The Home and Away magazine, celebrating 21 years of the TV show, has been a runaway success for newsagents with many reporting selling out within 24 hours this last week. We could have easily sold two or three times the quantity we received in our newsagencies.
The success of the Home and Away magazine says something for the success of the show. It also shows nostalgia sells – the magazine covered the 21 years of the show.
The success also set me thinking about other one-shot titles which could be successful:
- A Neighbours retrospective. (Obvious suggestion I know)
- Great Woman’s Day or New Idea cover stories from the 1970s. If successful go with the 1980s etc.
- When royals visit – a retrospective of royal visits to Australia.
- Where are they now – there could be several issues and themed.
- Sports hero nation – great sporting moments when heroes were made.
The (incomplete) list of titles I have in mind are those which can be culled from existing content held by publishers (and their associated entities) and on topics which are highly commercial and could easily sell as low cost entertainment.
It would be easy to come up with a list of twenty or thirty titles from which a top list could be developed.
The key with one-shots like this is to lock newsagents as the retail channel (of course I will say that), to promote the title heavily on TV and to ensure there is stock to meet the demand. How newsagents could make this work is through pre-orders. We have the capacity in our technology to take orders in advance and these could guide the size of the print run. Some software systems already advise magazine distributors of pre sales so there are mechanisms in place to help everyone make the most from the opportunities smart one-shot publishing offers.
I, and I am sure others, would be thrilled to work with a publisher on this.
I must admit that when they arrived my thoughts are what is the rubbish look at how many they sent me they will never sell ,i even blogged on here about it but got the code wrong ,well they sold out in 2 days one of the most successful 1 shot mags going .
Me too, we received 10 on monday, then a further 20 on wednesday. I though about early return because the majority of our customers come from the nearby retirement villages. Thankfully i didn’t as we have since sold out. Hard to pick.
I thought about getting some off you Shaun!!!
I recieved 5 which is fair for a new title but sold out in two hours and now am waiting for more.
Why was this so succesful? Most customers knew we would have it, so I don’t know but maybe it had more advertising than normal launchs while the show was on?
I was a bit disappointed they were supplied in greater numbers than mine in the supermarket in my plaza. – The supermarket is a sub-agent to another newsagency.
One of our stores didn’t even get any allocated……… Lucky we could bring some over from the other store.
we received no copies on monday and had to beg for 5 on wed, when it suits GG they load me up with new title garbage but when they feel like it they cut me off all together, it should be either one or the other.
This is the crap we have to go through on a daily basis with basically all our so called industry partners just to run our business.
The Age today has an article about the magazine and the TV show and they quote a comment posted here.
We finally received extra Home and Away stock and should sell out by Monday.
please make the home and away magazine avaiable in Ireland! please i LOVE homen away! HAPPY 21ST BIRTHDAY Home and Away
Was in Sydney on 1 March 2009 and managed to get to “Summer Bay”. Was thrilled to get hold of 21st edition of H&A mag! Is there a weekly/monthly mag and if so when can we expect to get it in UK?
Hi I was just wondering if the home and away mag will be in ireland because its not fair that people who watch home and away here that they can’t bu