THINGS appear to be getting real chaotic at Real Simple, the two-year-old Time Inc. title aimed at simplifying lives.
Three top editors were ousted suddenly late last week: Home Editor Kelly Tagore, Fashion and Beauty Editor Anthea Leontos and Features Editor Barbara Jones.
The changes come amid buzz that there is still considerable tension between Managing Editor Carrie Tuhy – who was installed only months after the launch Editor Susan Wyland was given the boot in May 2000, shortly after the first issue appeared.
Oddly, Time Inc. Editorial Director John Huey, who has been seen as the radioactive man of Time Inc. in recent months – has nothing to do with this one. Instead, Time Inc. Editor in Chief Norman Pearlstine is passing the baton to Corporate Editor Isolde Motley – a veteran trouble shooter with a spotty record; she worked on the launch of Martha Stewart Living and presided over the collapse of the old monthly Life.
Said one source close to the situation, “My sense is that Carrie is a terrible manager. She can’t make decisions in a timely way. But on the other hand, she is a total control freak.”
Said one source, “I’m amazed at how closely Isolde is involved. They (Tuhy and Motley) meet frequently and she reads most of the copy before it goes to press.” Tuhy did not return a call seeking comment.
Motley insists they are solidly behind Tuhy. “Carrie inherited a difficult and challenging assignment,” Motley said. “She’s turned the magazine into an extraordinary success. She has our full support and gratitude.”
Meanwhile, none of the three latest departees could be reached for comment – but all had messages on their answering machines confirming that they were no longer with the magazine. The voice mail on Leontos machine is short and comical. “As of April 11 I am no longer with Real Simple. Any beauty questions can be . . .” and the tape abruptly ends.
Its woes inside, the numbers so far are looking positive.
Through the first quarter, the magazine’s ad pages were up 28.8 percent at a time when the industry overall was slumping 14.1 percent. And in the second half of 2002, the magazine is guaranteeing advertisers that it will sell at least a million copies per issue – a fairly rapid runup to that magic number.
One source sniped, “The concept is so strong, it is almost impossible to screw up.”
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Vanity Fair is thinking of launching its own mini-book business, and one of the parties it is huddling with is Harvey Weinstein’s Talk Miramax Books.
Tina Brown, the nominal Chairwoman of Talk Media and a former editor in chief of Vanity Fair, is not involved in the talks, however.
Jonathan Burnham, the editor of Talk Miramax Books, did huddle with Vanity Fair Editor in Chief Graydon Carter a month ago. Weinstein subsequently followed it up with a call. A Miramax spokesman confirmed the contact.
Vanity Fair produced one book in recent years, “Vanity Fair’s Hollywood,” a big, pricey coffee-table book in conjunction with Penguin Putnam’s Viking imprint in the fall of 2000.
But the Viking Studio imprint that was involved in the coffee table production is slimming down its offerings and laying off staff.
So now Vanity Fair is in talks with several other publishers – three boutique publishers, including Talk Miramax Books, Nicholas Calloway and the French-owned Assouline, according to Carter, and two giants, Random House and the Alfred A. Knopf imprint of Random House Inc.
Carter is not trying to sign up original authors or expand magazine articles into full-length books. Rather, he said he expects the books to be compilations that tap into Vanity Fair archives in much the way the Hollywood book did.
“It’s a way of using these extraordinary archives, and I think it’s a valuable extension of the magazine,” said Carter. He hopes to finish the beauty contest among book publishers by the fall and have a new Vanity Fair compilation book out sometime next year. Plans now call for six books over a four-year period.
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Bonnie Fuller keeps on setting records in her new job as editor in chief at Us Weekly – but not all of them are the kind to write home about.
One insider said this week’s issue did not finish editorially until 9:45 Tuesday morning – a record for lateness. It required Fuller and the writer of the cover story and other staffers to pull an all-nighter Monday into Tuesday.
They won’t have that problem next week because the magazine is skipping another week of publication. (Us Weekly publishes only 40 issues a year).
The last double issue – which contained the Oscar special coverage last month – set a newsstand record for the title. The newsstand sales were 600,232 – up by 54 percent from the 389,498 sold a year ago in that same issue.
“If they keep selling like that, do you think (owner) Jann Wenner is going to care that people are losing sleep?” said one source.
A Wenner spokesman insisted they got on press on time and incurred no extra charges from the printer.
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