It can be difficult to choose a yearbook publisher. We’re here to let you in on a secret to make it easier. “What’s that,” you ask? You’re already on the right track. Asking questions is the best way to determine if the yearbook publisher is the right fit for your school.
Choosing your yearbook publisher is an important decision – so what’s important to you and your school? To help you narrow down your choices, we’ve put together this cheat sheet of questions to ask your yearbook publisher.
There are many choices when it comes to yearbook publishers. Whittling down the right choice for you can depend on a few key questions. Here are 5 we recommend you ask:
1.) What services do you provide?
You may have a fantastic yearbook staff in house, but there may still be additional services that you require. You may want a yearbook representative who is on hand to help with the whole process. Do you need them to stop by on a monthly basis? Perhaps you’d be more comfortable with email correspondence or phone calls to check in. Finding a publisher that offers customer care and technical support teams is key.
You may also need help marketing your yearbook. How about tips and tricks on the best places to market your yearbooks? Perhaps you’re more interested in tools to help promote and sell your yearbooks. Don’t be shy to ask what services your potential yearbook publisher has to support you.
2.) How much does it cost?
Let’s get the tricky question out of the way. Asking about price can help you prepare your budget in advance. It also helps ensure that you have enough set aside for your yearbook publishing costs.
Remember, it’s not just about the bottom line cost. Many yearbook publishers will offer free tools or software to give you more bang for your buck. Verify what the price quoted includes. Don’t forget to ask about shipping and delivery costs.
3.) What kind of quality can I expect?
You’ve spent a long time putting your yearbook together. Naturally, you want professional quality from cover to cover. Vibrant color printing, specialty cover options and personalization features can all help to give your yearbook that professional look.
But don’t just take their word for it! Holding a sample in your hand is the best way to assess quality. Ask if your yearbook publisher offers free yearbook samples. This will help you determine if the quality offered matches your expectations.
4.) What design software do you offer?
Yearbook software can help you to take your yearbook to the next level. Do you want software that allows you to collaborate with your team? What about software that allows you to work remotely and share your progress?
At YearbookLife, we offer a choice of yearbook software, including Pictavo and YBLive. Choose from an extensive library of page designs, templates and backgrounds. The enhanced design features allow you to create a one-of-a-kind yearbook.
5.) How fast is your delivery time?
It may seem like a small detail, but the delivery time for your yearbooks can be a big deal. If your yearbook publisher requires your yearbook months in advance, you risk missing out on the end of year events.
Finding a yearbook publisher that can offer fast delivery means that you can include every event of the year in your book. At YearbookLife, we can deliver your yearbooks in as little as ten business days!
Get a FREE Yearbook Quote from YearbookLife today!
At YearbookLife, we make yearbooks easy. Our easy-to-use yearbook design software and technical support assistance help simplify the yearbook process for you. Plus, our experienced customer care team are on hand to help you market your yearbook and increase your yearbook sales. If you’d like to request a quote today, please click here.
As the yearbook season approaches, you might be looking for ways to boost the excitement surrounding yearbook sales. Generating a buzz around your yearbook sales in order to get your students and parents to purchase the yearbook is key. Things like posting relevant yearbook sales information on social media, doing giveaways and contests, and printed materials can help you achieve your yearbook sales goals.
How to Generate Yearbook Sales Buzz
If you’re wondering how you can generate yearbook sales buzz, we’ve got you covered. We’ve put together a few tips to help with your yearbook marketing this year.
- Print marketing – Printing flyers, using A-frame signs or large print vinyl posters or signs using colorful text and even selected photos from your yearbook can draw attention to the upcoming sale. You can put blurbs in any newsletters and announcements you may put out to your parent or student body, as well.
- Email – Email lists for parents can be a great way to boost your yearbook sale numbers. Often times, parents are not aware that yearbooks are available – keeping them in the know might mean they’ll get one for themselves.
- Use humor – We live in a time where memes rule the world! Sprinkling memes in your emails, on your posters and on social media is a great way to draw attention to your pitch. A well thought out meme is worth its weight in gold.
- Social media – It’s not uncommon for schools to maintain their own social media accounts. From Facebook to Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat, using your well maintained social platforms to post about your upcoming sales should help get the visibility out there.
- Run contests – Winning a free yearbook or even bigger prizes when your students, parents and staff place their orders will certainly generate some positive buzz around ordering time. Make it simple but it’s something you can share in your email, social and print media marketing plans.
- Display sample photos – You can print out or share some of the photo selections you made throughout your school or on social media.
- Ask for ideas – Before it’s even time to publish your yearbook, asking your student body and staff for fun or new ideas to add to your yearbook content. Letting students feel included can definitely up the odds they’ll want to purchase one!
- Make a video – It’s true, in this day and age, video is king! Create a fun video with clips of images you chose, events you’ll cover and other great content from your yearbook and spread around the fun! It can be shared on social and in email!
- Tables at school events – It’s easy enough to do. Set up a table and be present at sporting, fundraising and other school related events. Making yourself visible is truly the best way to boost your school’s yearbook sales.
