Club Sub?

Here's a new wrinkle: a "rewards" system for readers who bring new subscribers. The well-known self-help book Chicken Soup for the Soul in July spawned a new 6-time, 150,000 circ. magazine called...Chicken Soup for the Soul. This according to an item in MediaPost.

The publishers, Modern Media LLC, has launched a "rewards program" that gives "shopping points" that can be redeemed from a "soup-friendly" catalog.

"I bet it could really take off in the publishing industry," says the magazine's publisher, Mignonne Wright. She says she hopes other publishers will run with the idea and build the medium's overall circulation. Print is "not a dying medium," she maintains.

Wright aims to target "Chicken Soup" fans to promote circulation. "We want to make them our sales force," she explains. "We did not do direct mail or promotions. Who better to sell our magazine than those who read it--and then they get to shop for free."

The rewards program, includes products that range from a Homer Simpson alarm clock and a Spanish-language immersion program to diamond rings and Movado watches.

Mignonne believes the subscriber incentive program may go one step further: If there is a trend in readers' purchases, she says it may influence an article in an upcoming issue.