Does Anyone Know How Many Copy Mmag was Selling Each Month ?

[Chris Aceto]

I remember back in the day...waaay back they were going like gang busters. I used to read mmag in the late 80's loved it

[Curt James]

hifrommike65 posted something like just 5,000?

Googling next.

[Curt James]

No answer yet.

Search string: periodical sales statistics

Statistics and Facts on the U.S. Magazine Market

Not dissimilar to the current state of the newspaper industry, the magazine market is struggling to survive. In 2012, only three percent of Americans stated that they regularly read magazines; another nine read them “sometimes”. This means that publishers are having to aim for relatively niche groups and have accepted that they may be required to fight to retain and gain readership.

The downward trend is leading to shrinking revenues. The industry’s total revenue fell from 10.47 billion U.S. dollars in 2005 to 8.3 billion to 2011 – a decline of 21 percent; paid subscription revenue fell 17 percent between 2005 and 2010. On the other hand, advertising revenue amounted to 15.19 billion in 2012 and is expected to shrink only slightly over the next three years. Advertisers seem to take a leap of faith and invest over nine percent of their ad spend into magazines, in spite of tiny audiences and of the fact that Americans spend least time with magazines compared to all the other media.

This provides the publishers with means of survival, which are then used to try and produce more attractive products and this way keep up their reader base and to attract new readers. The best example for this phenomenon is the fact that for the past three years – between 2009 and 2012, the United States saw more magazine launches than it did closures. Additionally, the industry has been lowering its expenses and increasing prices to cushion declining subscription and sales revenues.

From http://www.statista.com/topics/1265/magazines/

[Curt James]

Search string: Robert Kennedy RKP sales statistics

Author Tosca Reno Steps In as President of Robert Kennedy Publishing

By Leigh Anne Williams
May 03, 2012

Tosca Reno --author, diet and fitness guru and reality TV star -- is taking her first steps into a new role. Following her husband publisher Robert Kennedy’s death last month, she is now president and CEO of Robert Kennedy Publishing (RKP).

Kennedy built a popular health and fitness brand based in Canada that includes magazines such as MuscleMag International, Reps!, Clean Eating, American Curves and Oxygen. Former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was a longtime friend. In 2006, RKP expanded the business into book publishing and has published more than 56 books.

A health and fitness expert and non-smoker, Kennedy died of lung cancer only three months after being diagnosed. “I’m very aware that this is a monumental change to lose our inspirational leader,” Reno told PW. “Everybody’s upset. Everybody’s feeling very uncertain.” But she adds that she hopes the staff will see that although Kennedy’s death is a tragedy, “the real tragedy would be letting Bob’s dream and vision fade away, so we have an obligation to do our best. My job is to try to guide us thoughtfully forward.” She says Kennedy has been “grooming and coaching her” for the last eight years or more.

Reno has been involved in both the magazine and book sides of the business for a number of years. She began her career writing a column for Oxygen and her first Eat Clean Diet book was among the first published by RKP in 2006. The first print run was 5,000 books and was expected to last for the year. “We sold out in two weeks and we never looked back,” she says. The series now has 14 titles, including a New York Times bestseller. The latest book is the Eat Clean Diet Vegetarian Cookbook.

Reno says she will focus on digital publications. “Although print is still the cornerstone and newsstand and subscriptions are an important piece, we don’t see inclines, we see declines, [sales] slowly eroding, and more going towards the digital,” she says. RKP has seen e-book sales go from a total of about 55,000 for all of last year up to 55,000 for one month this year.

Kennedy wrote 55 books himself. His last one, Bull’s Eye: Targeting Your Life for Real Financial Wealth and Personal Fulfillment, has just published. Reno received the first copy on the day of Kennedy’s funeral. “It’s very powerful to hear our leader speak through this book, and it is a very treasured piece of writing,” she said.

The book will be launched with a reception at the Toronto Pro Show for bodybuilding at the beginning of June, and Reno says a memorial event in Los Angeles will be held at that time as well.

From http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/b...ublishing.html

[Curt James]

Search string: Robert Kennedy RKP print magazine sales statistics

In 1972 Bob went into business for himself, selling courses of instruction by mail on nutrition, bodybuilding and fitness. In 1974 he started his first magazine, MuscleMag International, with an initial print run of 110,000 copies. Thirty-five years later, the magazine continues publishing. Bob was an avid and accomplished photographer who discovered many fitness models/WWE stars/bodybuilding personalities/health and fitness experts and celebrities, including, among others, Tosca Reno, Torrie Wilson, Trish Stratus, Vicky Pratt, Cory Everson, Roland Kickinger and Ronnie Coleman. Bob was also known in the bodybuilding world for coining the term "Hardcore Bodybuilding" after publishing the book under the same name and for creating the training concept referred to as The Pre-Exhaust Principle, which is known and used by most bodybuilders and weight trainees around the world.

