And yet another new magazine for women! But instead of going upscale as so many magazines have done lately, Hearst plans to launch a decidedly down-market women’s title this summer. Called Quick & Simple, it will be a 56-page weekly, sold primarily on newsstands. Yes, it does sounds similar to Time Inc.’s recently launched All You, a women’s monthly, which is sold only at Wal-Mart stores. And both are similar to Bauer’s Women’s World, which has been around for more than 20 years and sells 1.5 million copies a week. During this time most women’s titles have dropped in sales precipitously on the newsstand. Women’s World continues to sell steadily and well.

Quick & Simple’s editor will be Susan Toepfer, the final editor of Gruner & Jahr’s ill-fated Rosie. Before that Ms. Toepfer, who has extensive experience with weeklies, was deputy managing editor of People under editor Carol Wallace. She worked at People for 15 years but was passed over for the top job when Martha Nelson, previously the editor of InStyle, was made editor in 2002 after Ms. Wallace left to run a beauty spa in Scotland. The magazine’s publisher will be Bernadette Healy, a former publisher at Reader’s Digest and Organic Style.

Downscale women’s weeklies, with a mix of dieting tips, easy recipes, celebrity tell-alls, and short, punchy service features dominated the women’s magazine scene in England, Australia, and most of Europe for decades. Women’s World stays true to that formula with a new diet on the cover practically every week. Hearst says that Quick & Simple will cover “real women and what’s important to them in a positive upbeat formula.” Subjects to be covered include “home, family, fitness, nutrition, beauty and fashion.”

In recent years, the older, more traditional weeklies using this format have dropped in circulation, especially in Great Britain. But a pack of energetic, sometimes outrageous new titles have done well there. Bauer’s That’s Life, Take a Break, and IPC Chat have all won new, younger readers with a format heavy on wacky real life stories. For example, the cover lines for a recent issue of Chat include “I woke up and my feet had died” and “An armed robber begged my gentle Kev for mercy.” Gripping, even outrageous real-life stories have always scored well with female readers. The trouble is that advertisers prefer more aspirational editorial.

The president of Hearst’s magazine division, Cathleen Black, said, “With our long history of publishing powerful magazine brands like Good Housekeeping and Redbook, Hearst knows the mainstream women’s magazine market backwards and forwards.” She added, “There’s room for a new entry in the noncelebrity, weekly women’s service category, and we believe that Quick & Simple, with its tips, advice, and solutions, will appeal to women across the country.” Quick & Simple will be in the “mass price range” – Women’s World sells for $1.49 – and the plan is for only six or seven ads per issue.

Launching a weekly is no small – or inexpensive – undertaking. Publishing insiders estimate it can cost upward of $70 million. Major costs include buying racks in order to display the magazine at supermarkets as well as the magazine’s weekly production. Jann Wenner, who originally thought it would take $50 million to transform US from a biweekly to a weekly, complained that “putting out a million [copies] every goddamn week” can mean that money “pours out like a sieve.”

Advertisers also wonder if American women need yet another service magazine. Audrey Siegel of TargetCast tcm, a media planning agency said, “People don’t keep adding magazines unless a magazine offers something they can’t get somewhere else. If the magazine really meets a need that is not met anywhere else, then it can work. If not it will be just another magazine that comes and goes.” Though expensive and risky, a successful weekly with big newsstand sales can be enormously valuable to a company. Publishing executives believe People is the most financially successful magazine today.

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What makes a book sell? A new survey published to coincide with World Book Day, which just in case you didn’t know was March 3, claims that it isn’t promotion or marketing that really makes people buy books. Rather it is word-of-mouth. One out of four people polled said that the last book they read was because of a recommendation from a friend and colleague. Almost a third of people under 35 cited it as the most important factor. Loyalty to a favorite author counted as much, with 26% of readers saying their last choice of a book they read for pleasure was because they had read others by the same author.

Alexander McCall Smith, author of a series of books about a ladies’ detective agency in Botswana that have become best sellers, said, “I was certainly one of the beneficiaries of the word-of-mouth phenomenon, but it probably took a little bit of time to get going.

“In my case, it was about two years after publication of the first book that people began recommending the books to one another and the books seemed to be taking off. What I found surprising was that an awful lot of people said they had bought copies to give to friends. People seem to want to give books to other people and share them.”

Word-of-mouth best sellers include Dan Brown’s phenomenally successful “The Da Vinci Code” as well as “The Lovely Bones” by Alice Sebold, a novel about a young girl’s murder, and Lynne Truss’s book about grammar, “Eats, Shoots and Leaves.”

In England, World Book Day was celebrated with a variety of activities including asking the public to recommend a book for Prime Minister Tony Blair.

More than a third suggested Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” What book would you recommend to George W. Bush?