Trends and Stats for Digital Magazines

There are many different trends and stats available for digital magazine publishers. It’s important to keep up-to-date on these trends and statistics so that you can stay ahead of the game and publish the best magazine you’re capable of publishing for your audience. It’s clear that things are changing in the publishing world due to the easy entry into publishing through the advent of digital magazines and the different platforms to publish them.

1. Paper Is Old School – While you may consider offering print on demand, the fact is paper is less and less cool and more and more old school when it comes to magazines. There is basically no reason to publish paper magazines in the digital world today. You can get just as good results by publishing only online, especially if your distribution numbers are small. According to ZenithOptimedia Agency, print magazines will shrink by about 2 to 3 percent a year.

Link to ZenithOptimedia – http://www.zenithoptimedia.com/

2. Longer Articles Work Well – Publishing longer, more in-depth articles in your magazine is a good idea. People like to take the time to read longer articles when they open up a magazine. Reading a magazine article is different from reading quick online content. You can include serious statistical pieces that go outside of the content you may normally put on your website or in newsletters.

3. Magazines Will Be More Interactive – Due to their digital nature, magazines can be more interactive than their paper counterparts. You can now include surveys, polls, videos, and audio into your digital magazine. What’s more, your subscribers will expect more interactive features in their digital publications.

4. Magazines Will Have Fewer Ads – Yet, you’ll make more money even though there will be fewer ads in each magazine. Customers are tired of flipping through page after page of ads. So, the price of each advertisement will be higher but there will be fewer spaces available. You’ll actually make more money with less work due to this, since you can also include more technologically advanced forms of ads.

5. Micro Magazines Will Become More Popular – This is where you come in. According to State of the Media, smaller more focused digital magazines will become more popular as time goes on. This is showing to be true, which is why small business owners should highly consider publishing a digital magazine for their audience as a way to increase brand awareness or another income stream.

Link to State of the Media – http://stateofthemedia.org/2012/mobile-devices-and-news-consumption-some-good-signs-for-journalism/

6. Subscriptions are Easier Than Ever to Collect – Due to flattening ad revenue it’s important to consider earning through a subscription plus ad revenue model. Thankfully, due to excellent technology, you can break into the digital publishing subscription model really easily. Using software like Joomag can make it super simple.

Link to Joomag – http://www.joomag.com/

7. Creating Serials Is Becoming Popular Again – In the old days of magazines and micro publishing books, creating stories and information that was told in serial format was popular. This encouraged customers to buy subscriptions and also repeat buying so that they could see what happened or get the rest of the story and information.

8. Multiple Revenue Streams Will Become More Popular – Ads, subscriptions, and micropayments will all be possible with digital magazines. An author can put a donate button right in their bio for a chance to collect donations or tips for their article. Having this option rather than upfront payment to authors might help you get more content for your magazine, because it’s more than likely you’ll be unable to create enough interesting well-crafted content on your own for a regular magazine.

Digital magazines are becoming more popular for formerly print magazines. Plus, the barriers to entry are so low that anyone can create and publish a digital magazine for any topic and niche that they desire. What’s clear is that there will be more to choose from for the audience, which means you’ll need to market harder than ever.

In case you're curious, I started working online in 1997 - in the dinosaur days of the internet. My purpose here at HomeFreeMedia is to help YOU build the business of your dreams by developing and recommending top quality products and tools. This will also result in profit and affiliate commissions for me, so we both win!
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