Will Art Magazines Move to iPad?

As I have said before, the odds are good that Apple’s iPad will breathe new life into the publishing industry. Having been involved in marketing and advertising for the past 20 years, I have seen with my own eyes what the web has done to many trade magazines. Most seem to be scrambling to come up with ways to make money as consumers become accustomed to getting their information for free. I suppose in some small way, I am contributing to the chaos by self-publishing this blog.

With tight advertising budgets, I don’t buy print advertising anymore in favor of highly targeted online lead generation programs via conversion-based advertising. For a fraction of the cost of a print advertisement, I can market directly to my target audience and provide potential customers with a clickable path to a web-based micro site filled with relevant information about my products. If they are interested, they will provide contact information in order to download a white paper or other product related resources. In the end, I have a reasonably qualified lead that the sales force is eager to follow up on and a happy boss that likes the way I am stretching the company’s advertising dollar. Pretty simple really and quite effective. I am sure the accelerating trend toward online advertising is why many of the magazines I have dealt with over the years are a fraction of their thickness today compared to years past and several have gone out of business.

Arguably, art magazines are quite different than the technical trade magazines I have dealt with in the past. I personally subscribe to two print magazines, which are Art of the West and Southwest Art. Frankly, they seem to be doing reasonably well based on the amount of ad pages they have month after month. I particularly like thumbing through these magazines to read the articles and to see who is moving and shaking in the art world. This is all well and good but they, in addition to countless other magazines, will need to prepare themselves to step into the new era of digital publishing or risk getting left behind.

You see, I believe we are heading into a digital publishing era that will provide an opportunity for established magazines to regain some of the ground they have lost to the web. On the flip side, they will also be forced to compete with the inevitable onslaught of self-publishers with increasingly sophisticated tools at their fingertips. Just look at the recent democratization of the mobile gaming industry. Although major companies like Electronic Arts are represented among the providers of iPhone gaming apps, there is a huge number of small gaming developers that have been put in business by Apple’s iPhone software development platform and distribution model via the App Store and iTunes. It’s not just the big fish that can create, market and sell their products anymore.

Just as iTunes and the iPhone have enabled garage bands and garage software developers to distribute their products globally to an enthusiastic customer base, the addition of the iPad will enable established and self-publishers alike to reach their readers at a price and on a scale never before imagined. Would I gladly trade my print subscriptions for content-rich digital versions delivered directly to my iPad each month? In a heartbeat! Especially if they were published in a way that actually elevates the reading experience. Imagine flipping though a digital version of Southwest Art on an iPad with touch scalable high-resolution paintings embedded in both the articles and the advertising. Then just touch a gallery ad to instantly see the latest inventory of paintings by an up and coming artist. Better yet, the magazine could embed geo-located advertising that displays local gallery ads based on where the device is being read. What’s more, all of the content including past issues would be fully searchable, thereby increasing the overall value of the subscription.

I am not talking about browsing art magazine web sites. I am talking about paying for and downloading professionally produced digital content that mimics and enriches the magazine reading experience. Frankly, I am a bit concerned that some, will in fact, get left behind. If you browse the websites of some of the prominent art magazines, they are pretty bland and technologically sterile. To me, that indicates that they are clinging to a branch of hope that the print versions will thrive forever amid the sea of change occurring around them. I firmly believe that in order to flourish, art magazines will need to seriously consider how they are going to truly embrace technological change to retain and grow their audiences. Keep in mind that, assuming this publishing model takes hold, I too could band together with a few of my closest art aficionados to create a magazine that could be distributed globally along side established art magazines – just like the small entrepreneurial mobile game developers do among the giants. True, we would have to build a respected brand based on good journalism and compelling content, but that would boil down to enthusiastic writers, an effective marketing strategy, and time.

I think publishing development platforms for iPad are imminent. Just as WordPress revolutionized click publishing for bloggers, publishing tools for devices like the iPad will enable the rapid development of premium digitally published content for smartphones, computers and slate type devices. E-readers may not be for everyone but I am increasingly convinced they will take hold. For Christmas last year, we bought my wife’s not-so-tech-savvy mother an Amazon Kindle. We were not sure how she would like it since she usually buys her books used from garage sales. Well the results are in. She recently told us that she really loves her Kindle and has been buying a ton of books from the convenience of her couch. As much as some would like to disagree, I think heading to Barnes and Noble to by a book or magazine will eventually seem as antiquated as heading the Best Buy to pick up a CD.

I would love to hear your perspectives on this topic.

If you have time, check out the following video that highlights Wired Magazine’s take on the future of digital publishing.