The goal is to get yearbooks in the hands of your staff, students, and their parents. If you generate enough excitement and get your student buy in, you should have no issues at all boosting your yearbook sales and getting everyone’s attention.
Get a FREE Yearbook Quote from YearbookLife today!
At YearbookLife, we make yearbooks easy. Our easy-to-use yearbook design software and technical support assistance help simplify the yearbook process for you. Plus, our experienced customer care team are on hand to help you market your yearbook and increase your yearbook sales. If you’d like to request a quote today, please click here.
Creating a yearbook is a process, and it helps to have support along the way. Not only is it important to assemble the right yearbook staff, choosing the right yearbook publisher is equally important. There are a host of yearbook publishers out there; a simple Google search will yield many results! Learning what resources are available when creating your yearbook can help you whittle down the results to find the right publisher for you.
5 Yearbook Publisher Resources You Should Be Using
Yearbook Design Software
Creating a high quality yearbook takes more than the right copy and right photos. A yearbook that will truly pop off the page requires the right yearbook design software. When you’re selecting your yearbook publisher, consider what software they offer to help you design and create your yearbook. Do they give you flexibility on page designs? Can you create your own, bespoke yearbook? Are there templates available for you to use?
At YearbookLife, we provide free easy-to-use yearbook software to you create a spectacular school yearbook that you will remember for years to come. Our software includes a robust art library with an array of backgrounds, templates and clip art, to assist you in designing the most creative yearbook you’ve ever had.
Customer Service & Support
While you’re creating your yearbook, you’re probably going to have questions. While most yearbook publishers will offer a level of customer service, finding a yearbook publisher that goes above and beyond is important.
Your yearbook publisher should provide you with online, email and phone support, and be prepared to help you throughout your yearbook journey. The best yearbook publishers will also offer you ongoing support, training opportunities, and even some advice about the yearbook creation process such as tips on moments you should capture for your school yearbook.
Personalization & Other Enhancement Options
Your school yearbook should be unique. The best way to ensure that you are able to create a unique and memorable yearbook is to find a yearbook publisher that offers a variety of options when it comes to personalizing your yearbook. This includes specialty cover options, custom backgrounds, and design art, just to name a few.
Marketing Resources
Once you’ve settled on your yearbook layout and design, it’s time to think about marketing. How are you planning on marketing & selling your yearbook? Will you use posters around the school? Perhaps you’re more drawn to the idea of flyers, or even online marketing.
A good yearbook publisher will not only offer you tips and advice on the best ways to market and sell your yearbook, but they will also provide you with helpful resources along the way, including posters, flyers, and online yearbook sales support.
Also find out if they have an online storefront where parents and students can go to purchase yearbooks online. This makes the purchasing process more secure and easier for parents and also means less accounting work on your end.
Fast Delivery
When you’ve finalized your yearbook, the next step is getting it delivered. Longer production and delivery times require earlier deadlines, which means some spring activities may not be included and the amount of time you have to finalize your yearbook may be reduced. Finding a yearbook publisher that offers a fast delivery gives you more time to include spring events and focus on the details.
Get a FREE Yearbook Quote from YearbookLife today!
Choosing a yearbook publisher is an important decision in your yearbook creation process. YearbookLife makes it easy to create your school yearbook. We pride ourselves on our competitive pricing, customer and technical support, fast delivery, and our free, easy-to-use software. If you’d like to request a quote today, please click here.
The winter break always comes with the temptation to kick back, relax, and recharge to prepare for the new year and the challenges ahead. While everyone, including yearbook staff, should take this opportunity and enjoy themselves, you should also keep your eyes and ears open for stories and ideas that would perfectly fit your yearbook. Here’s how you can stay productive during winter break.
Pre-break Planning
The holiday break can also be the ideal time to really make your yearbook staff into a team. In the run-up to the holidays look at some fun activities you can do either in school or outside it to really make your team cohesive: you could decorate your yearbook room together, perfect if you’ll need to come in over the holidays to do some work, or run a small gift or dessert exchange. A happy and friendly team will always produce a better yearbook.
As the winter break approaches, it’s essential to make sure you and your yearbook staff know their page goals for December and January. This could be the pages you want to send in before the break, or planning the ones that need to come in as soon as you’re all back together.
During the Holidays
Perhaps one of the best yearbook tips, or just tips in general, especially during the holidays, is to plan your time well and set small goals. Your yearbook staff deserves to relax as well, and stressing over approaching deadlines for the holiday period isn’t going to help you enjoy yourself and get ready for the new year.
It can be as simple as collecting a sample of holiday photos and short stories to create a winter break collage, or can even be a more detailed study of school trips or sports tours. Anything that really brings together the feeling of school community is worth at least reading into and seeing if it fits with your yearbook’s theme. You may also want to take the quieter time over the holidays to get additional inspiration for your yearbook.
One great yearbook tip is to always remember that your role is to give all students an insight into what has been happening throughout the year. This means that as yearbook staff, you’ll want to keep on top of as many of the different winter trips and plans as you can to really give a snapshot into the full school year.
After the Winter Break
For many schools, January can be a reasonably slow month in terms of activities. It makes it a great time of the year to catch up on some of the larger yearbook spreads that may have fallen to the wayside earlier in the process.
