Best and worst glossy magazines sellers in 2008

Share |

Celebs like posing for magazine covers; this is useful for boosting their own popularity and making magazine’s newsstand sales as well. Let’s talk about the co-called “winners” and “losers”, or those whose faces promoted the sales of magazines or did quite the contrary thing.

According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations I’m happy to tell you that Victoria Beckham, Angelina Jolie and Lauren Conrad turned out to be among the most salable cover faces for fashion magazines in 2008.

At the same time Nicole Kidman, Rachel Weisz and Carrie Underwood were the least.

Of course that doesn’t mean it is the stars’ fault the issues didn’t sell so well. There are many factors to have caused that.

For instance, some of the worst-selling issues were published in January, which is typically a soft month for newsstand sales, or around the holidays, when people were anxious about more urgent economic concerns.

At Vogue, September was very successful having sold 559,000 copies, while the October issue with Weisz on the cover was the glossy’s poorest seller, with only 276,000 copies.

The fall fashion issue had Keira Knightley as the face of the cover.

Elle witnessed the dramatic boost of sales in January with Beckham on the cover. This January issue sold 413,000 copies. The worst was December’s Underwood, registering 253,611.

Jolie’s face was extremely popular with consumers of Vanity Fair and W.

Vanity Fair’s July issue sold 504,785 single copies, while W magazine’s November issue moved 78,000 issues.

Vanity Fair’s slowest seller was “Grey’s Anatomy” star Katherine Heigl, who sold 314,000 copies in January.

And Hilary Swank became the worst performer for January issue of W, selling 27,000 on the newsstand.

Desperate Housewife Eva Longoria Parker promoted the best sales of the year for In Style’s March issue, 888,912 copies were sold.

The underperformer was July with Anne Hathaway at 585,170 issues.

Marie Claire’s best faces were the stars of Sex and The City on July cover.

The issue sold 440,948 copies. The December issue with Jennifer Connelly was the worst performer, with just 191,000 copies.
Harper’s Bazaar hit its records having sold 213,195 copies of its March issue featuring a bad girl Lindsay Lohan on its cover, but November cover with Drew Barrymore wasn’t as buyable and sold 119,501 copies.
Lucky’s September issue with Milla Jovovich gracing for its cover sold best – 336,000 issues, whilst the June issue with Amanda Peet registered only 205,000 copies.

Speaking about Glamour, I can say that Jessica Simpson was the best-purchased cover-girl. The June issue sold 775,000 issues, which was the highest rate for Glamour last year.

Sorry to mention that but our beloved Kidman wasn’t as popular: her December cover sold 460,000 copies — the worst single-copy sales in recent history for the title.

Cosmopolitan felt thankful to Scarlett Johansson in August for the fact the magazine issue sold nearly 2 million copies.

But the worst seller for the year, you’d be surprised, was Simpson on its December issue having sold 1,565,128 copies. As you see her results vary from one magazine to another.

Despite promoting the best sales for InStyle and Cosmopolitan Eva Longoria Parker and Johansson were the poorest sellers for Allure.

Though it was the economic downturn that influenced. The girls appeared on the November and December issues of the beauty title, which both sold 190,000 copies each.

And the best face for the glossy was Victoria Beckham! Her August cover sold 273,000 copies.

The Hills star Lauren Conrad was the best seller for Shape, 447,969 copies were sold in January. However, November issue featuring Ripa, sold just 258,200 copies unfortunately.

Self magazine was best sold in September (376,000 copies) featuring Jennifer Lopez. But fewer readers were interested in Renee Zellweger who became Self’s worst seller in October, selling 254,000 copies.

I wonder why Barack Obama wasn’t among A-listers? Last year was all about him, everywhere and all the time…