The Magazine, one of the best original technology-focused Newsstand magazines out there, is closing up shop as of December of this year.
The Magazine raised the bar for a digital-only publication, providing well-written and edited short and long non-fiction that ranged topically from Apple to personal stories with true warmth and impact. We’ll miss the twice monthly title and wish the team the best.
When asked on Twitter why the publication was ending, The Magazine’s official account cited money issues.
Digital magazines are a tough sell, with even venerable brands like The New York Times cutting staff and shutting down mobile apps due to a lack of subscribers.
The Magazine will cease publishing on December 17 and will cancel all outstanding subscriptions. The Magazine will also provide pro-rated refunds via Apple or directly for any subscriptions that end after December 31, 2014, and contact any Kickstarter backers who subscribed via the Year One book campaign, a compilation of the best stories from the first year run.
The Magazine was founded in 2012 by Marco Arment, lead developer of Tumblr and creator of Instapaper, and then sold in 2013 to Glenn Fleishman, current editor and publisher. The publication not only benefitted readers, but the writers as well; Fleishman confirmed in a reply to a post on Twitter that he and Arment had paid out half a million dollars to contributors in two years, quite a feat for a magazine that did not rely on advertising.
In a short blog post on the iPad magazine’s website, Fleishman writes, “It’s been a wonderful run, and you can continue to support our form of independent publishing by backing our The Magazine: The Book (Year Two) anthology, which is currently a project underway at Kickstarter.”
The app itself will remain on the App Store, and the website will continue to function for the foreseeable future.
Source: The Magazine