After the winter break is also a great time to ensure that you have your yearbook publisher lined up. At YearbookLife, we make the yearbook process easy. With easy-to-use design software, free webinar training, great customer care and technical support assistance, we provide you with all the resources to simplify the yearbook process. Already designing your book in a graphic design software? Then our Print Ready plan is for you! Request a free quote for your yearbook by clicking here today.
Knowing which moments to capture for school yearbooks is important – after all, we want to remember every detail of their childhood! We’ve put together some great ideas and events that are perfect for capturing yearbook moments below.
Capturing moments for yearbooks can fall on students, teachers, other staff and especially parents! Attending school events is obviously the most ideal time to get photos, but there are day to day candid shots from classrooms and school life that can show great times, too. Here are some fun ideas to keep your eye out for if you plan on capturing some yearbook moments this school year.
- Fundraising events – these events are great for people to snap candid photos of students doing great things. Get great action shots with smiles, transactions, signs, posters and the goods they’re selling.
- Sports events – These are probably the most common moments to capture for yearbooks, but sports events are great to show school pride and great school spirit. Just make sure your smartphone or camera can handle action shots and get some pictures of the crowd too!
- Day in the life – If you’ve got a spare chunk of time during the day, have a teacher or other staff member walk from class to class. Getting photos of your students in their element makes for great yearbook photos! Science experiments, debates, art class, choir, all of these make for great shots!
- Assemblies and celebrations – School rallies, parties, meetings and other school gatherings are great opportunities to capture memories. Having as many of the student and staff body in one place at the same time means the chance to get everyone in the photos.
- Away events – Sports aren’t the only reason for school spirit and pride! Math events, debate, choir and theater, even science fairs and international language trips can bring just as many fun memories to your yearbook!
- Celebrating volunteer work – Sometimes students do great things outside of school related events. If you’ve got students doing great things in the community, a great way to recognize their achievements is by attending awards or recognition ceremonies where they’re honored for their contributions.
We’re sure you’ve got plenty of other great ideas and chances to capture memories for your yearbook. Just remember – sometimes our smartphones make the best camera! Keep your lens clean, your batteries charged and do a little research about the settings on your phone. You’ll be capturing those special school year moments like a pro in no time! For more tips on using a smartphone to take photos for your yearbook, click here.
Creating a yearbook can be a fantastic opportunity for students to develop and learn new skills. A yearbook committee is an environment of inclusion, where students from varying experience and skill levels work together to produce a memorable yearbook.
As you’re building your yearbook staff for this year, you’ll likely find yourself facing new members who need to be brought up to speed. It’s also a great opportunity for veteran yearbook members to brush up on their training, and possibly even learn something new. Teaching your committee the right skills and lessons can make the yearbook process much easier. To help, we’ve put together these training tips.
4 Tips for Training New Yearbook Staff Members
It’s a big, wild internet out there. To help make your journey easier, we’re looking at the best places for yearbook tips, tricks and inspiration.
While you may be tempted to spend every day mentoring your yearbook staff, that’s neither practical nor realistic. Training an effective yearbook staff will free up your time, plus empower the students to take control. Here are some tips for training new yearbook staff members.
- Review the Previous Year – This is the perfect opportunity to get seasoned yearbook staff members involved. Encourage them to talk about the yearbook creation process from the previous year. Take the time to discuss what went well, or areas that could be improved upon. Listen to feedback, and urge new staff members to help brainstorm – they could come up with something entirely different and exciting!
- Get Everyone Involved from the Start – Creating an amazing yearbook is a team effort. Getting everyone involved from the start can help build a cohesive unit. Determine who will be doing what for the yearbook. Yearbook staff members should be able to take on their own responsibilities as soon as possible. Not only will this help to encourage ownership, it helps to build clear, defined roles for your yearbook team. You can find out more about the key yearbook staff roles and responsibilities here.
- Team Building – There’s a theme here, have you noticed? Working as a team is a crucial element to a successful yearbook. Work on building a team, ensuring that you get seasoned yearbook staff members and new staff members involved. Think of group activities that encourage active participation. Think of discussions that will get people engaged. What theme will you plan for this year’s yearbook? Is there a particular event that you’d like to highlight? These are examples of questions you can use to get a roundtable started!
- Teach the Core Skills – There are a few key skills that are important in creating your yearbook. Interview skills, writing and editing skills, photography skills to name a few. Focus on teaching the core skills for your yearbook. This is another great opportunity to get the seasoned yearbook staff involved! Get them to mentor the new yearbook staff, offer tips and advice on best practices, tricks and techniques.
It’s not always easy to train new yearbook staff, but it’s definitely worth it! Following these 4 tips for training new yearbook staff members can get your yearbook creation off to a great start!
Once you’ve trained your staff, finding a yearbook publisher will be next on the to-do list. At YearbookLife, we make the yearbook process easy. With easy-to-use software, free webinar training, great customer care and technical support assistance, we provide you with all the resources to simplify the yearbook process. Request a free quote on yearbooks by clicking here today.
