...a little bit of psychology.

If the "August" edition hits the newsagents' shelves in the middle of July you can expect it to be hanging around those shelves until the middle of August when the September issue arrives.

Fine, that means that if, on the day before the September issue arrives (say the 12th or 13th August), a casual punter walks into Smiths and sees the "August" edition he'll think... "Oh, this month's edition." And then the next thought may just be, "Oh, I'll buy it."

After all that magazine is NEVER out of date while on the shelves...

Suppose that the (very same) Magazine that hits the shelves on the 14th of July is marked "July Edition" then for half of its shelf life it "looks out of date". Que same casual punter walking into Smiths on 12th of August seeing the "July" edition - his thought is, "Oh, it's LAST MONTH'S MAGAZINE... Should I buy it? Nah, I'll wait til this month's comes out..." Same magazine. No sale...

Of course, that won't apply to the dedicated devotee but the majority of sales in the shop are likely to be to casual trade - and with casual trade little things like perception can make the difference between "sale" and "no sale".

As old Esther used to say, "Unless, of course, some magazine exec knows different!"

You could buy the magazine much later in the month, and then wait four weeks and do the same again.

If you did that, you'd have the magazine throughout August.

I'm not sure if that's right.

I'd like to hear a definitve answer from an expert. Anyone?

all covered a month or two ago. I can't find the thread, but David Hepworth said it was all about keeping the mag on shops' shelves as long as possible.