While Apple’s subscription announcement continues to make waves in publishing, one of the UK’s biggest sellers of tablet magazine editions is introducing its own take on the system.
Exact Editions, which powers and sells replicas for over 100 titles including The Spectator, is adding to its technology a three-month recurring subscription plan.
Readers must take out those subs on titles’ websites, something that’s allowed under Apple’s new terms, and they auto-rewew. It debuts with The Spectator.
MD Daryl Rayner tells paidContent:UK: “There is no contact with iTunes for this particular subscription but the subscriber will be able to access their sub online and via the app.”
The Spectator already offers a smaller, 30-day subscription via iTunes Store payments. “In addition all The Spectator‘s print subscribers benefit from Universal subs,” Rayner adds. “This means they automatically have access to the Spectator and its searchable archive online and via the iPad app.
“This complies with Apple’s rules of offering in-app purchasing alongside web e-commerce. Incidentally, we think that subscribers who have bought through iTunes will want to renew through iTunes, and subscribers who have bought through The Spectator directly or through Exact Editions will naturally renew through the channel from which they bought their subscription.
“It is perfectly within the spirit and the letter of the Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) e-commerce rules for publishers to sell subscriptions (print, digital, or print+digital) to their own publications and to manage the renewals for subs sold. As it certainly ought to be! Magazine publishers know how to do this.
“Prices for subscriptions within iTunes or direct from Exact Editions will be aligned as stipulated by Apple’s new rules.
“Apple’s new e-commerce framework means that it is very much in publishers’ interests to sell direct to subscribers as well as to offer subscriptions through iTunes. Publishers who hang back from iTunes are not serving the interests of their subscribers, many of whom will buy an iPad in the next six months.”