Late last week Ron and I hied ourselves down to the midtown offices of CooperKatz to meet with the Waterfront Media's co-founders, Ben Wolin & Michael Keriakos about their newest venture: joining forces with HarperCollins to develop and market personalized content online for some of the publisher's most notable authors in the self-help and advice category.

HarperCollins' interest stemmed from a number of early success indicators: first, and most notably, the South Beach Diet, which continues to be a huge seller for Rodale. Waterfront took bought the rights and took responsibility for the Diet's website and interest proved so great that over 1 million users subscribed to the site's newsletter within the first 90 days -- leading to over $2 million in revenue per year.

Lots more after the jump.

Wolin and Keriakos explained that by keeping their client list small - they only take on 6 to 8 authors per year - they can devote the time, energy and most of all, the resources to each campaign. "We can allocate resources and money differently than publishers because we don't have to spread it over so many authors," they said, adding further that they can spend more than $1 million per marketing campaign, a number that's way beyond what publishers can do.

But Waterfront is quick to point out that they won't branch out into other publishing categories. "Self-help is perfect for personalized campaigns because it's programmatic, personalizable, and includes fee and paid components so users can choose the exact level of interaction with what our sites can offer them."

At first glance, what Waterfront does and can offer publishers sounds a lot like AOL Coaches, the new self-help initiative launched late last year and offered to publishers as a free platform. But Wolin and Keriakos are quick to note how their company complements and differs from AOL. "We view ourselves as a business partner with various self-help authors, managing their online businesses, while AOL Coaches is more of a promotional vehicle."

So what does a Waterfront Media website have to offer for authors and for visitors? "All sites have free and paid components, with a variety of different options, including personalized plans, specific tools so that users can stay compliant, and more community and group-based articles and pieces," said Keriakos. Free content is more generic, including daily tips and diet profiles.

The new partnership with HarperCollins will launch officially with a new comprehensive website and campaign for Jillian Michaels, author of WINNING BY LOSING, in April. 3 more campaigns will follow in the next 12 months, though Wolin said the specifics were still being worked out. Waterfront is also working with Meredith Publishers on a comprehensive website for the Sonoma Diet, with a release forthcoming later this week, as well as web-based campaigns for Laura Berman's THE PASSION PRESCRIPTION (Hyperion) and fitness guru Denise Austin.

It's a fair cry from the early days of Waterfront (founded back in 2002) when publishers didn't know what to make of them and were "very resistant to anything related to the web." But as the South Beach Diet shows, success tends to breed more success, and likely more partnerships will ensue in the not-so-distant future.