Vervegirl, a magazine that targets young women aged 14-24, will soon make its newsstand debut. About 1000 copies of the prom issue (April) and the holiday issue (December) will for the first time be sold at Chapters/Indigo and International News for $2.47.

The move is in partnership with Transcontinental Printing, which recently won the contract to print the seven-year-old magazine. Vervegirl, issued seven times a year, is primarily distributed through schools, with the August issue available for free at Wal-Marts.

Publisher Kaaren Whitney-Vernon says the April and December issues were chosen for the newsstand because they come out during periods when students are on vacation “We wanted to give girls a chance to buy it,” she says. “We have a lot of readers who were looking for the magazine.”

This fall, the magazine will also up its circulation. In addition to the 150,000 copies that already circulate in English schools and the 30,000 that circulate in French ones, another 30,000 copies will go to colleges across the country in September.

The magazine is now also available for subscription online or via mail-in cards for $9.99.

Vervegirl is about “real life and style,” says Whitney-Vernon.  “All the things young women are interested in: fashion, beauty, social features like how to handle stress (because we do distribute in schools), careers, health issues and fun stuff like quizzes.” The August issue focuses on internships and different young women in their positions.

The standard-sized glossy, part of the Youth Culture Group of publications, ships to over 2500 schools, so it wasn’t just printing costs but also distribution costs that were considered when the magazine’s contract came up for renewal this year.

“We asked Transcontinental: can you bring it down? And it has thought of some really innovative ways,” says Whitney-Vernon. “Because of Transcontinental, we are one of the first to have virtual proofing in Canada, where our designers and editors can see right then and there what’s going on. You need a lot of lead-time with magazines. Transcontinental is providing us with a lot of technology. We can get as low as two weeks to get on the newsstands.”