Railway Digest is bucking the trend of many magazines from what I can see. Sales for this very special interest magazine are strong. In our case, we have a sell through of in excess of 90%. With a $9.00 cover price, Railway Digest is nicely profitable for us. Our success is, in part, due to careful placement of Railway Digest along with all of our other railway magazines.
We discovered strong interest in this segment some years ago and were careful in placement and expanding the range. Now, we have some hero titles like this one.
We use Railway Digest as a beacon for our other railway titles. We do the same in other magazine segments, especially in special interest areas where we want to be known as the go to location. Special interest customers will travel further to satisfy their interests.
So, despite the gloomy talk here and elsewhere about the challenges of magazines, there are success stories. Newsagents are better placed to leverage these than any other magazine retailer.