New Beauty Is Anything But Natural

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

Want a new look for the new year? A really, really new look? Then there’s a new magazine just for you, New Beauty, a sort of shopping guide to help one find the plastic surgeon of one’s dreams.


New Beauty hits the newsstand on January 18 – just when some women just might be wishing for liposuction to erase their eggnog-induced weight gain. The magazine will publish a national edition as well as 13 regional editions, highlighting doctors and physical enhancement treatments in markets such as Phoenix, New York, and south Florida. The 500,000-circulation title will publish twice in 2005 and quarterly in 2006, with a hefty cover price of $9.95. And the first issue will carry approximately 650 pages of advertising in all its editions combined, which just may be a record for a new launch. The national issue alone will be a respectable 240 pages.


The magazine’s founder, Adam Sandow, said, “As a publisher you are always looking for an underserved market.” While other women’s beauty and fashion magazines write about plastic surgery, Botox, and liposuction, he believes women are eager for even more comprehensive information. “People are absolutely starved for it. Shows like ‘Extreme Makeover’ have caused people to say, “I didn’t know you could do that.’ We wanted to create an absolute resource for this stuff.”


Certainly doctors are eager to find those who are interested in learning more and then partaking of their services. New Beauty is filled with ads from local plastic surgeons, dermatologists, spas, and beauty companies. But the magazine also offers others options for the readers in it features. For example in one piece describing tummy tucks, there is also advice on gels, ab exercises, and diet tips


New Beauty will be distributed widely, from Barnes & Noble to Wal-Mart. Mr. Sandow said he is expecting to reach an up market demographic but also “the 22-year-old receptionist who will spend whatever it takes.”


***


She saw the movie so she just had to do the book. That’s what the publisher of Newmarket Press, Esther Margolis, felt when she saw a screening of Terry George’s “Hotel Rwanda” starring Don Cheadle at the Hamptons Film Festival. The movie tells the story of Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager in Rwanda who used cunning and courage to save 1,200 people during the 100 days when over 800,000 people were butchered in the tiny African country.


“I had heard of the movie, and knew it had won the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto Film Festival,” Ms. Margolis said, “but we had already committed to so many books related to fall releases that I felt we could not take on another project. But that was before I saw the movie.”


Newmarket, a small, independent press that Ms. Margolis founded 21 years ago, is known for books that are tied to films. Currently, Newmarket is publishing books that include the shooting scripts as well as descriptions of the making of such Oscar contenders as “Spanglish,” “Sideways,” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” The company also published “Kinsey,” which includes a short biography of the University of Indiana professor as well as the shooting script, and a photo-filled companion book to the movie “Ray.”


Once she saw the movie, Ms. Margolis knew she had to move fast because the film was slated to open in limited release in late December. “I called United Artists, who was releasing the picture. I had worked with them before and I knew they were very good, and that Terry George, the director and script writer, was very accessible and very interested in working with us.”


The book includes the shooting script, a description of the difficult struggle to get the movie made and a history of Rwanda. The film has received good reviews and is nominated for three Golden Globe awards. The book will be out in mid-January, about three and a half months after Ms. Margolis attended the screening. “Terry George said he had to make the movie. He is a moviemaker. I am a publisher. I had to publish this book.”


***


This has been an especially good year for Oprah Winfrey, who turned 50 last January. More than 8.6 million viewers watched her TV show during the first week in December. In fact, her show’s ratings are higher this year than they have been since 1996, while the circulation of her magazine has zoomed to nearly 3 million.


Since starting her book club in 1996, Ms. Winfrey has always been able to sell books. Now a recently released study at Brigham Young University has proved exactly what a potent force she is in publishing. Even casual observers in the past knew the selections for Oprah’s Book Club zoomed up best-seller lists. But what is just as significant is that they also remained there longer than other titles, according to research done by BYU economist Richard Butler and two of his students.


The combined impact – the “Oprah Effect” – was worth hundreds of millions of dollars. “Oprah’s recommendations had a bigger impact on the sales of books than anything we have previously seen in literature, or seen since,” Mr. Butler said.


After a brief sabbatical, Ms. Winfrey began to recommend books once again in 2003 but recently has only endorsed classics. “Her book club still moves books,” Mr. Butler said. “She still has power, even though the authors are dead, to move books for them.” Ms. Winfrey has also used her unique marketing clout with a new twist this fall with “Oprah’s Favorite Things,” which has increased the sales of the many products she gives away on her show.


Editors of competitive magazines have always wondered what “O: The Oprah Magazine” would put on the cover when they stopped using a picture of Oprah. This month she showed them. On the January issue there are two photos of Ms. Winfrey, one in her belly-baring workout ensemble next to one in which she is wearing an elegant black evening gown. The issue is about “Transformations,” and Ms. Winfrey, more successful than ever, tells the readers that just like them, she is still transforming herself.


The New York Sun

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