In the 1990s, Kennedy opened 26 fitness stores and franchises and created a fitness clothing line; all were eventually sold to concentrate on the core business of magazines and book publishing. His publishing business has produced hundreds of books including “Live Young Forever”, the last book by the late Godfather of fitness, Jack LaLanne, and the NY Times Best-selling “The Eat-Clean Diet” series, written by his wife Tosca Reno.

More @ http://www.rkpubs.com/TeamDetail.aspx?teamid=12

[hifrommike65]

No, I said the subscription base was about 5K. They sold a lot more on newsstands, but they were debt heavy & couldn't pay their bills.

[Curt James]

Search string: sales statistics for print magazines

The fall and rise of magazines from print to digital

Declining sales do not mean the end for glossies. More platforms mean better ways of connecting people with their passions

Posted by Barbara Rowlands
March 7, 2013


In January this year, Wired magazine was one of the first print magazines to crack 50% ad revenue through digital. Photograph: AP

Challenging times lie ahead for magazines. The Audit Bureau of Circulations figures published last month made grim reading. Sales of celebrity titles, such as Heat, Hello! and Closer have plummeted, squeezed out by celebrity websites and the Daily Mail's sidebar of shame. Weekly women's consumer titles and Nuts's miserable year-on-year sales figures (-29.7%) merely confirmed the downward spiral. Even NME stalwarts seem to be abandoning their weekly fix (down 16.6%).

But these figures are only a partial reflection of what is really going on. The industry trade body, the Professional Publishers Association, released its first combined digital and print circulation chart alongside the traditional ABC figures and its CEO Barry McIlheney says that for many titles, such as Conde Nast's GQ and Future's technology magazine, T3, a combined figures is a truer reflection of how the industry is faring.

Indeed, some sectors are doing quite nicely and all magazines are built around the twin pillars that have always eluded newspapers – passion and community. The most successful ones are returning to their roots.

Jack Roberts, the founding editor of Bad Idea magazine and founder of Future Human (futurehuman.co.uk, @futurehumanista), a multimedia editorial team focusing on innovation and new ideas, reminded me the other day that the word "magazine" comes from the 16th century Arabic term makzin or makzan, which means storehouse – hence its use in military parlance.

But its etymology is relevant to the magazine industry today. While publishers fixate on modes of distribution (print, online) and fashions in editorial (real life, women and men's lifestyle etc), they might be better off finding new ways to enrich the lives of their readers.

Rethinking the magazine as a unified "storehouse" of value is a nice starting point for brainstorming new ways for magazines to create pleasure and value for their audiences across different media. In the hands of a strong magazine editor, myriad platforms just offer more ways of packing that storehouse with endless goodies.

Some big titles have done just this. Top Gear (down 16.7% in the ABCs) is a brand, its editor a brand manager, its journalists, passionate providers of content across platforms. The print product is to linger over, but the iPad edition and the app, with its galleries and high-definition videos, its exclusive offers and interactivity, is where the magazine's strength now lies.

The fully interactive iPad version, not captured in the ABC figures, is the number one motoring app in the US and UK. Editor Charlie Turner told me readers were migrating to the tablet edition, where they could get an instant fix. "Cars come to life, they can start them up and see beautiful images close up.

"The speed of delivery is vital, but so too is the tone of the magazine, which is very profitable – there are editions in 32 countries. We have to generate content for the right platform and the skillset of our magazine creatives becomes more and more valuable. They have to be great writers in print, tablet and online, which gives them much more freedom. For creatives who are passionate about their subject, it opens doors to many more readers. The potential is huge and very exciting."

The same goes for strong B2B magazines, such as UBM's award-laden Property Week. Its recently-departed editor, Giles Barrie, rarely stopped in his quest to satisfy his readers and it has been transformed from a run-of-the-mill B2B to a multi-platform brand delivering high-quality journalism, analysis and data. Customer publishers are now global content providers for commercial brands – the platform suiting the client. Redwood produces digital content for Barclays but for Mazda, it prints Zoom Zoom, its biggest international magazine with 1.5 million copies distributed in 30 countries.

Cracking design delivered in ink on paper is at the emotional core of Church of London's film magazine Little White Lies. This is true for many other independent magazines, such as the women's lifestyle magazine, Oh Comely, and the fabric magazine Selvedge. But behind such magazines is often a creative or content agency.

The Church of London produces Google's print magazine Think Quarterly alongside content for Honda, Stella Artois, the British Film Institute and Sony PlayStation.

