Verdict on iPad still out but (some) money is coming in

Here we are a little more than two months into the iPad era and, as difficult as it may be to believe, some publications are still having problems with income and circulation. There are a few hopeful signs:

• iPad owners who download its clients’ magazines are spending at least 60 minutes with each issue. 
• Nine days after launching its $4.99 iPad app, Wired has sold nearly 73,000 downloads—almost as many copies as it sells on the newsstand.
• Popular Science has sold 39K iPad issues since April.
• If USAToday is any guide, publishers are charging five times as much for iPad ads as they do for print.
• Apple is so far selling an average of 1 million iPads a month (30 more months like that and they’ll have killed the US market).

Those are the successes. 

It is telling that Vanity Fair, Time and Men’s Health have so far declined to release any iPad related numbers. GQ has released numbers: Its sold 72K issues via iPhone/iPad since last November, that’s about 10K a month and at that rate it’s more novelty than savior.  Esquire is touting that it’s free iPhone app has 100K downloads in the last six months but they are being noticeably quiet about sales other than to say they’ve sold 1,000 digital subscriptions. “Sales numbers and circulation figures are not the big focus right now; Esquire just wants to get the marketing right,” according to paidContent. Hmmm, a publication not focusing on sales and circ. It is theoretically possible.

So what we definitely know is that the iPad is good for publications that appeal to early adopters. Not exactly the GQ/Men’s Health set. Maybe if they changed the titles to Geek’s Quarterly or Men’s Unhealthy?