GQ Sells 365 December iPad Editions
Gentlemanly magazine GQ, one of the first glossies to create a presence on the Apple iPad tablet, has sold 365 digital copies of its December “Men of the Year” issue on the device, minOnline reports.
What’s more surprising about this than the magazine’s apparent low iPad circulation (and total revenue of $1,091.35) is that vice president and publisher Pete Hunsinger is happy with the result. “This costs us nothing extra: no printing or postage,” he told minOnline. “Everything is profit, and I look forward to the time when iPad issue sales become a major component to our circulation.”
As Mashable points out, Hunsinger’s arithmetic might be overlooking developer costs. There may be a case to be made that over the long term, those costs will remain fixed or diminished, but only several months after the iPad’s debut, his appraisal looks a little like wishful thinking.
In any case, the iPad, which publishing titans Rupert Murdoch and Barry Diller have both hailed as potential game-changers, will not pay instantaneous dividends to the industry.
