Periodicals and Magazines
A magazine is typically a quarterly publication that is published in both matte and gloss paper. Many magazines are published irregularly, on a bi-monthly schedule, and often include a range of news, feature articles, and feature sections. Magazine prices are usually paid for by a subscription, by a single purchase, or by both prepaid and monthly subscriptions. Most magazines are focused on a specific industry or topic, and some specialize in providing information about an industry completely different from the one it covers. Popular magazines tend to be focused on particular topics for a relatively narrow audience.
Periodicals are magazine publications that are originally published between Issue One and Issue Ten. Issues may contain anywhere from one to four installments and cover a wide range of topics such as health, technology, culture, education, business, literature, and more. Unlike news magazines, which are devoted entirely to news, this magazine type contains articles about a wide variety of topics. Some are in-depth features, while others offer just enough information to whet the appetite and prompt one to seek more. Some have only a single issue, while others have several. For example, the first issue of the New Yorker magazine was the first magazine in over a hundred years to be published online.
An Arabic periodical is a magazine for Arab-language readers. Like most Arab-language periodicals, it is written in Farsi (Arabic) and contains mainly essays, poems, short stories, and articles that can be translated and read by native speakers of these languages. This magazine is targeted at readers who would not ordinarily access publications in their native languages. The primary focus of these publications is to inform and entertain, and they are written primarily in Arabic. While this focus is common to many types of magazines, the nature of the subject matter and the focus of the magazine in general tend to differ. There are no art galleries included in the articles, as the format is more directed toward educating and entertaining the reader.
Trade magazines are typically published by large publishing companies, such as Time, Fortune, or Sports Illustrated. These magazines are geared toward readers who are interested in a particular aspect of trade or the industry. Many of them are published internationally, although there are few American trade magazines available. They tend to be highly competitive in terms of content, and they are typically published weekly.
Women’s magazines tend to be focused on beauty and fashion; however, some do cater to women in the workplace, such as work-related publications. Many of the women’s publications of this type are published by small publishing houses owned by larger publishing companies. In addition to publishing women’s magazine content, these companies also distribute articles written by professional journalists and writers.
Many of these magazines are distributed free of charge by newsstands and bookstores. A majority of them are published for profit, with a few being published for free, with a small minority being published for a financial contribution. A few periodicals that fall into this category are free distribution magazines such as copy mags, a few magazines that focus on a specific industry (instead of general business magazines), and women’s magazines. It should be noted that while the circulation of magazines is expected to continue to grow for at least several years, the number of magazines produced has been slowing down due to the increased production of multimedia.