Digital subscribers to periodical publications often believe they should get a discount because they're saving the publisher the cost of printing and postage. While that's can be true in some cases, in others the reverse is true. Often publishers makes more money on the print version — even with the cost of printing and mailing — than they do on the digital version.<\/p>\n
For example, a large volume magazine that sells for $19.95 for 12 monthly issues might only cost 50 cents \/ issue to print and mail. Or $6.00 \/ year.<\/p>\n
A digital vendor might offer to convert the publication into their format "for free," but only remit 30 to 40% of the value of the subscription to the publisher.<\/p>\n
Do the math. The publisher gets $13.95 in subscription revenue from the print publication, but only $7.98 for the digital edition (and that's at the larger remit!).<\/p>\n
The digital edition should cost more,<\/i> not less! <\/p>\n
That all sounds bad enough, but it gets worse. Publishers often rely on subscription and advertising<\/em> revenue, but many advertisers don't care much for digital editions, and they often won't count them towards your rate base.<\/p>\n With the digital edition, the publisher is getting less subscription revenue and less (or maybe even no) ad revenue.<\/p>\n What a deal!<\/p>\n 40% is better than nothing, so the publisher might still want to sell digital editions, even though they'd rather have subscribers in print.<\/p>\n As I’ve pointed out, digital editions are often a bad deal all around for the publisher, but … it only gets worse.<\/p>\n Subscribers think<\/em> they're saving the publisher all kinds of money by taking the digital edition, so they're more price sensitive. (Or they feel as if they're getting ripped off.)<\/p>\n Furthermore, some of the digital vendors don't even give the publisher the subscriber's name! (Never<\/em> accept a deal like that!)<\/p>\n As with many other things, publishers have been deluded when it comes to digital issues.<\/p>\n