????6月1日，《名利場》網站提前發布該雜志2015年7月刊的封面，照片中的人物是前知名運動員布魯斯·詹納，而圖注為：“叫我凱特琳”。

????此前在接受ABC電視臺《20/20》欄目采訪時，詹納便已經透露，他變性為女人了。但此次登上《名利場》封面可以看作是首次正式亮相，網上的火爆反應足以證明。娛樂網站The Wrap刊登了《名利場》出版商康泰納仕集團的一份內部備忘錄，和盤托出了其中種種細節。

????“在24小時內，我們《名利場》雜志的同事們憑借這篇關于凱特琳·詹納的封面報道打破了不少互聯網紀錄。我們的視頻獲得了1310萬次單日點擊，是集團有史以來最高的一次。另外，《名利場》的官網VanityFair.com創下了有史以來最高的單日訪問量，吸引了超過900萬名獨立用戶。這個故事在發布后的10分鐘內就開始在Twitter上被瘋轉，2小時內就在Facebook上火了，而且第二天它依然是Facebook上排名第一、Twitter上排名第三的新聞?！?/p>

????有人可能懷疑，僅憑這個封面在網絡上的火爆，是否能夠真正帶動這份雜志的銷量？這種懷疑也是情有可原的。畢竟就在不到一年前，《紐約時報》就曾報道過，雜志特別是名人類雜志的銷量正在急劇下跌， 2014年上半年美國雜志銷售數據著實慘淡：

????“《人物》、《InStyle》和《美國周刊》的銷量與2013年同期相比下跌了15%?！睹恐芙佑|》的銷量下跌了23.5%，《明星》雜志下跌了21.8%，《生活與時尚周刊》下跌了21.7%，《人物時尚觀察》更是下跌了32.8%。就連格調甚高的名人雜志也遭受了挑戰，《名利場》的銷量比上年同期下跌了11.8%。”

????不過假若以史為鑒，一個吸引眼球的封面的確能幫助雜志社大幅提高銷量。有時候，一個好的封面甚至能夠跨越時間，在人們腦海里留下永恒的記憶，哪怕他們早已淡忘了文章甚至雜志本身。

????在本文中，《財富》選取了一些出版史上最令人難忘的雜志封面及其銷量數據。其中大多數都登上過美國雜志編輯協會（下文簡稱ASME）2005年10月發布的“40年40大雜志封面排行榜”。部分未登上該排行榜的雜志封面，要么是在2005年后刊出的，要么就是因為其重要性無法忽略而被選入此文。除非另有說明，文中援引的所有銷量數據都來自非盈利組織媒體審計聯盟。該組織主要負責核實在線媒體和紙質媒體的發行信息。需要指出的是，《人物》和《時代》均為時代集團所有，時代集團也是《財富》的母公司。

????On June 1, the online edition of Vanity Fair posted a preview of the cover of its July 2015 print edition. It was a photo of the athlete formerly known as Bruce Jenner, with the caption “Call me Caitlyn.”

????Jenner had already come out as a transgender woman in an interview with Diane Sawyer on ABC’s “20/20,” but the Vanity Fair cover seemed to make it official, if the overwhelming response it got on the Internet is any indication. The entertainment website The Wrappublished a company-wide memo from Vanity Fairpublisher Condé Nast that laid out all the details.

????“In the last 24 hours, our colleagues at Vanity Fair broke a number of internal records with their Caitlyn Jenner July cover story,” it said. “With 13.1 million organic video views, we had our best video day ever. And, VanityFair.com generated its highest-ever single-day traffic with more than 9 million unique visitors. The story was trending on Twitter within the first 10 minutes of being live and on Facebook within the first 2 hours – and continues on Day 2 to be number 1 on Facebook and number 3 on Twitter”

????People can be forgiven for being skeptical about whether this online frenzy will translate into actual sales of the magazine. After all, it was less than a year ago that The New York Times reported that magazine sales — in particular, celebrity magazine sales — were in a state of sharp decline, and the numbers they cited for the first half of 2014 were grim.

????“Newsstand sales of People, InStyle and US Weeklydropped by nearly 15 percent in that time, compared with the same period in 2013,” the newspaper reported. “In Touch Weekly’s newsstand sales declined by 23.5 percent,Star Magazine by 21.8 percent and Life & Style Weeklyby 21.7 percent. People StyleWatch suffered a 32.8 percent decline. Even highbrow celebrity titles were challenged;Vanity Fair had an 11.8 percent decline.”

????The print edition of July’s Vanity Fair doesn’t hit newsstands until Tuesday, June 9, so until then, any speculation about the effect of the Internet response on sales is a purely academic exercise. But if the past is any indication, an eye-catching cover can sell a lot of magazines, and sometimes the cover itself is remembered long after the article and the rest of the issue are forgotten.

????Fortune takes a look at some of the most unforgettable magazine covers in publishing history and how much they sold. Most appeared on the American Society of Magazine Editors’ October 2005 list, “ASME’s Top 40 Magazine Covers of the Last 40 Years;” those that weren’t were either published after 2005 or simply seemed too important to leave off. Unless otherwise noted, all sales figures were provided by the Alliance for Audited Media, a nonprofit organization that verifies circulation information for online and print publications. (People and Time are owned by Time Inc., which owns Fortune.)

????《生活》（1969年8月15日）

????“經典”這個詞早已被用濫，不過用它來形容《生活》雜志1969年8月15日刊的封面卻恰如其分。封面中的人物是宇航員巴茲·奧爾德林，攝像者是與他一同登月的尼爾·阿姆斯特朗。這一期雜志共賣出了8,527,600份，但其實這個銷量還要低于它上一期的8,666,219份。

????就在一周之后，8月22日刊的《生活》雜志又賣出了8,572,569份。該封面在ASME的榜單上排名第13位。

????LIFE (August 15, 1969)

????The word “iconic” gets thrown around a lot, but it was the right word for the cover of LIFE magazine’s August 15, 1969 issue. The photo depicted astronaut Buzz Aldrin as photographed by fellow traveller Neil Armstrong, and the issue sold 8,527,600 copies, which was actually down from the previous week, when 8,666,219 sold.

????The publication regained some of its mojo with the August 22 issue, which sold 8,572,569 copies. The cover took the number 13 spot on the American Society of Magazine Editors’ October 2005 list.