Magazine



Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three.

Distribution
Magazines can be distributed through the mail; through sales by newsstands, bookstores or other vendors; or through free distribution at selected pick-up locations. Sales models for distribution fall into three main categories.

Paid circulation
In this model, the magazine is sold to readers for a price, either on a per-issue basis or by subscription, where an annual fee or monthly price is paid and issues are sent by post to readers. Examples from the UK include Private Eye and PC Pro.

Free circulation
This means that there is no cover price and issues are given away, for example in street dispensers, airline in-flight magazines or included with other products or publications. An example from the UK and Australia is TNT Magazine.

Controlled circulation
This is the model used by "insider magazines" or industry-based publications distributed only to qualifying readers, often for free and determined by some form of survey. This latter model was widely used before the rise of the World Wide Web and is still employed by some titles. For example, in the United Kingdom, a number of computer-industry magazines, including Computer Weekly and Computing, and in finance, Waters Magazine.

Technical definition
In the library technical sense a "magazine" paginates with each issue starting at page one. Academic or professional publications that are not peer-reviewed are generally professional magazines.

History
The Gentleman's Magazine, first published in 1731, in London, is considered to have been the first general-interest magazine. Edward Cave, who edited The Gentleman's Magazine under the pen name "Sylvanus Urban", was the first to use the term "magazine", on the analogy of a military storehouse of varied materiel, originally derived from the Arabic makhazin "storehouses".

The oldest consumer magazine still in print is The Scots Magazine, which was first published in 1739, though multiple changes in ownership and gaps in publication totaling over 90 years weaken that claim. Lloyd's List was founded in Edward Lloyd’s England coffee shop in 1734; it is still published as a daily business newspaper.