Paper Cuts Swath in New York Publishing

Fifteen years later, Paper is showing its weight.

That’s Paper, the redesigned magazine of pop culture and fashion.

Which started out in 1984 as Paper the paper.

Which originally was as famous for its format--folding out to the size of a tablecloth--as it was for inside reports on downtown New York culture, artists, designers and performers that ran inside a Monopoly-like rectangle of boxed ads.

Most impressive in the turbulent world of magazine publishing is that this trend-spotting herald of the new and the fresh is still co-edited and co-published after 15 years by the same two people--Kim Hastreiter and David Hershkovits. They are business partners and friends who so complement each other that they speak simultaneously in parallel lines:

He: “We felt all along, which is almost like the curse of this project, that we could never give up.”

She: “We always felt encouraged.”

He: “. . . because it was always getting better, but not in this huge way that was producing bountiful cash flow.”

She: “It was slow.”

Hastreiter and Hershkovits finally broke even three years ago, and now are investing about $500,000 in the airier redesign (unveiled in the February issue) and in an overdue marketing campaign to lift their fiercely independent magazine to the next level.

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Today’s comparatively modest circulation of 68,000--double what it was before Paper went four-color in 1993--is concentrated in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston and Washington, D.C. The circulation already is large enough and influential enough to attract such advertisers as Polo Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein Jeans and Gucci, but the goal is to reach 100,000 in a year and continue to 150,000.

A study of Paper’s audience is being conducted by Mediamark Research Inc., whose readership profiles guide media buyers and ad agencies. Meantime, the co-publishers say, an in-magazine survey mailed in by readers showed that most are single, their average age is 29, and average household income is $97,351.

In the beginning, Paper wasn’t generating that much in a year.

Hershkovits and Hastreiter had been editors at the Soho News when the alternative New York weekly was shut down by its British owner in 1982 after a nine-year run and continuing losses.

Hershkovits: “We didn’t know anything about business.”

Hastreiter: “But we also knew that the [SoHo] neighborhood was bubbling, and there were stores opening and restaurants opening.”

Hershkovits: “We felt the energy, the vibe. So that was the Mickey and Judy part where we thought, hey, let’s put out a magazine. We knew what to put in it, and we saw that, in six months or a year, the city was going to be picking up and business was going to better and there was going to be a need for a magazine like this.”

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Potential investors who were shown a prototype wanted to own Paper and employ the two editors to produce it. Instead, Hershkovits and Hastreiter leaned on former colleagues and friends in publishing, including two one-time partners employed by the New York Times, to set type and help with other production needs. Newsstand proprietors were allowed to keep the entire 50 cents charged for the first issues as an incentive to give Paper good display. Ads, at $250 a Monopoly box, paid the $4,000 printing bill.

The actor Willem Dafoe, profiled in Paper before “Platoon” made him a star in 1986, used to visit the offices to retrieve his son from baby-sitter Dennis Dermody, Paper’s film critic. A little-known actress named Courtney Love modeled for Paper in 1987. Madonna, Keith Haring and River Phoenix also appeared early on Paper’s radar, as did Debi Mazar, Antonio Banderas, Eric Bogosian, the B-52s, Bjork, and Queen Latifah.

An ice-encrusted Kevin Spacey, Broadway-bound in “The Iceman Cometh,” has the March cover. The February redesign featured Jennifer Jason Leigh, while shorter pieces on the more obscure Sparklehorse (the group) and Blixa Bargeld, lead singer of the Berlin ensemble Einsturzende Neubauten, suggest that readers of Paper are keen on scoping out the culture.

She: “We don’t write about them because they’re famous. We write about them because they’re good.”

He: “Sometimes they don’t turn out to be famous.”

Hershkovits--now 50, married and the father of a baby girl--is described by Hastreiter as “the downtown Lou Grant. He’s an insatiable reporter. He’s always out there looking.”

Hastreiter, 47, noted that many of those on Paper’s staff of 32 are in their 20s. “I feel like an infant sometimes,” she said. “Some of these kids turn 27 and they’re acting more mature than me.”

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Looking for Something More: In a major book development, Sarah Ban Breathnach, author of the mega-selling “Simple Abundance” and the more recent “Something More,” has become unhappy with Warner Books and is speaking to other publishers.

Christine Tomasino, the author’s literary agent, said Ban Breathnach is dissatisfied with the number of future books that Warner will commit to and unimpressed with the prospects of expanding into other media, such as magazines and TV, within the Time Warner empire. The agent added that talks with other companies may be protracted because Ban Breathnach is hoping to set up a joint venture--an imprint--that will allow for the publication of her books and those of other authors whom she will select.

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Paul Colford’s e-mail address is [email protected]