His concert movie did well and his records are largely successful, but Justin Bieber continues to disappoint as the cover story of major entertainment magazines.
Women’s Wear Daily reports that Bieber’s Vanity Fair cover has only sold 246,000 copies, according to preliminary data from the Audit Bureau of Circulations.
If the data holds, it will mark Vanity Fair’s worst-selling issue since a Will Smith cover piece for “Wild, Wild West” flopped in 1999. That issue only net sales of 202,701 copies. The next-lowest seller since Graydon Carter took over as editor-in-chief was Harrison Ford’s 1993 issue; it moved 243,000 issues.
While there could certainly be merit to the idea that Bieber does not perfectly align with the Vanity Fair target, even magazines more suited to his fanbase have underperformed with him on the cover. His October 2010 issue of Teen Vogue delivered sales 12% below the 2010 average for the publication, while his April 2010 PEOPLE piece was 25% below the publication’s weekly average and its third-worst-seller of 2010.