The way there are being displayed is in a way that you can see the whole magazine front cover however on the first shelf it was crowded so only the logo will show and/ or some of the masthead. This is why the logo or masthead need to stand out an be memorable to you magazine specifically. Because the whole front cover will not always be on display. One magazine that I thought was good at this was "Q". The red made it stand out from all the other magazines as it such a bold colour. So this may catch someones eye when walking past. This is harder to do as they are on the bottom part of the shelf so a persons eye line will not naturally be there.
For the magazines at the back you will also only be able to see the masthead as the magazine in front often covers the main cover star and the cover lines.
The distribution of music magazines that you can see in the image above is through shops. Publishers may chose to do this because due to market research they may have found that the people most likely to buy their magazine is in shops as they may be an "outdoors" person. Or even that their audience is older so may not be able to access the magazine online, as the youths of today do everything online or through some sort of technology (from reading books on a kindle to newspapers on their phone) and hardly use anything paperback.
some shops that may sell music magazines are: WHSmith, Newsstand, News agents and some big supermarkets like Tesco.
secondly, through institutions such as colleges and universities. This method of distribution has fewer competitors, so the chance of a student picking your magazine over your competitors is grater that if you were to distribute the magazine in shop. By selling your magazine your magazine here you may get higher sales. My reason being that there are a certain amount of people who you know for sure will be in these institutions, and that may add up to more that the amount of people who will enter a shop as students have to be punctual so attend classes/ lectures otherwise they may be taken of the course. Despite this they are very busy so might not purchase every issue or even have time to think about buying the magazine. Therefore they might need to be distributed somewhere in the colleges/ universities where the students go to relax. As the students are busy and may not be interested in buying a music magazine, the covers will have to stand out and be bold.
Distributing at concerts allows the magazines to target their targeted audience, as there is no point in distributing your magazine in a place your target audience will not be, despite how many people are there. Concerts can have a massive audience so many magazines will be sold. Selling here almost assure that you will sell a lot because if your music magazine features a specific genre then you can sell your magazine at a concert of that specific genre and all the people who attend will be into that so would want to buy it.
Using a Website to distribute magazines has become very popular, as almost every magazine has their own website despite having the issue in paperback form. This makes it accessible to everyone as you can buy a magazine that they may have in America that is not sold in your country. This allows a business to expand their customer base on a global scale. This will maximize their sales and they will become well known. So in a way it is like promoting their business. Despite all the benefits i did say almost every magazine has their own website so there is lots of competition. In addition to that setting up a website can take time and be expensive especially if you want it to stand out. When you have a website it's not just about the articles you post but the set up of the website. You need to make it easy to find what they want. If they have a stressful experience they will not visit your website again, and you do not have enough money to re do your website, so you have to get it right the first time.
As we have become more advance in technology so social networking sites such as Instagram have become a way for music magazines to promote their magazines and prove to they audience they are the right one for the. This meaning, following artist that they feel the audience will like and who represents the genre of music best. They can also pay other popular accounts (accounts which have a large following and represents the magazine or genre ) to promote their page.
Hand-outs is becoming less common however NME still do it (I received one of their issues last week Friday coming out a station). As hand outs are free, the magazine would have to have lots of adverts in order to get money because readers do not pay for it. However this may increase their customer base because they may like the fact that they do not have to pay. As this is a less common form of distributing music magazines and just magazines in general there will be fewer competitors so when a person gets handed a magazine they have never heard of before they will be likely to remember as it does not happen often. If they like the magazine they may purchase it one day.
When reading the front cover on the top left it states that it is "Free every Friday". So to reduce the costs of Hands-outs they can do it a few days of the week or one. Also they could change the quality of the paper so it is not as expensive to make as the paper will be cheaper. In addition have more adverts to help pay the costs.
Apps is another way to distribute magazines.This make sit easy to access as soon as an issue is released they will have the copy. This is convenient for them as they do not have to go out to get a copy. Despite this very few people pay for apps they often just download free apps. So any customer who has brought the app has brought the paper back issue before. But someone who has never heard of the magazine will not buy it. To avoid they they could have a 30 day free trial which will invite new people to but the magazine.
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