Its co-founders have just launched a new creative agency, Human After All. Its CEO Danny Miller says the team have been "inspired by the arrival of amazing new tools that help people connect with their passions and with each other in ways we could never have imagined".

Digital-only magazines such as Sabotage Times, created by Loaded founder James Brown, allow journalists to indulge their passions and wrestle free from the boardroom. Hard cash comes from providing content for commercial organisations.

If passion, fuelled by knowledge, is the heart of a great magazine, readers will gravitate towards brands that continually strive to deliver. Content really is king, which explains why Shortlist Media's free woman's print magazine Stylist can attract traditional advertising.

It doesn't have to compete on the newsstands, so its covers are beautiful and original, its content weighty and witty, aimed at female commuters sated with pap shots and diets and hungry for an intelligent read. It has just launched in Paris.

Another winner is Conde Nast's Easy Living. With a circulation of just over 150,000, its circulation is up 7.5% year on year. Its editor, Deborah Joseph, has added fashion pages, more hard-hitting confessional features and launched a new website, inspired by the visual template of Pinterest – with block sections on culture, fashion, cookery and so on. Brand extensions are on their way.

Magazines have long understood the power of events to enhance their brand. GQ has Man of the Year, Country Living the Country Living Fair and Property Week its conferences, networking events and webinars.

Successful magazines have gone back to their roots, using anything and everything to enhance their readers' lives. Strong brands now resemble the 16th century makzin more than ever before.

Barbara Rowlands runs the Magazine Journalism MA at City University, London.

This article was amended on 8 March to correct the name of the Professional Publishers Association

From http://www.guardian.co.uk/media-netw...-print-digital

[Curt James]

No, I said the subscription base was about 5K. They sold a lot more on newsstands, but they were debt heavy & couldn't pay their bills.

Ahh. Thank you.

Any idea where to get the recent monthly sales figures for the magazine? I'm coming up goose eggs.

[Baldiewonkanobi]

Here is an idea how some of the other mags fare.

http://abcas3.auditedmedia.com/ecirc/magtitlesearch.asp

Baldie

[GDavis]

circulation numbers are tough to sort through. Sort of reminds me of that Mark Twain quote about "statistics and damn lies". For example, USA today often gives free issues to hotel chains but then uses those as part of the "circulation" numbers. Not total fraud but not totally honest either.

On a personal note I used to enjoy buying the magazines when I would travel for work, to be honest the last few years I felt that MuscleMag was better than Flex and MD.

[natenator]

Last week in Toronto they were still trying to sell subscriptions. Definition of a scum company.

[Curt James]

Last week in Toronto they were still trying to sell subscriptions. Definition of a scum company.

You're defining that company without a full picture, aren't you? For that matter, who in Toronto paid anyone at RKP cash for their subscription? Visa would let you make a stop payment or refute the charge, I'm pretty sure.

Who knows where the final decision came from or who was involved? Certainly not the people standing there passing out subscription cards. Many employees were caught flat-footed. There may have been some scum involved, but you seem to be casting a blanket over the works.

[Dan Kennedy]

Chris,
Get a hold of Scott Welch at Muscle Insider. He will have numbers for you. Expect to see that out of all the magazines printed only 30% were sold. This is typical of a good newsstand magazine. I suspect MMI and Oxygen sold much less.
Dan

[hifrommike65]

That's what "sell through" means. Mags have to stock X number of copies to sell ONE of them in a store. The "sell through" number is the X factor. A lot of mags have to stock five copies to sell one. So their sell through is 20%. Mags that don't sell get their covers stripped off & the issue is then thrown away, or it's supposed to be at least (true of mass-market paperbacks too)--haven't you ever seen copies without covers? That's why. (I know all this because I follow the science fiction industry closely in Locus Magazine, & it reports all this info about the magazine industry.)

[Baldiewonkanobi]

You're defining that company without a full picture, aren't you? For that matter, who in Toronto paid anyone at RKP cash for their subscription? Visa would let you make a stop payment or refute the charge, I'm pretty sure.

Who knows where the final decision came from or who was involved? Certainly not the people standing there passing out subscription cards. Many employees were caught flat-footed. There may have been some scum involved, but you seem to be casting a blanket over the works.

Correct Curto. I have been a victim if you will of 3 bankruptcys in my 44 years as a big rig truck salesman. For legal reasons NO ONE except the Board of Directors and the Corp attorney often know whats going down and when. My buddy was the CFO and he was caught by surprise. This protects the creditors....thru the creditors committee they end up owning the business while its being disolved. So if the web site was up and subscriptions were being sold on the 11th hour....big Fen deal. Chit happens. Its not the BIG BAD EVIL CORPORATION who is fucking the little guy. I knew the MMI people. They are honorable peeps.

Baldie