For specialist publishers, the app store is a great channel for highly targeted niche content.  Blaze publishing has earned a place on the 2012 Media Pioneers shortlist with its portfolio of iPad editions of shooting specials and bookazines.

Growth in print driven by launching into expanding niches

Blaze Publishing is an independent publisher, focussing on shooting and country sports markets.  According to MD Wes Stanton, their growth has been driven by launching, concentrating on sub-markets that are too small for larger publishers to make profitable.  Blaze consider themselves as shooting market experts first and publishers second.  Close relationships with readers and advertisers mean they are able to identify growing niches early.  They start with specials or quarterly publications and build up frequency if the market seems buoyant.

Blaze Publishing’s special bookazines in print are associated with their regular monthly magazine titles – Sporting Rifle and Clay Shooting. The Sporting Rifle book of, and the Clay Shooting book of were premium-priced bookazines at £6.99.  A one-shot bookazine for the archery market, as Blaze publish Bow International magazine eight times a year, was priced at £9.99 and sold through specialist archery shops rather than the traditional newsstrade.

Print-wise, bookazine copy sales were in-line with expectations for premium-priced publications – anywhere between 25% and 50% of  monthly print sales figures – so the profitability was modest, although worth doing as part of the overall business per brand.

App store versions of bookazines have generated over £10k

Following the acquisition of Diesel Car from Trojan Publishing, Blaze put their titles onto the Magazine Cloner app platform.  They have since been experimenting with bookazines on this platform, adopting a similar strategy to their print publishing.

What came as a bonus was the sales of bookazine apps on the iPad via the iTunes webstore. Blaze resolved to keep prices the same as the print versions, and over 12 months, extended the profitability of this group of titles.  The content is specialist, and designed to have a long shelf life.

According to MD Wes Stanton, “Though total revenue from these digital editions was individually modest, the total gross contribution of over £10,000 has been a welcome addition to Blaze Publishing’s business – the marginal cost of securing this revenue is small, and certainly worthwhile.”

Low-risk channel for digital-only specials

The iPad bookazines are reaching international markets that aren’t cost-effective in print at no marginal cost.  Email marketing is proving effective in cross-promoting across the portfolio.  Blaze are now looking at testing out some specials on iPad-only, by compiling already-published content, and not even going to print.  The next step will be creating some digital-only ad opportunities.

For specialist publishers with “evergreen” content, creating targeted specials for the App store is a relatively low-risk digital publishing option.

If you think your specialist media business could be a Media Pioneer, please contact carolyn@thespecialistmediashow.com for more details.

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We are delighted to welcome Audience Media as sponsor of the 2012 Media Pioneer Awards.

Audience Media reflect the values of the Media Pioneer Awards. They provide an innovative and flexible web-based SaaS content management system that publishers can use to create, manage and publish content, advertising and subscriptions across print, web, mobile and tablet, social media and other platforms, and, amongst other capabilities, manage their digital assets and reader data across all channels. Audience Media’s solution is designed to suit the needs of niche publishers and  with low set-up fees (which includes development or redevelopment of the website and apps), it is available on an affordable and all inclusive monthly subscription fee, and can grow as the publishers’ business expands.

Audience Media will offer winners of the Media Pioneers Awards a free project build for one of their brands, which will include the design and build of the CMS, new website, native HTML5 iPad app and a free 3 months trial.

For more information, or to book a personalised online demo, contact cobus.heyl@audiencemedia.com