Barnes & Noble to Sell Print and Digital Magazine Subscriptions Online

More than 1,000 titles available at up to 90 percent discount, retailer says.

By Jason Fell
05/06/2008

Barnes & Noble today announced that it will begin selling magazine subscriptions online at steep discounts to more than 1,000 print and digital titles.

To fulfill the print subscriptions, the book retailer has partnered with subscription agency M2 Media Group and with digital magazine publisher Zinio to fulfill the digital orders.

Pricing

In addition to the subscription offers, more than 12,000 back issues of hundreds of titles will be available digitally for single copy purchase at BN.com.

Print subscriptions range from as low as $5.99 (Batanga) to $299 (Adweek). Digital subscriptions range from $1.56 (24-K) to $1,372 (Jane's Defense Weekly).

Digital single issues range from $0.99 to $99.

A year's subscription to Men's Health, for instance, sells for $24.95, 44 percent off its $45.00 cover price. A digital subscription to Men's Health sells for $24.97; a digital back issue (March 2008) sells for $4.50.

Zinio says its entire digital magazine inventory is now available through BN.com, and the company hopes more publishers will sign on because of the expanded reach.

Barnes & Noble declined to disclose the financial arrangement it has with Zinio or individual magazine publishers.

Competition

What sets this apart from other discount magazine sites, BN.com CEO Marie Toulantis says, is that Barnes & Noble will be the only retailer to offer both options in an "integrated shopping experience."

Tony Astarita, vice president of digital products for BN.com, says they are not trying to compete with discount subcription sellers. "Rather, we are responding to our customer's requests to buy magazine subscriptions and single issues from BN.com. The selling of magazines is complementary to Barnes & Noble's selling of books."

"It's not much different from a number of online subscription sources," says John Harrington, editor of the New Single Copy newsletter. "Amazon has been doing it for a year or more. The question might be why it took so long for [them] to get into the business."