It was one thing when weak companies like Borders and NewPage went Chapter 11 last year. But now the bankruptcy talk has spread to four print-related companies that once seemed invincible or eternal: the U.S. Postal Service, Barnes & Noble, Quad/Graphics, and Verso Paper.
Are things really so bad for print media that the companies we thought were victors of the competitive wars have now become victims? Dead Tree Edition isn't so sure, so we're turning to our readers to help us understand.
We have initiated a poll (in the right column, just below the first ad and above the "Popular Posts" listing), asking which, if any, of these four companies will end up in bankruptcy court during 2012. You may vote for more than one, or for "None of the above." In the early balloting, only 30% of the voters thought none of the four would face bankruptcy this year, while Verso and USPS were in a tight battle for the title of most likely to succumb.
Update: Final poll results are at A Major Print-Media Bankruptcy Is Likely in 2012, Voters Say. Additional commentary: A Surprise Leader in the Print-Media Bankruptcy Sweepstakes.
Here's a quick rundown of the candidates:
Showing posts with label Borders. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Borders. Show all posts
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Stuck at the Borders: Magazine Publishers Have Failed to Explore the Amazon
Magazine publishers’ inability to sell their products in online bookstores makes them especially vulnerable to the demise of Borders and other traditional booksellers.
The bankruptcy reorganization and downsizing of Borders, announced today, may hit some magazine publishers harder than book publishers. As more and more book buyers took to the Web, book publishers followed, becoming less reliant on brick-and-mortar booksellers. Not so with magazine publishers, at least not in the U.S.
Walk into any Barnes & Noble store and you’ll see an entire section offering the current issue of hundreds of magazines. But good luck finding those same magazines at barnesandnoble.com; a search of the titles will mostly turn up subscription offers.
Single copies of magazines are sold at Amazon.com, but only as second-class citizens. The giant Internet merchant doesn’t sell single copies itself -- not even iconic special items like the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue that was released this week. Only independent merchants with “storefronts” on Amazon offer magazines.
Single copies of most of the major U.S. consumer titles, including the 10 most circulated magazines, are not consistently available for sale on Amazon. (I’m not counting Kindle editions, which are generally awful bastardizations of real magazines.)
To get even the most recent print issues of popular magazines via Amazon, you’ll have to rely on such independent storefronts as “soxfan44883”, “lolita30”, and “Power of 2 minds” – which typically operate and ship from someone’s home.
And if you find the issue you want, which is not a certainty, you’ll probably pay $3.99 per magazine for shipping because Amazon only offers free shipping on items it sells or fulfills.
Dead Tree Edition could find only two publishers that seemed to be actively marketing their print magazines on Amazon, and neither is a typical magazine publisher.
The Old Farmer’s Almanac is considered a magazine by brick-and-mortar retailers because it has a magazine UPC code, is distributed and displayed with other magazines, and has a specific on-sale period. But Amazon treats each of the annual editions as a book, keeping it on sale for at least several years.
U.S. News & World Report abandoned the print magazine business last year, but its well-known Best Colleges and America’s Best Graduate Schools annuals are still considered magazines by retailers. The company has its own storefront on Amazon (with a Seller Rating of “Just Launched”) that offers the most recent edition of the two products, using “Fulfillment by Amazon” to make them eligible for free shipping.
Magazines and books have always been merchandised separately and differently, even when sold in the same stores. Although “bookazines” and rapidly produced books are blurring the line between the two types of products in the consumer’s mind, the merchandising distinctions between the two have carried over from the brick-and-mortar world to the Internet world.
Amazon, for example, will sell single copies of magazines, but only if each one has “an ISBN or EAN that is printed on the book and a scannable bar code printed on the back of the book.” Putting a barcode on the most lucrative advertising space in the publication is a problem for most magazines.
But publishers are also to blame for their no-show on Amazon. It’s a problem of mindset.
The departments that used to be called “Circulation” are now known as “Audience Development” or “Consumer Marketing” in acknowledgement of their role in bringing customers to Web sites, e-newsletters, and other non-magazine products.
