Do magazines that are tied to celebrities really work? It depends. Once in a while they are smash hits. Think of O, The Oprah Magazine, for example, a partnership between Hearst and Oprah’s own company that is a complete winner with constantly increasing circulation, burgeoning advertising, and lavish, award-winning editorial and design. But remember Rosie, Gruner & Jahr’s extreme makeover of the long-established women’s magazine McCall’s. Though Rosie started off strong, it flamed out when the comedian ended her daily television show. During the publication’s brief existence, there were constant squabbles about control between the star and her publisher that ended finally in an acrimonious and very expensive lawsuit.

Just like its famous founder, Martha Stewart Living has had its ups and downs. In fact, more than a decade ago, when Stewart was first shopping her magazine to a series of major publishers, some were concerned that a magazine based on just one person might be problematic if anything happened to the cover personality. (Back then they worried about the individual being hit by a truck, not tangling with the feds.) During Stewart’s recent legal problems, Martha Stewart Living did take a major nosedive with advertisers, dropping as much as 50%. Though its star seems to have bounced back, the magazine’s advertising is recovering but slowly.

Many other prominent individuals have had the idea of a magazine with their name as part of the title during the past few years. But B. Smith’s magazine, published by American Express, shut down operations after a short run. Hearst once considered developing a Tiger Woods magazine but did not go forward with the project. Still, publishers remain enthusiastic about personality based magazines.

Currently one such magazine is being tested, while another is being readied for a major launch in the fall. At the moment, At Home with Chris Madden, published by Hachette, is on the newsstands. Ms. Madden, a “celebrity decorator,” is the author of 16 books on decorating, including the best-selling “A Room of Her Own: Women’s Personal Spaces.”

Blond, personable, and attractive, Ms. Madden has often been considered a Martha Stewart rival. She also had a television show on HGTV for eight seasons and was a design correspondent for the Oprah Show. Since 2003, a collection of Chris Madden home furnishings has been sold very successfully by JC Penney, and they compete with the Martha Stewart product line sold at K-Mart.

About the often-made comparison, Ms. Madden told me, “Martha Stewart did incredible things. But I have been doing it my own way for more than 30 years. I am not a perfectionist. I have always been more about cherishing the perfection of imperfection and making sure a home is a real haven.”

At Home with Chris Madden reflects Ms. Madden’s comfortable, relaxed taste and style, including features on her Westchester home, her retreat in Vermont, and a weekend get-together she had with childhood friends. There are also features on some of Ms. Madden’s better-known celebrity pals, including an interview with Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison and a look inside Katie Couric’s Dutchess County hideaway.

In the magazine, Ms. Couric confides that her “country favorites” include “a pair of beat-up sneakers” because she “loves to take walks on the dirt roads.” Obviously her farmhouse, which is a “perfect escape,” is where she kicks off those controversial high-heeled mules that she wears so often on television.

Ms. Madden said she is a “magazine junkie”; her husband was the publisher of House & Garden and Bon Appetit, She worked on every detail of the issue from planning the stories, to styling the rooms and going on photo shoots for stories, even copy editing and correcting typos. What’s next for the magazine?

“When the issue goes off sale in three months we will sit down with the people from Hachette and decide if we are going forward,” she said. “I have been wooed by a several magazine publishers. But it is really up to the public. As they say at JC PENNEY, at the end of the day, it’s how the customer votes.”

By contrast Reader’s Digest USA. with its launch of Every Day with Rachael Ray, is stepping aggressively into the celebrity tie-in category. In fact, this is the biggest new magazine launch that Reader’s Digest has done in years: There will be 650,000 copies of the first issue of the food and lifestyle magazine on the newsstand in September.

Ms. Ray is the very popular host of three of the Food Network’s top-rated shows and the author of a series of cookbooks that have sold more than 2 million copies. Her fans describe her as bubbly, vivacious, chatty, and able to inspire confidence in even the most neophyte of cooks.

Kitty Morgan, the magazine’s editor – Ms. Ray will be editor in chief – said, “Rachael is full of great ideas. We talk constantly. No, she won’t be in the office every minute. But the magazine will reflect her ideas and her can-do spirit. Her approach will inspire how we do every article in the magazine. “Every issue will also have 10 all-new recipes for 30-minute meals from Ms. Ray. And, said Frank Lalli, the head of development for Reader’s Digest, “an editor-in-chief’s column written by Rachael that is the cleverest you’ve ever seen.”

Mr. Lalli has been working on this project from its inception. “Lots of publishers talked to Rachael about doing a magazine and told her what they wanted,” he said. “I asked her what she wanted to do, and we worked from that basis. Rachael Ray is about real life, real cooking, real people which, we think, is exactly the right tone for today.”

Besides Ms. Morgan, who previously was editor-in-chief at Cincinnati Magazine, the high-profile staff includes Silvana Nardone, a former editor at Saveur magazine and the founder of Fanciulla Specialty Food in Brooklyn, who will serve as Executive Food Editor; design director Lucy Sisman, who was the original art director of both Allure and Departures; and Christine Guilfoyle, formerly advertising director of Better Homes & Gardens, joined the staff as publisher this week.

Laura McEwen, Reader’s Digest USA’s publishing director, said, “Like Lucky did in the fashion field and Domino is trying to do in the home field, we think this magazine will make a new kind of connection with readers about food, especially younger readers.” Is the company not concerned that starting a magazine with a celebrity can be chancy?

“We are not worried,” Mr. Lalli said. “We did several focus groups for the magazine. Some people had never seen Rachael’s shows or read her cookbooks. But after they read the description of the magazine and went through the table of contents, they said, ‘I don’t know who this Rachael Ray is, I don’t even care who this Rachael Ray is, but I want to buy this magazine.'”