Fader offers magazine as a download

Just as easily as you can download a single to listen to, you can now download a magazine to read.

Fader magazine has made its entire summer music issue available for download on iTunes, in what it says is a publishing first. The full issue is free to download as a PDF file, which offers a digital copy of every page -- article and ads -- in the magazine.

It’s accompanied by a 47-minute podcast featuring music covered by the magazine.

The leap off the page and into an area of the Web typically reserved for audio files is one considered natural by Fader, which has covered emerging music since 1998.

Rob Stone, the magazine’s co-founding publisher, hopes the effect will be similar to the way free downloads helped build buzz -- and eventually sold records -- for Eminem years ago, and the Arctic Monkeys more recently.

“This is going to help expand our audience, as opposed to cannibalize our newsstand sales,” Stone said this week.

Stone, who began his career at Arista Records, recalls the resistance the music industry initially showed to the Internet and new digital technology.

“I’ve always been of the belief that you need to embrace it and see where this thing can take us,” he said.

The print version will still be Fader’s focus, but Stone believes the days of magazines existing purely on paper are over. For a brand such as Fader, which often writes about new, potentially hard-to-find music, a podcast helps readers get their ears to it.