Is a digital edition even worth the trouble any more?

A major magazine advertiser has allegedly decided that it will no longer count digital editions towards rate base. (Rate base is the guaranteed minimum number of copies of a magazine the publisher promises to deliver.) See Major Ad Buyer Tells Magazines It Won’t Buy Tablet Circ Like It’s Print Any More.

Note that some people think this is just a negotiating ploy. We’ll have to see how it all turns out.

However this particular issue resolves, digital editions have been a big disappointment, and this kind of thing only makes matters worse. Digital editions make up less than 4% of magazine circulation, and if advertisers insist on treating them separately that means a different sales process and, worse, different production for a small fraction of the audience.

If this stands, it’s one more reason for magazine publishers to wonder if they should even bother with a digital edition.

There are still reasons to publish an online edition of a magazine, the most important of which being that customers expect it. But it’s not a clear win, and “going digital” is certainly not going to save a title or a publishing company.

Is a magazine an inherently print product?

In my Dec. 1 issue, I asked “what is a digital magazine?” and said that in many ways the very word “magazine” is intimately tied to the printed page.

David Pilcher took that one step further and said “A magazine IS a print product. Period.” See Hyperbole and Hysteria in the Magazine Industry

His article is well worth your time. It ties together a lot of thoughts I’ve had over the years, and the headline is completely on target. There is far too much hysteria and hyperbole about “digital” and “the death of print.”

Scouting out the best content for your readers

Amazon has started a new venture where kindle readers can preview unpublished books. The readers vote on which stories they like best, then Amazon picks their favorites from that collection and offers the author a deal. It’s a way of crowdsourcing the slush pile. See Amazon’s crowdsourced publishing venture Kindle Scout goes live.

This is interesting to me because I’ve published a few titles on the kindle. It’ll be interesting to see where it goes.

I’ve often wondered if a similar method might work for B2B publishers. For example, as editors are working on their story list for the next issue they could post something on the order of “these are the stories we’re looking at” and allow readers to mark the ones they are most interested in.

There would be no need to promise to follow the stories the readers pick, but it seems like a good way to get feedback and to tailor content to subscriber needs. It would also help in establishing on online community around the publication.