The Future of Print Magazines

By Neal Goff
President, Weekly Reader Publishing Group

My son reads eight newspapers a day but never gets ink on his hands.

He reads them online, of course. And he says he prefers this format to ink on paper.  (He’s a twenty-something.)

As we all know, this phenomenon is not good for the newspaper business. The problem is not so much that online readers don’t pay for content–though they generally don’t–but that as readers gravitate away from print, advertisers divert their spending to other media, notably electronic media. Magazines, too, are feeling the effects, though perhaps not at the same crisis level as newspapers.

So what? you may ask. As advertisers move their spending from print to online, can’t publishers simply follow the ad money there themselves, by publishing online versions of their publications?

Pricing Strategies for 21st Century Publishers

By Andy Lacy
President, QED

For many years, publishers have had established pricing models for how to sell their products. For most the pricing was per piece sold (book, workbook, etc.) with discounts for volume. This was successful and easy to navigate for both the buyer and seller. With the increased usage of digital technology publishers are now scrambling to find pricing models that work well in this new environment. There are many pricing alternatives with pros and cons to each. So, what is the right model for your business?

To find the answer it is important to evaluate the factors that go into any good pricing decision.