What's Hot What's New

The good, the bad and the ugly. You'll find them all here. Each week you'll get my take on the intriguing, and sometimes peculiar, titles to recently hit the newsstand.

Be Well Cover Price: 6 issues for $19.95 www.bewellmagazine.com Be Well, a bimonthly fitness lifestyle magazine, promises to be a total wellness guide that addresses the whole human being. It tries to carve out its niche in the fitness market. By providing articles on spiritual and emotional health, Be Well is trying to combine multiple genres in one magazine. This magazine is marketed towards families and that may be a problem in attracting consumers. The fitness category has become more specialized in recent years. By trying to cover every aspect of human fitness, Be Well may become to general in a specialized market. This will make it very difficult for this magazine to survive in a specialized world.

Real Simple Travel www.realsimple.com Cover Price: $4.50 - Special Issue The creators of Real Simple enter the travel category with a special issue called Real Simple Travel. Real Simple Travel provides the same feel and information that readers of Real Simple have become accustomed to while also combining what consumers have come to expect from travel publications. The editors have done an excellent job of covering the topics in a simple yet practical way that consumers will find valuable. Articles on packing suitcases, staying healthy while traveling and items necessary for plane travel provide content consistent with the Real Simple brand. Not to mention that at $4.50 this magazine is far less expensive than most magazines in its genre, and although it may not have the same level of glitz as other travel magazines, it more than makes up for it with the quality of the content. So before packing up your family for that inevitable trek across the country, make a wise and simple choice and pick up Real Simple Travel.

Stock & Custom Cover Price: $7.50 www.stockandcustom.com Stock & Custom features auto enthusiast discussing car customizing and why they have such a passion for cars. The editor states that he wants this publication to highlight car lover's passion and he attempts to do so but the automobile genre is crowded and this magazine does not have the content necessary to set itself apart from similar magazines. The owner accounts are too repetitive to hold consumer interest and although this magazine provides plenty of eye candy, don't expect anything beyond that. This magazine's appeal is not in the articles, it is in the photographs of customized cars that will make this magazine sink or drive.