The call for nominations opened in August, after which a panel of celebrity judges narrow down the covers into a short list. The judging panel includes twice voted ‘Magazine Editor of the Year’ Peter Jackson, industry stalwart and Chairman of the Panel Jim Bilton, Dancing on Ice’s Linda Lusardi, Heart Radio DJ Toby Anstis and CEO of iSUBSCRiBE, Andrew Burge.
The magazine covers will be put to a public vote on 14 September to award an overall winner and individual category winners, which will be announced on 13 October.
The categories include Celebrity & Entertainment, Fashion, Lifestyle, Sports & Men’s, Business, News & Current Affairs, Specialist & Hobbies and Trade.
Publishers were invited to submit as many covers as they like for each title, and there is an optional donation of £100 per entry, which is given directly to children’s charity Rays of Sunshine.
The public will be incentivised to vote for their favourite magazine cover with a reward of a £2.50 iSUBSCRiBE gift voucher - a stark contrast, says the organisers, to other public polls, in which participants pay to vote. The voucher may be redeemed against iSUBSCRiBE’s entire range of over 1,200 magazine and newspaper subscriptions. In addition, £1 from every subscription sold using the iSUBSCRiBE gift vouchers will be donated by iSUBSCRiBE to the charity.
Melanie Burfitt, Chief Executive of Rays of Sunshine, said, “Rays of Sunshine Children’s Charity is honoured to have become the charity partner of The Maggies, an innovative and exciting project. The more money raised, the more wishes we can grant for children throughout the UK with serious and life threatening conditions. So please get behind The Maggies and lend the project your full support.”
iSUBSCRiBE will support The Maggies by driving traffic via the website, which receives over 3 million unique visitors annually. iSUBSCRiBE also has a wide customer base of 200,000 core registered users who will receive email promotions and updates about The Maggies.
“We are thrilled to have such a high profile subscriptions company behind The Maggies,” said Jim Bilton, Chair of The Maggies judging panel. “With all the big magazine and newspaper names and the largest range of niche titles on their website, iSUBSCRiBE is the perfect partner for the awards.”
“iSUBSCRiBE has a passion for magazines which we aim to celebrate by raising the profile of the entire publishing industry through this concept,” said Arabella Gibson, iSUBSCRiBE’s General Manager. “In a difficult advertising market, The Maggies will reinforce the magazine medium as a whole.”
About iSUBSCRiBE
iSUBSCRiBE says: “iSUBSCRiBE is the UK’s leading and most comprehensive online magazine and newspaper subscription provider. Trading since 2003, iSUBSCRiBE also has market leading operations in Australia and New Zealand.
Representing over 340 publishers and with over 1,200 consumer, business and specialist magazine titles as well as newspapers, iSUBSCRiBE covers every genre from lifestyle and fashion, news and entertainment to science and sport.”
