Whoever said money can not buy everything was wrong. First for Women was like no other magazine ever launched. The immediate goal was to force First for Women into having the title of the eighth sister of the famous seven sisters of women's magazines-Family Circle, Woman's Day, Ladies' Home Journal, Better Homes and Gardens, McCall's, Redbook and Good Housekeeping.

First for Women premiered in 1989 with a $.25 cover price and a circulation of 8 million. The immediate offer was that retailers kept every bit of what they sold. With such a gargantuan launch circulation, First for Women, the only saddle-stitched "sister", was found piled in shopping carts near the checkout counters and with their impressive launch budget it soon bulldozed its way into the checkout line racks.

First for Women used the same publishing schedule as Family Circle and Woman's Day. But while the magazine publishes as many issues as Family Circle, 17 per year to be exact, its circulation is much less.

Although today's circulation of 1.6 million resides far from its initial 8 million mark, the result of the massive launch effort has established First for Women as a contender in terms of single copy sales. Almost 90 percent of its sales occur at the newsstand, much like the entirely newsstand driven sister publication from Bauer Publishing, Woman's World.

First for Women was able to float a genuine interest in a sea of other titles. After all, very few magazines ever succeed in reaching a circulation of a million. The same, however, cannot be said about their ad sales-it is strictly a circulation success story.