Real Simple (1-year)

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

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Who Reads Real Simple?
Real Simple’s core audience is comprised of smart, busy women who are looking for creative solutions to their everyday challenges, so they have more time to focus on what really matters. Real Simple serves a wide range of women with just as many loyal fans in their 20s as in their 50s. The Real Simple reader is well-educated, affluent and professional, but most of all, she is looking for ways to make life easier. Real Simple has an impressive monthly audience of 8.6 million people, including a loyal following of women who say they feel calmer and more in control when they receive the magazine each month.

What You Can Expect in Each Issue:
Real Simple incorporates and speaks to all aspects of a woman's busy life, including beauty, entertaining, etiquette, family, finance, food, health, home, pets, soul, style and technology. From time-to-time, Real Simple also addresses gifts, the holidays, travel and weddings. Each month, the magazine starts off with “Your Words,” where readers share their answers to a question of the month; followed by “Simple Solutions,” the front-of-book section with smart pieces of ideas, insight and inspiration including the popular New Uses for Old Things and Products of the Month. “The Guide” offers strategies, systems and smarts for making life easier with stories in every topic area the magazine covers. Real Simple also features “Moneywise,” a section dedicated to spending smarter; “Road Tests,” real-people tested product recommendations; and “Cooking,” a back-of-book section devoted to recipes, techniques and tips. “Real Simple To Go” closes the magazine each month, featuring tear-out perforated pieces of useful information for readers to take with them in their daily lives. The Real Simple “feature well” changes from month-to-month but always features beautiful, smart stories on a broad range of topics intended to inspire the reader.

The fourth annual Real Simple Family special issue will offer inspiring and innovative ideas to make all aspects of family life better.

Magazine Layout:
Real Simple’s design objective is twofold: to convey information with clarity and organization within a simple, accessible format and to create a serene and uncluttered environment that imparts a sense of calm. One of the key components to that objective is ample use of white space, which gives the page design “breathing room” and distinguishes the brand from other women’s magazines.

Click on any image below to see select pages from Real Simple:

Contributors:
Many stories are written by Real Simple editors; however, the magazine prides itself on featuring writers, photographers and contributors of note.

Past Issues:

Comparisons to Other Magazines:
Real Simple is unique and is the only magazine out there that focuses on the mission of making life easier.

Advertisers:
Real Simple appeals to a broad range of advertisers. The three biggest advertising categories are: food & beverage, beauty, and retail & department stores.

Awards:
Real Simple has won numerous industry awards and accolades, including three National Magazine Award nominations in the category of “General Excellence.” Real Simple is the only magazine to have earned a spot on Adweek’s prestigious “Hot List” of top-ten titles for seven years in a row. The brand has also been named to Adweek’s “Brand Leaders” list for three consecutive years since the list’s inception, and has won Advertising Age’s “Magazine of the Year.”

Product Description

Real Simple is for smart, busy women who welcome creative solutions to their everyday challenges. They trust Real Simple for help entertaining, organizing, shopping, working, connecting with friends, or making time for themselves.

See all Product Description

Who Reads Real Simple?
Real Simple’s core audience is comprised of smart, busy women who are looking for creative solutions to their everyday challenges, so they have more time to focus on what really matters. Real Simple serves a wide range of women with just as many loyal fans in their 20s as in their 50s. The Real Simple reader is well-educated, affluent and professional, but most of all, she is looking for ways to make life easier. Real Simple has an impressive monthly audience of 8.6 million people, including a loyal following of women who say they feel calmer and more in control when they receive the magazine each month.

What You Can Expect in Each Issue:
Real Simple incorporates and speaks to all aspects of a woman's busy life, including beauty, entertaining, etiquette, family, finance, food, health, home, pets, soul, style and technology. From time-to-time, Real Simple also addresses gifts, the holidays, travel and weddings. Each month, the magazine starts off with “Your Words,” where readers share their answers to a question of the month; followed by “Simple Solutions,” the front-of-book section with smart pieces of ideas, insight and inspiration including the popular New Uses for Old Things and Products of the Month. “The Guide” offers strategies, systems and smarts for making life easier with stories in every topic area the magazine covers. Real Simple also features “Moneywise,” a section dedicated to spending smarter; “Road Tests,” real-people tested product recommendations; and “Cooking,” a back-of-book section devoted to recipes, techniques and tips. “Real Simple To Go” closes the magazine each month, featuring tear-out perforated pieces of useful information for readers to take with them in their daily lives. The Real Simple “feature well” changes from month-to-month but always features beautiful, smart stories on a broad range of topics intended to inspire the reader.

The fourth annual Real Simple Family special issue will offer inspiring and innovative ideas to make all aspects of family life better.

Magazine Layout:
Real Simple’s design objective is twofold: to convey information with clarity and organization within a simple, accessible format and to create a serene and uncluttered environment that imparts a sense of calm. One of the key components to that objective is ample use of white space, which gives the page design “breathing room” and distinguishes the brand from other women’s magazines.

Click on any image below to see select pages from Real Simple:

Contributors:
Many stories are written by Real Simple editors; however, the magazine prides itself on featuring writers, photographers and contributors of note.

