iPad magazines aren’t selling very well

Apple’s iPad – what was once thought to be the savior of magazine sales turns out to be nothing more than a false prophet. When Apple first launched their iOS tablet earlier this year, magazine publishers all saw it as a new way to distribute digital versions of their printed publications to consumers. However, not many magazines were successful in this aspect. But those that managed to sell digital copies, saw their sales slowly declining each month. For example, Wired debuted with over 100,000 downloads in June, but only sold 31,000 between July and September, and around 21,500 between October and November. Glamour only sold 4,301 copies in its first month, and dropped 20% in October, and another 20% in November, with only 2,775 sales. Many other magazines have faced the same drop in sales.

It turns out that people still preferred having printed copies instead. The main problem with these magazines is that most of them are merely digital replicas of the same (paper) magazine. They weren’t specially designed for the iPad to take advantage of how interactive an app can be. Consumers don’t want to pay for something digital when they can get a physical copy at the same price, especially if the only benefits of the digital version are that you can read it in the dark and you don’t have to collect stacks of magazines in your attic.

If publishers decide to spend some time and effort to ensure that their magazines translated well to the digital format, things might turn out very differently. If you subscribe to digital magazines on your iPad, drop us a comment and let us know what you think.