In our household we subscribe currently to the daily New York Times, the Chronicle of Higher Education, the New Yorker (weekly), the Atlantic Monthly and Wired. Like all publications, these guys need help — and they are not going to find many household like ours. Wireless reading devices, like Amazon’s kindle perhaps could help breath new life into these organizations, but first readers need to get the devices into their hands. One way to do it is to provide a reader free to subscribers of a digital edition. Here’s the math:
For our household subscriptions for the above listed publications runs almost $400 per year — which is just over the current price for a Kindle. Get us to sign up for a 2 year digital subscription, and give us a free Kindle. All parties involved win — Amazon will get more Kindle book sales, and the publications get a long term subscriber. What they save on printing and distribution cost would certainly balance the cost of the device. Audible.com offered, back in their early years, a free mp3 player with a subscription. That incentive got me to subscribe, and it was my first mp3 player. In the Kindle case I’d first target existing subscribers — they already sold on the publication. And more likely not to cancel after they’ve got the free eReader. It would be a great retention strategy, and even provide opportunities for upselling (special editions, back issues, Times bestsellers). The only real problem would be the fights over who gets to use the ereader — kind of tough to split the business and arts sections when they are all inside one device. Just a suggestion — NYT, I’m waiting for the call! BTW not a bad incentive model for a text book publisher and college freshmen…
Wired Struggles to Find Niche in Magazine World – NYTimes.com
Mr. Anderson has yet to solve the equation for Wired. Under his editorship, the magazine is an editorial success, winning three National Magazine Awards last month, which tied it for the most honored magazine…But that has not equaled success for Wired in the downturn. The magazine has lost 50 percent of its ad pages so far this year, ranking among the worst off of the more than 150 monthly magazines measured by Media Industry Newsletter.
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Randall Rode's online home for thoughts, notes, and experiments with a wide range of technology topics. Visit the about page for info on my recent projects and professional background. I welcome your comments!
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