1991 Updates : Firsts Magazine Survives First Year

And now for something completely different--an economic success story.

On April 28 the Westside section of The Times reported on Firsts, a new magazine aimed at those interested in collecting modern first editions. Founded and edited by a Larchmont Village couple, Robin and Kathryn Smiley, Firsts was the kind of enterprise you hope will succeed but fear will fail. Starting a magazine in this economy seemed iffy at best.

Surprise!

Firsts is alive and--let Robin Smiley tell it.

“Our first year is now history, our second year is beginning and we are doing very well,” Smiley said.

The January issue, marking the magazine’s first anniversary, is being mailed, he reported. And the number of pages, display advertisers and subscribers “are all up.” Paid circulation has more than doubled since The Times story ran, from about 1,000 to 2,500. The magazine is also being distributed nationally, Smiley said, and plans are being firmed up to have it carried by major book chains throughout the country.

Nobody is more surprised than Robin Smiley, the editor-in-chief. “We expected to take a major bath, and that didn’t happen,” he said.

“The odds against us were very long. It’s a tough business in the best of times, and these are not the best of times, especially in the magazine business.”

He declined to say whether the magazine would actually end 1991 in the black. But he said Firsts was so successful it has been able to open “an actual business office” in Pasadena. In the past the business end, like the editorial end, operated out of the Smileys’ apartment.

“It’s extraordinary, isn’t it?” Robin Smiley said. “We may be the only new magazine that succeeded this year.”