The new issue of Scrapbooking Memories went on-sale yesterday. The old issue is not due for return for some weeks. While I am sure between the folks at Express Publications and their distributor there will be excuses, these will not help newsagents. One excuse will be that we can early return – that work if you have a distributor who respects the newsagent and makes the process easy and certain.
Some days are extremely frustrating dealing with magazine issues in newsagencies. It is always the rats and mice titles, those outside the top 200, which cause the most grief and cost us the most time and cash.
Scrapbooking and a number of craft mags are all in plastic bags featuring old issues plus the current issue. If I had bought the old issue at full price and could now get it as part of a package deal, I would fell cheated by the publisher and the distributor.
A clever shopper would wait for the “bonus” pack to get multiple issues of the magazine as these mags usually do not have time sensitive news in them.
I think that for craft magazines, the bag hinders the sale – people want to see the new ideas before they pay $10 for the privilege. This is becoming more important as people are more thrifty with their money.