iPad magazines are failing

The word on the web is that iPad magazines are failing. When the iPad was launched, many publishing companies were excited by the prospect of selling digital versions of their publications over the internet. The iPad is a fantastic device that has the perfect format for digital publications. It is small and light (compared to a laptop), and has Wi-Fi and 3G internet connections.

Digital publications look great on the device and it was thought that digital magazines could save the publishing industry, which has been suffering from falling sales and/or revenue. Initial sales of iPad magazines were fantastic and it is said that the first issue of Wired's publication, for example, sold 100,000 copies. November sales, however, were just 23,000. That's some fall!

The launch issue was a one-off and subsequent sales were 31,000 a month, but it's now hovering between 22,000 and 23,000. Wired isn't the only magazine that is suffering falling sales and Vanity Fair, GQ, Glamour and Men's Health are all way down from their early sales.

Is there a future for iPad magazines? Probably not.

There are several issues that need to be considered and the first is that over time there are going to be a lot more tablets. Even if the iPad continues to dominate the market, a publisher wouldn't want to ignore all the other tablets out there and it would be a bad idea just to support one tablet form factor.

Pricing is an issue and people expect digital magazines to be cheap, perhaps even free. It still costs a lot of money to publish a magazine digitally, but the public thinks that it costs next to nothing to produce because there's no paper, no distribution costs and so on. It's hard to convince people to pay for something that people expect to be free or very cheap.

There is also the duplication of work and magazines already have a website. It requires extra time, effort and money to produce an iPad issue, so why bother? Why not simply create a great website? This can be accessed by computers, mobile phones, iPads, and any other device with a web browser. It makes a lot more sense for a publishing company to create a great website with a paywall than to create an extra issue just for iPad owners and ignore everyone else.

Perhaps the number of iPad owners will make it worthwhile continuing with iPad-only issues, but as the number of other devices with web access increases, publishers will surely rethink their strategy. They will want a publication that everyone can access, not just a subsection of the market.