Part of Condé Nast, its print edition had a circulation of 1,515,880 and a total audience of 5,282,000 readers, according to its corporate media kit in 2013.

In her opening remarks in the first issue, Wilson wrote the following to the readers: An extraordinary spirit and energy are emerging in women today.

We have acquired a strong appetite for the full experience of life—the exhilaration of the outdoors, the challenge and success of professional work, the honest enjoyment of sex.

This may have been because other mainstream women’s magazines also began adding sections about health and fitness, so Self needed to redefine itself on the market.

She revised their cover strategy by replacing airbrushed models with more natural-looking pictures of women in everyday surroundings.