Hachette creates a custom publishing unit

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, May 1, 1992 by Lisa E. Phillips

Launching a custom publishing division looks easy when you have a franchise like Woman's Day (4.6 million circulation), an established spin-off like Woman's Day Special Interest Publications (24 titles) - and deep pockets like Hachette Magazines.

This September, Hachette's new custom publishing division will introduce two magazines, Jenny Craig's Your Body, Your Health, a quarterly, and Mary Kay Cosmetics' Beauty, a semiannual for newsstand distribution and sponsor promotion.

Why is Hachette, one of the nation's largest consumer magazine companies, branching out into custom publishing? "The time was right," says Susan Buckley, vice president and publisher of the special-interest division and co-publisher of the new custom division. "Marketers don't want a rifle-shot approach to their markets, they want a cannonball."

Through its sponsors' contracts, the new division has already made "several million dollars," Buckley says. Ad revenues could add another half-million dollars this year.

Both new magazines will utilize Woman's Day's distribution channels; the special-interest division will sell ads in categories that don't compete with the sponsor. Each project will have its own editorial staff. Some 650,000 copies of Jenny Craig's will be available on newsstands for $2.95; another 100,000 will be sold through Jenny Craig Weight Loss Centers.

The first issue of Jenny Craig's will carry "about 20-some odd [ad] pages," says Patrice Litsfield, associate publisher of Woman's Day and co-publisher of the custom group.

Mary Kay Cosmetics' beauty is targeted to women at least 35 years old. "It's saying you can be beautiful at 40, at 45," says Margot Gilman, editor in chief of the custom division and founding editor of Welsh Publications' Slim-Fast Magazine. Some 400,000 copies will sell for $2.95 on newsstands and 200,000 will be distributed through Mary Kay's direct-sales operations.

Meanwhile, a teen version of Elle, with the working title Annabelle, will be tested as a one-shot this fall.