through the ibooks store. People don't need a website written in iOS. That's a fail. In reality they should be doing the HTML 5 thing. One app that hits both Android and Ipad and will work on the traditional web as well.
He said even a success story like Popular Science sold only 16,000 subscriptions, well less than its 1.2 million print subscriptions.
Yes but were those 16k replacement subscriptions (ie they dropped the print for the digital) or 16k added ones (folks have both or folks that didn't want to pay for print were willing to pay for digital)
and just what are the subscription fees, the costs, the ad revenue etc. This guy is pushing a lot of talk with no real evidence to back up his rhetoric
And I wonder how much hate mail Wenner got or is going to get for her blasphemous statements against the almighty Apple corp.
Jann is a he, unless you are referring to the fact that he's gay.
In some ways he's not wrong, but the main reason no one was buying magazines on the iPad is because they cost too much ($4.99 for Wired... ha ha ha). BUT... now that Wired is $19.99 for a year, and the Economist is the same price as a print subscription, people will start buying them. I subscribe to Wired, The Economist and The New Yorker and read them all on my iPad.
Exactly!
I usually get wired for about $12/year. I expect to pay no more than that for the digital version (which I can't share with anyone!) And then there's the fact that many of the e-versions are essentially abridged versions. The publishers are simply afraid to make the leap and make a viable offering. When they do, customers will bite.
[And BTW, far from what Wenner thinks, the transition to digital is well under way, just not the way he thinks. Although I tend to prefer physical media for cost reasons, my 78 year old Mom has already made the leap. She has a Kindle does almost all of her reading on it. She loves it because it is so light and she can adjust the print to a larger size. The is the compelling value of the product for her. When the publishers provide all of us with such a compelling value offer, we'll all take the leap.]
I'm wondering why so many people bring up the 30% that Apple charges for hosting, distributing, collecting sales and making payments to it's media suppliers.
These people always make it seem that Apple is ripping someone off?
Dont they realize that when they buy something in a store... that the store (depending on the location and product) is charging you from 15 to 60 %
I spent many years in magazine publishing and what people don't know is, mag distributors take about 50% of the cover price. The magazine still eats the cost of printing, paper, staff, etc.etc. So, to produce a digital issues is far more cost effective. ROLLING STONE is obviously trying to cut costs due to subscriptions losses and newsstand losses. They trimmed the size down to a much smaller format to save costs. I don't understand why a company that used to be so cutting edge wouldn't embrace a new platform to sell issues?
Yes but were those 16k replacement subscriptions (ie they dropped the print for the digital) or 16k added ones (folks have both or folks that didn't want to pay for print were willing to pay for digital)
and just what are the subscription fees, the costs, the ad revenue etc. This guy is pushing a lot of talk with no real evidence to back up his rhetoric
Doesn't really matter which way you slice it. 16k is pretty shitty number, if it is to be believed.
Oh really? Who exactly is hosting and distributing all the content in iTunes then?
Apple hosts the origonal app download.
Who hosts the 'in app' purchased data?
I spent many years in magazine publishing and what people don't know is, mag distributors take about 50% of the cover price. The magazine still eats the cost of printing, paper, staff, etc.etc. So, to produce a digital issues is far more cost effective. ROLLING STONE is obviously trying to cut costs due to subscriptions losses and newsstand losses. They trimmed the size down to a much smaller format to save costs. I don't understand why a company that used to be so cutting edge wouldn't embrace a new platform to sell issues?
The other thing everyone seems to forget is that no more than 1 or 2% of current subscribers [buyers] even own an iPad. Popular Science's 16k digital subscriptions[purchases]/month is probably more comparable to 800k+ subscriptions[issues]/month when you consider that.
Popular Science has a *circulation* of about 1.2 million, not a subscription level of that. Circulation includes *unpaid* copies and tons of those copies on the newstands that never sell - and get thrown away.
Apple hosts the origonal app download.
Who hosts the 'in app' purchased data?
A: Apple