Magazines Struggling on Apple iPad: Are we Surprised?

According to GQ, only 365 copies of their magazine have been sold on the Apple iPad. A lot lower than expectations.

When Apple demoed the iPad to its corporate contacts in the publishing world, they were thrilled. Unlike e-book readers before it, the Apple iPad had a large LCD screen, capable of displaying a book or magazine in glorious color.

Many publishers jumped at the opportunity to make apps for the platform and sell content via app updates. Unfortunately they have found that despite there now being well over 1 million iPads in the wild, owners appear to have relatively little interest in reading magazines, thus far.

Gentleman’s Quarterly, one of the most popular men’s fashion and health magazines, debuted an app in the iTunes App Store some time ago, priced at $2.99. The app came with one free issue of the magazine and offered future issues priced at $1.99.

According to GQ VP/Publisher Pete Hunsinger, in an interview with MinOnline, the app has only sold 365 copies (for a total of $1,091.35 in sales) on the iPad. Still Hunsinger remains optimistic, insisting that the iPad app costs his company “nothing”. He comments, “This costs us nothing extra: no printing or postage. Everything is profit, and I look forward to the time when iPad issue sales become a major component to our circulation.”

The first issue was a reprint of the December 2009 “Best Dressed Men” issue and featured Jake Gyllenhaal staring out from the cover. GQ hopes that the June issue which features the sultry Miranda Kerr (Victoria’s Secret Model and Orlando Bloom’s girlfriend) on the cover will do slightly better.

GQ publisher Condé Nast is unfazed by the poor sales and will also soon be debuting Glamour, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and Wired magazines on the iPad.

Check out our Apple iPad Review

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Showing 8 comments

Natsuki Takaya at 6:52am 22nd May 2011 I have to see anyone, you happen to be absolutely in. My spouse and i came up Only two this information via some other blog site along with are intensely captivated by this specific subject matter along with understading about this specific. Does one head only examine this specific information via our facebook or myspace web site? EIGER and EIGER INDONESIA
Robert Twizell at 5:30am 21st May 2010 Sorry to say that man is talking out of his bottom. He might be smart enough to have moved his costs onto someone elses departmental budget, but I can guarantee that there would be significant costs in enabling e distribution of any content.

Trust me, I've spent 10 years of my life building content management software, or implementing off the shelf software for this and any project of this type carries costs. Even when its up and running you have to pay for support staff and the production team who at the very least have to check the correctness of the stuff before its e-distributed.

There ought to be significant value added to print materials to make them more interesting on something like the iPad. If all they are doing is selling a PDF, then that would pretty much explain why they aren't selling any.
Sha at 9:29am 19th May 2010 I think what people are forgetting about the iPad is one app that has really helped magazines: Zinio.

www.zinio.com
Ian Bell at 4:10pm 18th May 2010 Aren't they trading one cost for another though? The cost of printing now goes to a Flash developer (to make those interactive articles), and the cost of postage is now traded for commission to Apple for putting it on their iTunes marketplace right?
Onetrack at 3:19pm 18th May 2010 "This costs us nothing extra: no printing or postage. Everything is profit......"

Bastards.

And here publishers were trying to justify selling eBooks / digital publications for the same if not more than their paper counterparts, when anyone with a brain knows full well there is no lumber/pulp, ink/glue, storage, transportation, etc costs. The cost is for the creation, content and labor to make the app, and thats paid for by advertising - they're cutting out I would say over 90% of the costs of making / distributing a paper version and yet they cost more.

Well this guys statement just nailed it.
Ian Bell at 1:52pm 18th May 2010 Only 365 sales is pretty bad. I think people are using it more for apps than games I think.
Daryl Cheshire at 1:41pm 18th May 2010 The iPad is not released in Australia yet. And probably other countries too. Don't be quick to measure the success or not of magazine sales. I for one am looking forward to getting my hands on the iPad and reading magazines and books. Including some US publications.
Sam at 12:14pm 18th May 2010 The issue is how Apple organizes the magazines in their iTunes store. They are pretty much lumped in with the other apps. I found GQ under the lifestyle section. They need a newspaper/magazine section, expecially under the iBook group.