Past Issues:

Comparisons to Other Magazines:
Real Simple is unique and is the only magazine out there that focuses on the mission of making life easier.

Advertisers:
Real Simple appeals to a broad range of advertisers. The three biggest advertising categories are: food & beverage, beauty, and retail & department stores.

Awards:
Real Simple has won numerous industry awards and accolades, including three National Magazine Award nominations in the category of “General Excellence.” Real Simple is the only magazine to have earned a spot on Adweek’s prestigious “Hot List” of top-ten titles for seven years in a row. The brand has also been named to Adweek’s “Brand Leaders” list for three consecutive years since the list’s inception, and has won Advertising Age’s “Magazine of the Year.”

Product Details

• Format: Magazine
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• Publisher: Time Direct Ventures
• ASIN: B00005R8BR
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (404 customer reviews)
This magazine subscription is provided by Synapse

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

458 of 482 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Recommends High-Priced Unnecessary Items, March 5, 2009

By 

Lisa Shea "medieval swordfighting enthusiast" - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (TOP 50 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Real Simple (1-year) (Magazine)

I am a strong proponent of living a simpler, less stressed life and I was really happy when I saw an entire magazine was dedicated towards the simple life. After reading it, though, I think what they meant to say was that this is the way to spend money and feel better about yourself.

An idea for avoiding dishes? Buy lots of coffee filters, line your mixing bowls with them and throw them away when you're done. This turns us into a disposable lifestyle, not a simple one. Need to figure out if a window is sunny enough for a plant? Buy a $60 device that (I kid you not) plugs into the dirt, records the sunlight for you and then plugs into your USB port to tell you what it saw. There's an article on an interracial marriage which doesn't sound simple to me, and while it's cool, it doesn't help me learn anything about living more simply.

How about dressing simply? They want you to buy an $85 pair of flats and a $68 belt. Maybe a $70 pair of shorts.

Some articles are helpful. How can you spot a fake bill? Might be useful to know. Other articles miss out on basics. They talk about how a pound of sugar was 12 cents in 1960 and is now 52 cents - but they say nothing at all about what it WOULD be adjusted for inflation. Is this higher than before? Lower? Nobody knows.

There are good tips in here. Go to your library and use their vast resources for free. Negotiate with your health care provider for lower costs. Use local playgrounds for exercise and fun. Bring your lunch, don't eat out. Even so, you turn the page and they're suggesting $200 blazers as cool items for the simple household - blazers that, honestly, most of us would only wear once or twice given its color and what it would go with in a given season. Never mind the $400 giant black jumpsuit. Not simple.

I'm not saying simple has to be boring or drab - but there is a big difference, in my mind, between recommending a simple item of clothing that could be worn every week without an issue and recommending a $400 splurge on something that would rarely be brought from the closet. That belongs more in a "splurge fashion" magazine, not a "real simple" magazine.

So while I appreciate some of the tips here, there was too much emphasis on buying things - especially things people simply don't need. I feel the magazine falls into this category itself.

126 of 133 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Real Simple?, April 20, 2007

By 

Gil (Md) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Real Simple (1-year) (Magazine)

Don't get me wrong..I love the two hard cover books, Real Simple Solutions and Real Simple: The Guide to Organized Living. They are gems. However, the magazine simply betrays it's words. As one rater stated, it seems like the reader is cajoled into buying un-needed expensive products, and my god..the magazine is cluttered with ads and inserts, plus it is very hard to turn the pages and read. I realize ads are necessary, but this is extreme, especially for a magazine that supposedly promotes a less complicated and cluttered life for it's readers.

95 of 100 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Being simple is a lot of work . . ., January 7, 2002

By 

Sharon Huston "software addict" (Dallas, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Real Simple (1-year) (Magazine)

I'll admit it -- I buy every issue of this magazine. The title, however, always calls up a wry grin. The simple lifestyle the book advocates isn't all that easy! To achieve it you'll have to go buy the materials for the magazine's simplifying project, then re-arrange your house so you have a place to work on the project (which naturally requires purchasing even more things) and then finally you'll have to find the time to actually complete the project. Of course, to find the time you'll have to buy a new wall calendar and clock and Rolodex. I think the magazine has hit the American pluse on the button -- spend limited money and time to help better organize limited money and time, all while reminding yourself how beneficial and FUN all this work is. Oh, and don't forget to turn your repeated shopping trips to Target into "quality time" with your two-year-old in the process. So what do I do with the magazine? I'll go home after a tough day at work, and enjoy a cup of off-the-shelf non-gourmet herbal tea (cracked coffee mug, water heated in cheap saucepan with missing handle) and fantasize about leading the kind of lifestyle the magazine portrays. I read about gifts to buy the boss (as if!) and about knitting scarves, and all those premanufactured pastel "lifestyle accessories." The latest issue has advice on picking chocolates. I have one word on the subject -- Hershey's. The whole magazine is far outside my salary, and the total opposite of my garage-sale Western-omelet-at-Denny's lifestyle. It's escapism, pure and SIMPLE.