• by Michael Shields , January 17, 2005

The race to secure the next domestic design megastar in the publishing world has been won by Hachette Filipacchi Media.

Bestselling author and TV personality Chris Madden has signed up with Hachette to launch a home decoration magazine this May. The magazine will be run out of the company's Special Interest Publications division with Madden serving as editorial director, working with Olivia Monjo, the SIP group's editor in chief.

Jim Fraguela, vice president, publisher of the SIP group, will oversee the business side of the unnamed launch.

The yet-to-be-named magazine will launch with 400,000 newsstand copies, 50,000 of which will be distributed at J.C. Penney to coincide with the release of Madden's new spring collection at the retailer. The frequency of the new title has not yet been determined.

Hachette President and CEO Jack Kliger was pleased to land the popular designer, who had been among several personalities being mentioned as candidates to launch a magazine, particularly with Martha Stewart Living suffering an ad drought since Stewart was implicated in a stock scandal that eventually led to her prison sentence.

"We've been talking to Chris for a while," Kliger said. "She's obviously been a prize for people [in publishing]. She's got a following."

Quite a following at that. Madden has authored 16 bestselling books, including the recently published "Haven: Finding the Keys to Your Personal Decorating Style." In addition to her clothing line at J.C. Penney, Madden also has hosted a weekly show on HGTV--"Interiors by Design"--for seven years, and pens a syndicated column by the same name that appears in more than 400 newspapers.

Kliger said that Madden's unique voice should stand out in a magazine business where shelter titles abound. "What Chris brings to the table is a person's specific vision and philosophy," he said. "It's not duplicative."

That philosophy can be summed up by the sentiment "Home as a haven," said Kliger. "It's a combination of simplicity and comfort. A uniquely American sophistication." It's also a philosophy that has been appropriated by titles like the wildlysuccessful Real Simple and the recently launched Cottage Living. Kliger sees their presence as a positive.

"Chris has been doing this for a long time," he said. "They took a cue from her. She's the original....She's original and interesting."

Hachette's SIP division should provide Madden's magazine with an advantageous platform to launch in addition to her retail presence, given the group's experience in newsstand launches. "We have a structure that is well set up with our SIP unit," Kliger said. "We have very valuable real estate."

The obvious question for Hachette was whether Stewart's incarceration impacted the decision to launch the magazine. Kliger says no. "Martha--That really wasn't a factor," he said. "The factor was whether we could come to an agreement. We didn't start talking to Chris because of Martha's issues."

As for the retail partnership with J.C. Penney, which echoes Time Inc.s' unique partnership with Wal-Mart in launching All You, Kliger said that Hachette will consider such arrangements on a magazine-by-magazine basis, and that this particular magazine had an obvious retail synergy. "It really isn't rocket science," he said of the decision.