Publishing Paper & Ink

The world of magazine publishing is haunted by a handful of entrepreneurs who hold that the ingredients of success consist almost entirely of paper and ink. They are not particularly interested in mail subscribers or advertisers, although they accept such business as comes in unsolicited. Nor are they concerned much with the quality of their editorial product, relying on the probability that there are newsstand suckers who will buy anything. No one has applied this publishing theory with more personal satisfaction than a onetime freelance writer named Hy Steirman.

Steirman first tested the proposition in 1958, when he bought two expose magazines, Whisper and Confidential, from their former publisher, Robert Harrison, who had been fined $10,000 for publishing obscenity. Under Steirman, the magazines have become about as racy as racing programs, and combined newsstand sales have dropped to 510,000 from a peak of 4,100,000. But Steirman claims that both are in the black. In 1961, he resurrected Blue Book, a man's magazine dropped by McCall Corp. five years earlier as a bad job. Steirman's Bluebook for Men has a newsstand sale of only 150,000 and no detectable merit, but it is breaking even.

This month Steirman tried again with Coronet, a 25-year-old offshoot of Esquire, that was put to death in 1961; although it had a monthly circulation of 3,000,000, it was losing big money. Steirman's revival bears only superficial resemblance to the earlier magazine. Even the title may not be his: Esquire sold it to Reader's Digest, which is now contesting in court Steirman's right to use it. But Paper-and-Ink Publisher Hy Steirman is convinced that his reincarnated Coronet will make money--if he can keep the name.

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