How to Get Readers

On the magazine's cover was a color photograph of a Williamsburg garden, bright with massed red tulips, yellow pansies and pink apple blossoms. Better Homes and Gardens did more than picture the garden on its April issue. Inside, the editors told readers how to grow such a garden in their backyards. Such practical "how-to-do-it" stories have made Better Homes and Gardens (circ. 3,250,000) the bestselling homemaking magazine in the U.S.* and the current issue the plumpest (322 pp.) and most profitable ($2,000,000 worth of ads) in its 27-year history.

Unlike its flossier rivals, sensible, flat-heeled, B. H. & G. talks in folksy, conversational style to the middle-income family, which it advises how to do almost everything. Samples: "How to wash and iron curtains," "How to stop rot," and how to remove crust from a baby's head. Upper-middle-class expressions such as maid's room, library and master bedroom are taboo. (B. H. & G. says added bedroom, den and owners' bedroom.) There are no "housewives"; they are all "home-makers." B. H. & G. admits that its constant touting of homemaking techniques, products and services sometimes makes it "hard to tell the articles from the ads." But it also makes it easy for B. H. & G. to lirffe up profitable tie-in sales with 60 U.S. department stores.

Wedding Presents. B. H. &G. is the major moneymaker of Des Moines's huge Meredith Publishing Co., a family-owned concern which during its last fiscal year netted $2,862,276. Among the Meredith publications: Successful Farming (circ. 1,200,000), beamed at prosperous Midwest farm families, and the Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book, which has sold 3,000,000 copies (87,000 so far this year). Last week the sprawling Meredith plant along the banks of the Raccoon River was spreading out again. It needed more space to house its peak staff (1,446) and five new color presses (cost: $2,000,000).

Edwin Thomas Meredith, the man who made "Merediths," built it up from a seemingly worthless wedding present. In 1895, his uncle deeded the 19-year-old bridegroom a dying Populist paper, the Des Moines Farmers' Tribune. In seven years, Meredith put the unsuccessful Tribune into the black, then sold it to start Successful Farming with the profits. By 1922, he was selling ads for the first issue of his second magazine, Fruit, Garden and Home (now B. H. & G.). At his death in 1928, Publisher Meredith (who had been Wilson's Secretary of Agriculture) left a gilt-edged business to his son-in-law, President Fred Bohen, now 53, and to his son, Vice President and Treasurer E. T. Meredith Jr., 42.

Living Jobs. Hustling, hard-driving Fred Bohen is a cheerful insomniac (he sometimes works until 4 a.m.) who likes to tackle tough advertising accounts himself, drops into retail stores to find out first-hand who is buying what, and barrages his staffs with ideas. He has also stopped the presses when struck by a better idea. But Bohen and Vice President Meredith (who helps manage the business side) usually let veteran Editor Frank McDonough, 43, run things.

Editor McDonough has no bachelors and only four unmarried women on his staff of 30, because he wants his editors and writers to "live the job." The typical B. H. & G. staffer is in the middle 30s, has two children, owns a better home and garden, and frequently lets readers see it (in the current issue, Foods & Equipment Editor Myrna Johnston shows her own kitchen).

B. H. & G. encourages its readers to help write the magazine (sample feature: "I hated housework till . . ."), and hires 97 housewives and other subscribers to act as story "scouts." These are not penny-pinching dodges; the editors spend money freely to test their ideas. In the current issue, for an illustrated article on carpets and color schemes, B. H. & G. laid out $9,000 for expenses (which included building and furnishing four sample rooms) before the magazine was prepared to tell its readers how to do it.

* Runners-up: American Home (circ. 2,580,-ooo), House Beautiful (509,800), House and Garden (380,400).

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