By: Amanda Anderson-Niles
Nicki Minaj magazine cover sales are disappointing? Beyonce might be the queen when it comes to selling perfumes and she does still reign in selling magazines who tap the “Bow Down” singer to grace the cover, but it doesn’t mean that women of color as a whole have overcome their hurdles imagined of translating magazine covers into actual sales. Although Rihanna is without a doubt one of today’s biggest pop stars, she hasn’t managed to slay in magazine sales. And that’s pretty perplexing considering the public’s overwhelming interest in her fashion choices and on and off romance with R&B singer Chris Brown. People may flock in numbers to keep up with her most recent tweets and posts on her Instagram account, but the excitement isn’t the same when she graces the cover of some of Mainstream America’s biggest publications.
Interestingly enough, Rihanna isn’t the only starlet nabbing covers and still struggling to sell magazines. According to a new report, Nicki Minaj fares worst than the “Diamonds” singer. WWD, an authority figure in fashion publishing released its crunching of this year’s numbers so far and Nicki Minaj’s covers performed terribly:
Nicki Minaj is indisputably newsstand poison. Appearing on the April cover of Elle and in Teen Vogue in June-July, she sold the second fewest number of copies for both. Teen Vogue’s readers prefer male matinee idols — One Direction last year, and Justin Bieber in May (104,018).
The report goes on to once again confirm Beyonce pulled in amazing numbers as her March Vogue cover sold 355,397 copies. That’s about 60,000 more than First Lady Michelle Obama. That cover has already snatched up the label for the best selling issue of 2013.
Here comes Barbee. LOL!
To be honest magazines are really not selling like they use to it takes a special person a unique kind of person an irreplaceable person to sell nowadays like KING BEY!!! So this ain’t surprising.
Let em know.
Agreed!
I think she doesn’t sell because her fashion has been dreadful for the last couple of years. To women, she’s not someone we want to look at fashion wise, so why slap her on the cover of magazines that focus on fashion? And she also doesn’t open up much in interviews. She still hasn’t confirmed the obvious (she’s dating her hype man). So reading about her isn’t interesting.
Agree!
UB you’re blowing me right now. 🙁
LOL.
Nicki isn’t all that interesting. With Beyonce and Michelle Obama they live lives that are very appealing to other women. They are super rich, well known, and married women with their own identities. That’s what most women want. I’d pick up their covers before anyone else.
This makes sense. And it also doesn’t help that Nicki’s covers are usually terrible. I hated her recent Elle cover.
With all those fans she has you mean to tell me they aren’t buying her mags? That’s a shocker.
They aren’t that kind of generation. They live online for everything. I don’t understand why anyone is still trying to print magazines. It’s over.
Magazines are dead. It’s all about blogs now. It’s crazy Beyonce is even selling over 300,000 copies in 2013. People just don’t buy magazines anymore. You can get up to date news online all day long now, so why buy a magazine?
I’m just over here smirking because it says a lot that covers with Beyonce and Michelle Obama are outselling covers with Rihanna and Nicki Minaj on them. I love it.
Nicki Minaj will never be a magazine seller. Most women who are grown don’t even care for her.
Beyonce better keep slaying!
Like most of you said, this kind of magazines target buyers are grown women, not teens who spent all their time online.And this grown women want to see powerful women, who are great role models, not clownish or whorish women.
blogs post the interesting part to read online,so why do they expect people to buy the magazines. its not like most of the fans were going to buy the magazines anyways .
what the magazines fail to understand is rihanna’s audience is the digital generation. everything has to be on the net. these are not the type to go pick up magazine or cd’s at store they cannot wait that long they want in bed clicking clicking away. beyonce or Michelle audience are old school they still like to go buy newspaper ,books and cd’s. this is why beyonce have not had a number one for a while. to get a number one you need radio play streaming and sales. rihanna audience will sit on you tube and stream the shit out of a song they will find the link to every radio station and request a song and they will download music. the game is changing.
look how fast rihann mac lipstick went. all on the internet. they need to blame themselves and not the celebrity. sometimes they leak the cover story online before the magazines comes out. how does that make sense if you have rihanna on the cover. her audience are just going to read it online for free and forget about the rest of the magazines.
There seems to be too much “plastic” going on with Nicki which I think impacts her appeal to a larger audience….
Some of these women instagram and twitter so much you don’t need to pick up a magazine about them because you read all their business for free if you follow them. I don’t think Beyonce and Michelle Obama twitter and instagram and if they do its very little so you would buy a magazine to read about them. I never have to buy a magazine with Rhianna on it because the girl twitters and instagram so much I think I know all her business. lol!
It’s a generation difference period. Beyonce and Michelle old school. Rihanna and nicki fans digital age.