This fabulous cover from SKI CANADA almost makes me wish winter would arrive soon. The annual Buyer's Guide issue (SIP) retails for $5.95, $1 more than the regular issues of the magazine.

Featuring a bold, oversized, cover slash concept to highlight the primary selling feature, this cover also qualifies the benefits with the "1000+ ski stats" hook, and uses the upper right real estate to push a 40th anniversary contest concept.

The cover is not shy about what it is selling.

The Hockey News Top 100 Players of All Time special interest publication was a huge success.  The cover featured Wayne Gretzky, and retailed for $7.99. On a draw of 90,700 copies, the issue sold 49,766 copies, for a fabulous 55% sell-through efficiency. The issue outsold the Greatest Jerseys of All Time special interest publication from 2009, which still sold an impressive 35,856 copies on a draw of 90,050 for a 40% sell-through efficiency.

See an old blog post on the Gretzky cover as Cover of theWeek

Here’s what the Editor in Chief, Jason Kay, had to say about this fantastic success on newsstands:

“Any time you put Gretzky on the cover, particularly a throwback image from his Edmonton Oilers days like the one we used, it attracts interest. The white background on the cover with the “ghosted” names of the other hockey greats, along with the title of the book in that gold, fifth colour, combine to give the book a real collectors’ feel. And, of course, with think the content concept was a winning idea — it’s a definitive, authoritative ranking of the top hockey players of all-time by the position they played. We’d never seen a ranking like that before.”