12TIPS

ESSENTIAL YEARBOOK

FOR THE

A WALSWORTH YEARBOOKS NEW ADVISER RESOURCE

NEW ADVISER

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Meet with your principal and any assistants in the administration who have been involved with the yearbook program. Make it a priority to establish a positive and open relationship with them. Write down their expectations of you and the yearbook program.

With your principal, review the contract the school has with your yearbook company.

Inquire about yearbook policies at school.• Ask whether any prior review policies are in place. With

prior review, administrators or others in authority whoare not on the yearbook staff read everything before itgoes to print. Note that this makes the school liable forcontent issues. Under a public forum, the yearbook is aform of student expression and students make all thedecisions about the publication.

• Find out about the policy for parents who do not wanttheir students in the book and obtain any of thoserecords.

• Get approval to send all-calls and emails to parents tosell your yearbook and ads. You will be needingseveral ways to get the message to parents thatyearbooks and ads are on sale, and these twomethods work well.

1 ADMINISTRATORMEETWITH

YOUR

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SUPPORT NETWORK

Unless you have a co-adviser, you are the only person in your school doing this job. Call on or cultivate these people for assistance:

• Yearbook sales representative, and adviser gatheringsthey host

• Customer service representative• Administrator(s)• Faculty• Parents of staffers• Mentor through Walsworth’s Adviser Mentor Program• Walsworth’s Adviser Academy, held every July in

Kansas City, an adviser-only workshop for new orveteran advisers to prepare for the upcoming year

Several organizations also exist that provide advisers with support and information.

• Journalism Education Association (JEA), an adviser- focused organization supporting teachers of scholastic

journalism (jea.org)• National Scholastic Press Association (NSPA) and

Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA),national organizations supporting scholasticjournalism through education and trainingprograms and conventions, critiques and awards (studentpress.org/nspa, cspa.columbia.edu)

• State or regional scholastic journalism organizations,usually affiliated with the journalism programsat universities

2 BUILD

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The yearbook program is basically a small business with a budget of thousands of dollars. Get to know the school’s bookkeeper, who can help you follow proper financial procedures.

If the previous yearbook adviser did not leave you with information on how much money the program has in its account, get that information from the bookkeeper. You need to know so you can plan your budget.

Work with the bookkeeper to learn and follow the rules for collecting and depositing money. If your yearbook staff traditionally sells books during registration or before school starts, meet with your bookkeeper right away so you understand the regulations for depositing money and receipts.

Monitor your account(s) regularly and come up with a plan for paying invoices, workshop fees, technology expenses and other costs. The time of year when students buy the most books, for example, the beginning or the end of the school year, is when you will have the most money in your account. Plan purchases accordingly.

3 FINANCIALTHE

OF

YEARBOOK

UNDERSTAND

ASPECTS

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Your sales representative is the person who will guide you through the printing and delivery process. Anytime you have a yearbook question, contact your sales rep. Keep the contact information for your in-plant customer service representative handy, too.

Before the school year starts, your sales rep will want to meet with you to start the year right. Make sure these items are discussed.1. Review past yearbooks. Discuss the cover designs

and the number of pages in the book. The materialsand applications used to make the cover, and thenumber of pages and type of paper used, all affect thecost of the book. The number of pages also affectsyour deadlines.

2. Discuss marketing. If business or personal ads aresold, find out what marketing items your yearbookcompany offers, such as Walsworth’s “My MarketingPlan” booklet to train student marketers, online salesservices and Customized Marketing items to reachparents about yearbook and ad sales.

3. Review yearbook costs and budget. Fill out a budgetworksheet with the sales rep.

4. Review your Members Only area or your yearbookcompany’s online customer portal to see the informationavailable to you there.

5. Talk software. Ask what software is used to create and submit pages. Does your yearbook program useAdobe® InDesign® or the yearbook company’s web-

based program, such as Walsworth’s Online Design? 6. Review deadlines. Ask how to set up mini-deadlines

so the students can plan their work load.7. Set delivery date. Decide on a preferred yearbook

delivery date and mark it on your calendar.8. Ask about training the sales rep can provide for your

students on any yearbook topic.9. Set up meeting times with your sales rep for the

remainder of the year.10. Discuss expectations that you have of each

other throughout the year.

4 YEARBOOKTALKSALES REP

WITH YOUR

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In the yearbook classroom, students are in charge of creating a product under deadline. There are still lessons to teach and grades to give. With these tips, you can set the foundation for a smooth-running class.

• Positions/job descriptions: Each student should have a job. The most common jobs are editor -in-chief or co-editors, managing editor, photography editor, design editor, marketing manager, reporters, designers and photographers. Many duties can be rotated to give students experience in all facets of yearbook creation.

• Grading: You’ll need a grading system that works for you; communicate it to students and parents. Rubrics are helpful. Set up mini-deadlines before each page submission deadline to allow the work to flow smoothly and give you work to evaluate throughout the process. Give students evaluation forms to judge their own work, which you and the editors can use to determine if criteria were met.

• Team building: Mixing games and food with the work will help your staff get acquainted and bond, which should improve working relationships and relieve stress.

• Staff manual: Put all the information about how to create the yearbook and run the staff into a guide that staffers can use to get questions answered, from job description and fonts to use this year to staff phone numbers and policies on ads.

• Basics of scholastic press law: Prepare to teach them about the First Amendment, libel, copyright, obscenity, ethics and other topics of legal concern.

• Staff contracts: A commitment contract, along with a job description, should spell out what is expected of each student. Have both the student and one of their parents sign it.

• Meet staff or discuss staffing with registrar or guidance office: If the staff has been selected, meet with them to get their thoughts on the direction of the book. If no staff has been selected yet, askthe registrar how yearbook selection has usually occurred. You want to be able to select your own staff.

• Applications for next year: Each January, start thinking about recruiting staff for the next year. Get recruitment materials in place before students start signing up for classes next year.

5aSTAFFAS

A CLASS

THEMANAGE

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Whether students produce the yearbook as a class or club, the goal is still to create a yearbook about students for students. It’s just more difficult to keep student staff engaged and feeling responsible in a club. Read the section on holding yearbook as a class, and then consider these tips:

• Establish a firm editorial staff structure so students know who they report to and how the creation process works.

• Have all editors and staff sign a commitment contract. Make it clear from day one that yearbook involves dedication and commitment year-round.

• Assign students positions with job descriptions,and assign them pages and tasks related to their individual interests immediately. This will help keep them engaged.

• Give story and photo bylines. If students understand their work will be on their peers’ bookshelves at home forever, they may work harder to create a high- quality book.

• Foster a fun, professional and team-oriented yearbook culture. This will reduce the formation of cliques and keep the group working smoothly as a team.

• Set aside time for staff members to learn about press law. Teach them the basics to avoid plagiarism and copyright violations.

• Consider having a one-day fall workshop as a training and bonding exercise.

• Create continuity. An entirely new staff year after year increases your workload and prohibits you from getting a jump on the year. To create staff continuity, hold a yearbook “interest meeting” each spring and invite the entire student body to attend. