http://www.singlecopysales.com/covers/ How to design a magazine cover that excites interest and sales issue after issue.

 The newsstand reader is, a “cherry picker”.  These readers are inspired by the cover and feature stories promised in a particular issue, and are therefore committed to that issue and likely to read it.  There are people out there who will never subscribe to your magazine—perhaps not to any magazine.  They want to pick and choose. Your cover helps them make that choice.