Samir Husni, the University of Mississippi journalism professor and the pre-eminent tracker of new magazine launches said that “bookazines” are far outpacing conventional magazines on the launch circuit.
Bookazines — with cover prices of $9.99 or higher and virtually no ads — are a cross between magazines and paperback books.
Through November, he said, there were 777 new magazine titles appearing on newsstands, but only 177 were conventional magazines published at least on a quarterly basis.
He said Allrecipes, the magazine that Meredith launched from its foodie website is probably the “hottest new launch” of the year, but he said it is in a battle with Politico magazine and the Bauer weekly, Closer, for most notable launch of the year.
Politico, edited by Susan Glasser, is a six-times-a-year title, distributing 40,000 copies to newsstands in New York and Washington while also doing a weekly digital magazine.
Closer got off to a brutally slow start on newsstand sales, but Husni is betting that its parent company will stick with it until it turns the corner.
“It’s the first weekly to launch in the last seven years,” he said, “and Bauer knows how to do it.”
For the full year, he is predicting there will about 850 launches — a little bit behind last year’s 870 launches. He predicts that regularly published magazines will tally out at around 190 launches with bookazines coming in over 600.