Barnes & Noble: 650,000 NOOKnewsstand buys in two months

By Geoff Duncan January 24, 2011

Barnes Noble Nook Color — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Magazines, newspapers, and periodicals have shown a lot of eagerness to get their content onto ereaders and tablet computers—despite some indications that magazines may not have a lot of staying power, at least on Apple’s iPad. However, Barnes & Noble is keen to position its new NOOKnewsstand periodical service as a success—and says it has sold over 650,000 subscriptions and single-issue copies in the services’ first two months.

“We are excited to offer a wide array of top periodicals and have seen explosive growth in NOOKnewsstand sales since the launch of NOOKcolor,” said Barnes & Nobles’ VP and general manager for digital newsstand Jonathan Shar, in a statement. “Our customers clearly enjoy reading digital versions of their favorite magazines…. We’ve had overwhelmingly positive feedback from our content partners as well.”

NOOKnewstand offers almost 100 magazine titles, with best-sellers so far being things like Us Weekly, Cosmopolitan, Maxim, Oprah Winfrey’s O magazine, National Geographic, and Readers’ Digest. Among newspapers, top sellers are The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and USA Today. Magazines are offered in full color to support the NOOKcolor ereader, and feature an ArticleView feature that focuses on an article’s text for an easy reading experience. Newspaper subscriptions include automatic delivery in the morning (or on publication).

Electronic book and periodical retailers do not offer very specific sales figures for their business, so it’s not clear how Barnes & Noble’s claim of 650,000 subscription and single-copy sales stacks up to competitors like Amazon and Apple’s iTunes Bookstore.

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