SECOND LIFE: Condé Nast has found a way to keep Men’s Vogue alive after shrinking the title to a twice-a-year publication in October. The spring issue will appear as a reverse-bound issue attached to the April issue of Vogue. It will be the first time Vogue has published a reverse cover.

Tom Florio, senior vice president and publishing director of Vogue, Teen Vogue and Men’s Vogue, said April is a good month for the partnership, since Vogue carries more jewelry brands during that month, playing to Men’s Vogue’s core competencies in watches and luxury accessories. Florio would not confirm how many ads have been sold, but sources estimate there are about 25 ad pages so far, including Ralph Lauren on the second cover. The special will likely carry around 60 pages. The page rate for a four-color full-page ad in the spring Men’s Vogue will be $52,340. For advertisers, that’s a bargain­ — a four-color, full-page ad in Vogue is $128,220; an ad in GQ, which has a rate base of 875,000, is $118,500.

The future of Men’s Vogue was still in flux after Condé Nast shrunk the title from a 10-times-a-year schedule, as the recession forced publishers to rethink investment in their properties. Though the company had said it would publish two issues of the men’s title in some form, Men’s Vogue subscribers were already being informed they would receive Details or Portfolio instead. The reverse-bound distribution helps Vogue on several fronts: through distribution to Vogue’s more than 800,000 subscribers, Men’s Vogue more than doubles its circulation, which was 350,000 as a monthly title, and Vogue gets the boost in ad paging from having Men’s Vogue in the issue. Finally, according to Florio, the experiment might help revive another fledgling Vogue spin-off: “If it works, there’s a chance you could see Vogue Living come back sooner than we thought,” he said. That’s, of course, if the Vogue reader still has a home to live in come time for publication.

— Stephanie D. Smith