Amid all the talk of upstarts Denver Magazine and Denver Life, and the now-defunct Shine, 5280 is trying to remind Denverites who the 800-pound gorilla is by announcing its biggest press run ever. The mag will print 100,000 copies of its March issue (“Best Restaurants”) in anticipation of heavy newsstand sales.
5280 Says ‘Screw You’ to Publishing Upstarts
Denver Public Relations Blog 
Great, all that means is there will be larger stacks of magazines to throw away at all the book stores and news stands at the end of April. Was in Tattered Cover on Friday trying to buy Denver Magazine and they were sold out and there was about 500 copies of 5280 lying all over the store. What good does printing 100,000 copies do if you can’t sell them.
5280 has one of the highest sell-through rates of any magazine in Denver (local or national), and is among the six best-selling city magazines in the country. So you don’t have to worry about lots of unsold copies.
I am just reporting what I saw, I went in at the end of the month to Tattered Cover and saw hundreds of unsold copies, and was unable to purchase Denver Magazine that day because they were sold out.
If you were there on Friday, then what you saw was the new issue which just went on sale (we typically hit newsstands the week before the start of the issue month). Like other newsstands, the Tattered Cover ordered extra copies of this issue because they expect it to be a big seller.
No it was not the “Best Restaurants” issue, I picked that one up on Sunday, I am a regular at Tattered Cover and have my coffee there every morning. I will be sure to have my digital camera with me at the end of this Month!
Perhaps Denver Magazine was sold out because they had a very small press run…
Perhaps your right.. but the point of my comments was in response to 5280 putting out a press release about how many more copies they were going to print and how ironic and comical I found this to be when they clearly weren’t selling out and there doesn’t appear to be additional demand.
I think you hit the point exactly, Denver Magazine should be producing more copies because of the demand, not 5280.
I wish it were that simple. Other than the smallest of publications, there is always inefficiency with newsstand sales. The industry average is that only about a third of copies distributed actually sell. Happily, we do much, much better. Our sell-through for that particular issue at the Tattered Cover was more than 60 percent.
As for demand, we don’t get to just send however many copies we choose to our retailers. They place their orders, based on what they expect their customers’ demand to be. It was because of increased orders from the Tattered Cover and our other newsstand outlets that we increased our press run for the March issue.
Based on sales of Denver Magazine’s first issue, it may well be that the Tattered Cover will up their order for the next issue. In fact, the Tattered Cover is such a great operation that I’m sure they’ll call Denver Magazine for additional copies of the current issue (you’d think that would be standard operating procedure with all newsstands, but it ain’t). Our first issue sold out four times at the Tattered Cover; I distinctly remember bringing more copies to them on a Sunday morning during the Cherry Creek Arts Festival. It was a great feeling. I’m sure the Denver Magazine folks are enjoying it, too.
At any rate, I don’t mean to be combative, Lesli. Thanks for being a magazine reader, whether it’s 5280 or anyone else.