As one of the many postcards embedded between the pages of the magazine youre reading falls to the floor you notice the usual sales jargon about the huge savings youll receive by making at least a one year commitment and purchasing a subscription to their particular magazine. To further entice you they might even promise that you can buy now and pay later.
Whether or not purchasing that particular magazine subscription is smart shopping for you can be dependent on how often you buy a particular magazine at the newsstand, and the pricing amongst other things.
Publishers need to sell as many magazine subscriptions as possible, but not for the reasons that you may think. While publishers do generate income from selling magazine subscriptions, the bulk of their revenue comes from the advertising they sell to marketers eager to spread their message to as many consumers as possible. The higher a magazines circulation (the amount of readers they have) the more they are able to charge advertisers.
For this reason Magazine subscriptions are especially important to publishers as they are never completely sure of how well a particular issue will do at the newsstand....