But the “newsstand” people are still “newsstand” people, which means Amazon is not on their radar. Their focus is on marketing impulse buys to people who are actually looking for something else.
The idea that someone might intentionally look for a specific issue of a printed magazine to buy is foreign to the American magazine industry.
A note about the Amazon ads and links: I included ads for three magazines so that my readers could easily see how they are marketed on Amazon. It was also an easy way to illustrate the article without worrying about copyright violations. Yeah, I might make a few bucks from the ads (and from the links to the independent Amazon storefronts), but based on my experience with Amazon ads it will be a pittance.
Other recent commentary about the magazine industry includes:
The bankruptcy reorganization and downsizing of Borders, announced today, may hit some magazine publishers harder than book publishers. As more and more book buyers took to the Web, book publishers followed, becoming less reliant on brick-and-mortar booksellers. Not so with magazine publishers, at least not in the U.S.
Walk into any Barnes & Noble store and you’ll see an entire section offering the current issue of hundreds of magazines. But good luck finding those same magazines at barnesandnoble.com; a search of the titles will mostly turn up subscription offers.
Single copies of magazines are sold at Amazon.com, but only as second-class citizens. The giant Internet merchant doesn’t sell single copies itself -- not even iconic special items like the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue that was released this week. Only independent merchants with “storefronts” on Amazon offer magazines.
Single copies of most of the major U.S. consumer titles, including the 10 most circulated magazines, are not consistently available for sale on Amazon. (I’m not counting Kindle editions, which are generally awful bastardizations of real magazines.)
To get even the most recent print issues of popular magazines via Amazon, you’ll have to rely on such independent storefronts as “soxfan44883”, “lolita30”, and “Power of 2 minds” – which typically operate and ship from someone’s home.
And if you find the issue you want, which is not a certainty, you’ll probably pay $3.99 per magazine for shipping because Amazon only offers free shipping on items it sells or fulfills.
Dead Tree Edition could find only two publishers that seemed to be actively marketing their print magazines on Amazon, and neither is a typical magazine publisher.
The Old Farmer’s Almanac is considered a magazine by brick-and-mortar retailers because it has a magazine UPC code, is distributed and displayed with other magazines, and has a specific on-sale period. But Amazon treats each of the annual editions as a book, keeping it on sale for at least several years.
U.S. News & World Report abandoned the print magazine business last year, but its well-known Best Colleges and America’s Best Graduate Schools annuals are still considered magazines by retailers. The company has its own storefront on Amazon (with a Seller Rating of “Just Launched”) that offers the most recent edition of the two products, using “Fulfillment by Amazon” to make them eligible for free shipping.
Magazines and books have always been merchandised separately and differently, even when sold in the same stores. Although “bookazines” and rapidly produced books are blurring the line between the two types of products in the consumer’s mind, the merchandising distinctions between the two have carried over from the brick-and-mortar world to the Internet world.
Amazon, for example, will sell single copies of magazines, but only if each one has “an ISBN or EAN that is printed on the book and a scannable bar code printed on the back of the book.” Putting a barcode on the most lucrative advertising space in the publication is a problem for most magazines.
But publishers are also to blame for their no-show on Amazon. It’s a problem of mindset.
The departments that used to be called “Circulation” are now known as “Audience Development” or “Consumer Marketing” in acknowledgement of their role in bringing customers to Web sites, e-newsletters, and other non-magazine products.
But the “newsstand” people are still “newsstand” people, which means Amazon is not on their radar. Their focus is on marketing impulse buys to people who are actually looking for something else.
The idea that someone might intentionally look for a specific issue of a printed magazine to buy is foreign to the American magazine industry.
A note about the Amazon ads and links: I included ads for three magazines so that my readers could easily see how they are marketed on Amazon. It was also an easy way to illustrate the article without worrying about copyright violations. Yeah, I might make a few bucks from the ads (and from the links to the independent Amazon storefronts), but based on my experience with Amazon ads it will be a pittance.
Other recent commentary about the magazine industry includes:
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