BY JONATHAN SEFF

In many ways, I now find it more enjoyable to read magazines on the iPad than on paper. But publishers have yet to figure out exactly how to make the business side of iPad publishing work.

You can subscribe to a slew of big-name magazines such as Esquire, Road & Track, Us Weekly, and The Economist, as well as to many lesser-known titles, through the free Zinio iPad app (www.zinio.com); Zinio offers an iPhone version, too. (Disclosure: Macworld is also offered via Zinio.)

For example, I stopped subscribing to Rolling Stone in print years ago. But I recently resubscribed to the magazine via Zinio and now read it on my iPad. I get an e-mail message when a new issue is ready, and then I launch the app to download it and read it at my leisure.

In most cases, what you get from Zinio is essentially a PDF of a printed magazine, with a few perks. For example, you can tap links in a table of contents to jump to stories; you can call up those lists of contents—which show page thumbnails or story titles and descriptions—anytime. And there are Continued links that take you from one page to the next. If you want to do away with the distractions of the magazine layout, you can opt to read stories in a well-formatted text-only view. Some Zinio titles have been enhanced for computer and iPad use, with interactivity and better navigation. Otherwise, reading magazines through Zinio is like reading anything else on the iPad: You swipe between pages and pinch to zoom in on sections to make them larger and easier to read.

In addition to (or instead of) appearing via Zinio, many magazines now offer their own iPad apps. In these, the content (sometimes from the print edition, sometimes not) has been especially formatted for the tablet. Much of the time, the apps themselves are free, but you then purchase individual issues each month. Outside magazine’s Outside Magazine + app, for example, lets me buy issues for $4 apiece. Those iPad issues are far better than their Zinio counterparts—so much so that I buy them even though my Zinio subscription to Outside has yet to run out. Like many magazines designed for the iPad, the Outside Magazine + app lets you navigate stories and sections by swiping horizontally; you read individual items by swiping up and down. You also get cool extras such as embedded video and audio, and the ability to swipe through a story’s photos in a single box.

Some publications, such as Virgin’s Project Magazine, are iPad-only and didn’t even exist before appearing on Apple’s tablet. Project’s $3 issues have features possible only on a tablet, such as video covers, interactive content with buttons to change the display, and more.

The Spin Play app, an iPad-based version of Spin magazine, goes further still: Each $2 issue (a yearly subscription is $8) includes the content of the magazine, plus news and reviews. But you also get more than 60 streaming songs and 30 streaming videos selected by Spin editors.

While Zinio uses a traditional magazine subscription model, iPad magazine apps originally sold single issues. Then, in February, Apple launched its long-awaited App Store subscription model. Customers can sign up for the subscriptions via in-app purchases, which are automatically billed and renewed on their iTunes accounts.

However, the number of iPad magazines offering subscriptions is still pretty short: Elle, Popular Science, Popular Photography, Nylon, and the aforementioned Spin have been among the most prominent. Part of the problem is Apple: The company takes 30 percent of any subscription sales, bars publishers from charging more for a subscription on the iPad than they do elsewhere, and doesn’t provide the kind of subscriber data publishers get from print subscriptions.

Publishers can make iPad access free for print subscribers, but until recently, not many did. Some Time Inc. titles (including People and Time itself) do. Bloomberg Businessweek recently added both an iPad subscription option and free access for print subscribers.

In some cases, subscription options can be a jumble. For example, as a New Yorker print subscriber, I get free access to the New Yorker’s online archives; the latest issue posts every Monday (my print issue usually doesn’t arrive until Thursday or Friday). Using Safari on the iPad, I can read new issues in the archive the day they come out, and usually finish reading them before my hard copy shows up. The downside is that every page-turn requires a page-refresh; if you aren’t connected to the Net via a Wi-Fi or 3G connection, you can’t read. Another deficiency: When you double-tap a page, you can zoom in to only one set level.

I could also download The New Yorker Magazine iPad app (free) and purchase individual, enhanced issues one at a time through it. (Enhancements include authors reading their poems, extra cartoons, and more.) Once you’ve downloaded an issue to the app, you can read it without a data connection.

Unfortunately, the New Yorker charges $5 per iPad issue. All you can see before buying is the issue’s cover—no table of contents—so you don’t know what’s in the issue. And since the app’s debut in September 2010, print subscribers have paid the same as anyone else. There wasn’t a separate option for subscribers, so to purchase the 47 annual issues on the iPad would cost a staggering $235.

However, as we went to press, the New Yorker’s publisher, Condé Nast, unveiled an iPad-subscription plan to satisfy newcomers and current print subscribers alike. For $6 a month or $60 a year, you can subscribe to the iPad edition from within the app. (You can still buy individual issues for $5 each.) Current print subscribers can authenticate via the app and download issues for no extra charge. On the New Yorker site, you can instead get print and digital access for $7 a month or $70 a year. Condé Nast also plans to add iPad sub-scriptions for Vanity Fair, Glamour, Golf Digest, Allure, Self, GQ, and Wiredshortly.

Hearst also recently announced that it will make iPad subscriptions available for Popular Mechanics; Esquire; and O, The Oprah Magazine soon for $20 a year each, and drop single issue prices to $2.

The iPad magazine business is changing rapidly. (It will likely have changed some more by the time you read this.) But at least it seems to be headed in a direction that’s good for readers.