Independent magazine survey #2

For the second report based on our recent survey of indie magazine publishers, we look at the role of advertising. Do ads work for independent magazines?

Ads have always played a role in publishing, one of the twin financial pillars alongside copy sales. But the general sense has been that digital channels have eaten most of any potential advertiser’s budgets, while selling advertising is a specialist activity that can cost more than the income generated.

So I was surprised that our survey showed 63% of the magazines that replied do carry advertising. It appears there is more advertising available than I expected.

Yet our figures also show little difference in financial performance between those who did and did not carry advertising: ads or not, two thirds of magazines either cover costs or make money (as revealed in our last report).

This would suggest that taking advertising is less an obvious must-have and more of a choice based around what, beyond money, ads bring to your pages.

This is just the beginning of the research project, there’s a lot more work to be done—in this case, asking more about the types of advertising—but I hope you find these first reports an intriguing introduction.

We’ll continue to share more research headlines here over the coming months. At this stage we’re sharing the full details only with those publishers who have responded, as we develop the research and see where it leads us.

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