A wealth of luxury magazines

With all of the new luxury magazines on the market, affluent consumers may need to be speed-readers to keep up.

This week, veteran publisher Dan Kaplan launches New England Home, a regional bimonthly whose first issue features photo spreads of trophy homes from Cape Cod and Copley Square to Newport, R.I., and Stowe, Vt.

In terms of affluence, Kaplan said, ''We're aiming at the top 5 percent of the population."

Kaplan isn't the only one wooing the well-heeled. Boston Common, a five-times-a-year magazine that debuts next month, wants readers ''who fly private jets and use executive car services," publisher Glen Kelley said. Industry Boston, a bimonthly publishing since 2004, targets the ''crème de la crème," executive editor John Moore said.

Why this proliferation? Industry consultant Seija Goldstein cited one reason: ''There's been enormous wealth created by the housing market."

All three target residents of million-dollar homes with annual household incomes of $200,000 or more. The new magazines think they can more precisely target the best customers of luxury brands than existing magazines with readerships that can include middle-class and merely near-rich consumers. The publications are mailed free to their primary audience; New England Home and Boston Common also will be sold at newsstands.

These newcomers may be creating an oxymoron -- ''a crowded exclusive market," noted executive vice president Dan Scully of Boston Magazine, a lifestyle monthly with a paid circulation of nearly 120,000.

Scully seems unfazed by the upstarts. With its experienced staff, he said, Boston can produce quality content that newcomers can't match.

''We want to be relevant to readers and not a delivery device for party pictures," he said.

In other markets where conspicuous consumption is celebrated, some luxury publications have found an audience. Whether the formula works in Boston remains an open question.

''You don't see the ostentatiousness and flamboyance here you see in New York and L.A.," said Jeffrey Seglin, an Emerson College professor who teaches magazine publishing and who is a former executive editor of Inc. magazine.

Kelley, 36, a Boston College graduate who grew up in the area, said the city has changed. When he was a kid, there weren't many fancy restaurants and luxury retailers. Now there's a slew of both. And the city is ready for the likes of Boston Common.

''In a good way, Boston has loosened up," he said.

Nationwide, luxury publications are ''sprouting like mushrooms," said Samir Husni, a University of Mississippi professor and a magazine specialist. ''All of them are trying to showcase upscale neighborhoods. No one's interested in the middle class anymore."

At the Luxury Institute, a research group focusing on rich consumers, chief executive Milton Pedraza expects an eventual shakeout to thin the ranks of new luxury publications.

Nationwide, he said, ''We believe there are already too many."

By Husni's count, 1,006 magazines of all types launched in 2004, compared with 234 in 1985. Only 38 percent of magazines survive their first year.

Kaplan insists there's a niche for a regional magazine that generally shies away from features on celebrities and parties and focuses on luxury homes.

While there are some signs that the local real estate market may be cooling, the number of Massachusetts homes valued at $1 million or more nearly tripled between 2000 and 2003 to 34,042, according to the US Census Bureau's American Community Survey.

Some luxury magazines have ads promoting high-end brands such as Gucci and Grey Goose Vodka. New England Home concentrates on designers and home-improvement firms. Kaplan said he's attracted 117 advertisers.

Remodeling is a huge market. According to Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies, homeowners spent $138.1 billion in 2003 on home improvements, with 13 percent of the wealthiest accounting for 31 percent of spending.

Meanwhile, New Englanders may be getting more style-conscious. When baby boomers sell the traditional suburban house, often at a big profit, they sometimes buy an empty-nester's luxury condo and turn the designers loose.

''If you tried to start this magazine 15 years ago, it probably wouldn't have worked," Kaplan said. ''Fifteen years ago, New England style meant frumpy, chintz-covered furniture and antiques. Now you see a wide variety."

Kaplan, 52, who has launched other publications including Worcester Magazine and Rhode Island Monthly, has printed 60,000 copies of New England Home. Many are being mailed free to high-income households. The newsstand price is $4.99.

Niche Media Holdings LLC, which will publish Boston Common, also has a track record. The New York-based regional magazine group publishes luxury magazines in places such as Manhattan and Los Angeles. Niche Media's website describes Boston Common as an ''indispensable guide to the best of the city's art, entertainment, fashion, food and wine, leisure, luxury goods, night-life, philanthropy, real estate, and society."

Boston Common will print 70,000 copies, with many mailed free to wealthy households, publisher Kelley said. Copies will also be sold at select newsstands for $4.95.

Courting a similar audience is Industry Boston, a franchise operation. A Florida company supplies national advertising and content; franchisees add local ads and content, said editor Moore, 32, noting that Industry Boston has a free circulation of 20,000.

According to its cover line, Industry Boston focuses on ''lifestyles of fashion," entertainment, people, and culture.

The August-September issue has a cover story on actress Charlize Theron, a travel feature on Ireland, and a story on ''best outdoor workouts in Boston."

Chris Reidy can be reached at reidy@globe.com.