4 Times Square, Eighth Floor
New York, NY 10036
800/897-8718
When Newsweek says your fledgling magazine "transcend[s] print," there's a good chance it will sell like hotcakes. Or, in the case of Lucky, sell stuff like
hotcakes. Now a monthly, the magazine launched last December, dedicated to all things shopping-related both on the Web and at the mall. Already boasting a subscriber base of
500,000, Lucky wants to be as indispensable to shop-aholics as Poor Richard's Almanac once was for farmers -- a guide to the changing winds of fashion,
beauty, home decor and travel.
Content
Lucky's target audience is the same demographic that makes for great extras on a Jennifer Love Hewitt TV show: 20- and 30-something women. This month's issue features
such diverse editorial as best buys in bridal fashions, baby gifts, knee-high boots, and collectable rock posters. A special section allows readers to ask editors about everything
from fashion faux pas to minor medical maladies (i.e. "how do I heal the dry, flaky skin around my nose?") A regular feature profiles the shopping culture of in-vogue cities
around the country.
Editorial is fast, thick and totally product-centric; great news for publicists who need only pitch a product to editors, not spin it to fly with a magazine's editorial
direction. Articles are chopped into a few hundred words each and rarely last longer than a page. And if your pitch makes the cut, the story will likely be glowing. Says Managing
Editor Rick Levine "by and large we don't put stuff in the magazine that we don't like." Although about half of the book currently focuses on fashion, Levine says the coming
months will bring more of a focus on technology and home entertainment.
Pitch Tips/Contacts
Be it email, phone, fax, snail-mail or smoke signal, Levine says there is no preferred way to pitch his staff. However, when you do pitch, keep in mind that they get peeved
when people assume they are a catalogue a la L.L. Bean or J. Crew (which, we must admit, is easy to do because the thing is chock full of so many ads and aesthetically pleasing
young folk.) Editors write about products, but also like to break news about emerging trends in retail and fashion. Keeping copy fresh is the reason the book is produced lickety-
split: issues are turned around in 2-3 weeks. So if you're pitching hats that are old hat, spare your dialing fingers the workout.
Fashion Editor:
Andrea Linett
Fax 212/286-3774
Andrea_Linett@luckymag.com
Beauty Director:
Jean Godfrey-June
jgodfrey@luckymag.com
All other topics go to Managing Editor Rick Levine
Rick_Levine@luckymag.com
Comments
Hold the press releases: Levine says he ignores them because he assumes everyone from Vogue to Vanity Fair is getting the same scoop. Give him an exclusive and
his ears perk up. As for future direction, he anticipates that the magazine's 100+ pages of editorial will grow slightly in the coming year, although he doesn't anticipate a
monster issue to accommodate the Christmas shopping season. The magazine will raise its rate base to 600,000 subscribers by July.
The magazine's Web counterpart, is no e-commerce juggernaut (a good thing, given the state of B-to-C dotcoms these days). But LuckyMag.com does offer subscribers the skinny on
hot sales in a dozen major cities, including where to buy hard-to-find items. And Lucky readers do their fair share of buying: a recent poll of 600 readers indicated that
nearly a third bought products they saw in the magazine.