JOIN THE CROWD: Open wide, America — you’re about to get another celebrity style magazine crammed down your throat. American Media’s board of directors has given its blessing to a five-issue test run of a new title, Celebrity Living Weekly. Originally scheduled for early next month, the first issue was pushed back to April 23 to accommodate the April 7 relaunch of the National Enquirer. For now, Celebrity Living’s staff consists of freelancers working under the watch of AMI editorial director Bonnie Fuller and Star’s creative director, Kelli Delaney. Some AMI insiders were under the impression that Delaney, who developed the prototype on which Celebrity Living is partially based, would be rewarded with an editor in chief title, but for now she is “project editor,” according to Fuller.
Celebrity Living will cover fashion, beauty, home design, entertaining and fitness — more or less the same mix as Bauer Publishing’s fledgling Life & Style Weekly. In fact, the two titles look to be so similar that Celebrity Weekly’s 10-cent edge in cover price ($1.89 vs. $1.99 for Life & Style) could actually sway some shoppers.
The recent proliferation of celebrity titles has made checkout pockets ever harder to come by, yet Celebrity Living will launch with some 30,000 racks. A publishing source said AMI will divert many of the pockets from the Globe and the Examiner. Asked about this, an AMI spokesman declined to comment. If true, it’s one more sign of how eager AMI is to rebrand itself as a consumer, rather than tabloid, publisher.
SAND AND FURY: It’s no knock on Flaunt magazine to say that this year’s spring fashion issue was full of crud. That’s because all 110,000 copies of the issue, with actress Penélope Cruz on the cover, came sealed in an envelope with a generous helping of sand, a reference to Cruz’s new film, “Sahara.” It was also a gesture to the imminent arrival of warm weather, according to Flaunt editor in chief Luis Barajas. “It brings you out of the mode of fall and winter and dreading cold weather,” he said. “It’s kind of great when you actually get it.”
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Not everyone felt that way, however, especially those who ended up with sand all over their desks and clothing. “I’ve gotten calls saying, ‘What the f–k am I supposed to do with all this sand?” Barajas acknowledged. For those overly fastidious souls, he has some advice: Chill out. “It’s not like we did a bucket of sand. It’s two handfuls.”
Besides, this is no common beach sand, full of microorganisms and cigarette butts. To comply with postal regulations, Flaunt had to use store-bought sand, Barajas said. “It’s doesn’t have any residue, so it’s easy to clean.”