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Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Magazines get ready for Tablets

After letting the Internet slip away from them and watching electronic readers like the Kindle from Amazon develop without their input, publishers are trying again with Apple iPhones and, especially, tablet computers....

Click here for the full article

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Its too late (to Emigrate)

A reminder of how tough publishing in print is at present comes with the news that 3 publications targeting the emigration market have all closed this month.

Firstly, Sussex-based Consyl Publishing went into administration this week. They published two newspapers for Australia & New Zealand and claimed

"The newspapers are produced in this country and are distributed all over the UK. Each month we have
5000 printed of each title, with 2000 of these going to individual addresses. We also send copies of both
newspapers to library reading rooms where they are very well received."

This is somewhat at odds with information furnished by the liquidators, who say

"Further to our recent telephone conversations please be advised that from what I can tell there are

57 Names and addresses on the subscription list for the New Zealand Outlook and
110 Names and addresses on the subscription list for the Australian Outlook

167 names and addresses in total on the subscription list."

Hmmm.

Secondly, Emigrate Magazine has sadly migrated to the hereafter after just 8 issues. Published by the Johnston Press (-£450,000,000 debt and counting)- its final issue contained a pyrrhic speech by editor Paul Beazley who celebrated its editorial integrity, but oddly not the complete absence of readers which accounted for its closure.

The same company also closed its digital magazine - World of Property - which rather shot itself in the online foot by charging ludicrously low amounts for advertising ; thus making advertisers suspect no one was actually reading it.

Looks like they were right.

Monday, December 07, 2009

News Corp to join forces with rivals to launch digital newsstand

News Corporation is to join a consortium of magazine publishers to launch an online store selling digital versions of their titles.

The Murdoch-owned company will launch a joint-venture this week alongside Time Warner’s Time Inc, Condé Nast, Hearst and Meredith Corp enabling readers to purchase titles from the publishers in a variety of digital formats, according to reports.

The publishers are working together to sell their titles across a number of platforms such as ereaders and mobiles.

Friday, December 04, 2009

Time Inc's "Manhattan Project" Is A Tablet Magazine

The magazine business is hurting just like all print publications. And even if their Websites are popular, they generate one tenth the ad revenue of the print side. Since last summer, Time Inc has been working on a "Manhattan Project" to create a digital magazine for the new breed of color tablet computers soon to come to market. (Condé Nast is also working on a similar concept). Today, I got a sneak peak at a demo of the tablet magazine designed for Sports Illustrated....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/02/AR2009120201826.html