This led me to inquire why Magazines and other periodicals pre-date issues. Could it be, I wondered, an adopted practice from pre-dating(if only by a day) newspapers since most publishers dabbled in publishing both, when the industry was in its nascent state? Or was it simply to make the issue appear new to first time shoppers at bookstores?
A quick Google search revealed nothing. I resorted to checking another search engine, probably for the first time in several years. The results were much further off the mark.
Finally searching for "cover date" revealed some answers.
Rather than uncovering a secret that would make for a perfect quiz question, I'm afraid Wikipedia revealed a rather boring story. My second guess was closer to the mundane truth. The purpose is to appeal to first time shoppers. The subscription versus newstand price should have made this obvious, in retrospect.
For most magazines that I can recollect, the newstand price is about a third of the annual subscription cost.
Are magazines going the newspaper way? I think they are. I, for one, will be saddened by the demise of the printed magazine.
Newspaper, I couldnt care less about. For, in this day and age, do we really need to resort to referring to once-a-day publications to get our updates from the world?
J.K. Rowling, or Adrian Jacobs(if the plagiarism did indeed transpire), would have had to devise a different mechanism than owl-delivered Daily Prophet, had they but waited a few years.
As it is, the availability of Apparation to all adults is discordant with the anticipation-with-bated-breath of the daily news. Let me not dwell on this topic any further though, since it would otherwise occupy a significant part of this literature.
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