Rihanna Is the Solution to Declining Magazine Sales

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If all else fails, put Rihanna on the cover. That's WWD's advice to the struggling publishing industry, with sales on March newsstands being described as a "bloodbath." But Rihanna's March Harper's Bazaar cover actually boosted sales, helping the magazine score a 0.8% increase in newsstand sales to 120,000 copies, according to the Alliance for Audited Media.

It's not much, but that bested the competition. In comparison, other titles suffered major dips in newsstand sales in March: Glamour posted a 20.2% decline, Marie Claire was down 20.4%, Cosmopolitan was down 23.6%, Lucky was down 47.2%, Seventeen was down 53% and Elle was down 24.9 percent.

Besides Rihanna, Gugu Mbatha-Raw helped Town & Country increase its sales by 25.3%. For the record, Vogue's much-hyped Kaylor cover with Taylor Swift and Karlie Kloss had nothing on Rihanna: WWD reports that this year's March Vogue sold 11.2% fewer copies at 230,925 copies than Rihanna's Vogue cover last year.

Photo: Harper's Bazaar