Hearst Launches First Recipe Bookazine Based on Delish.com, Its Top-Five Food Web Site

PRLog (Press Release) - Feb 01, 2010 -
Hearst Magazines today announced the release of a special “bookazine” based on its successful food Web site Delish.com, which launched in September 2008 in partnership with MSN and quickly became a top five food destination online, according to ComScore.  The publication, called Light & Delish, features 138 easy recipes at 400 calories or less.  Hitting newsstands nationwide on February 2, 2010 and on sale until April 30, Light & Delish will have a print run of 300,000 and a cover price of $9.99.    

Light & Delish marks the first time Hearst has created a magazine from an online-only brand.  The publication features recipes from Hearst properties Country Living, Good Housekeeping, Redbook and quickandsimple.com in categories such as 30-Minute Meals, Easy One-Pot Recipes, Diet-Friendly Dinner Party Dishes and Desserts That Won’t Ruin Your Diet.  

Light & Delish is 124 pages, with advertisements from Kraft running on the inside front and back covers and the outside back cover.  

While Light & Delish is Hearst’s first bookazine based on one of its Web sites, the company has successfully launched the format with its magazine brands, including Country Living, Good Housekeeping and Esquire.

“We have found the bookazine format – a hybrid between a magazine and a soft-cover book – to be a really effective way to repackage Hearst’s rich content into a product that consumers will find useful,” said Susan Schulz, special projects editor, Hearst Magazines and editor of Light & Delish.  “In the case of Delish, the site has such a vast range of recipes that we were able to curate them into a collection of the best easy, low-cal dishes for this print product.”

Throughout the pages of Light & Delish, readers will be driven to Delish.com for more recipes and tips.  In addition, the bookazine features a chicken recipe contest, which will also run on Delish.com, the winner of which will receive a new Weber gas grill.

“In little more than one year, we’ve established an extremely successful online brand and we’re very excited to be introducing a print extension of Delish.com’s great content,” said Elizabeth Shepard, executive director of Delish.  “We hope that the site will drive consumers to buy Light & Delish and that the bookazine will introduce new users to the deep content on our site.”

Since fall 2009, Delish has made other brand extensions, including the launch of Delish in Canada (www.Delish.ca) and a print and online partnership with Hearst-owned newspaper, The Houston Chronicle, involving the promotion of a localized version of the Delish Web site (chron.delish.com) and syndication of content in the weekly food section of its newspaper.  

Delish (www.delish.com), part of Hearst Magazines Digital Media, features thousands of quick and easy food and cocktail recipes from Hearst Magazines and other sources, as well as fan blogs on the most popular food television shows, and the latest on food events and festivals worldwide. With an authoritative point of view that is simultaneously fun and informative, the site’s content will provide everyday chefs and busy individuals with the tools to expand their cooking and entertaining skills and knowledge of what is happening in and around the world of food.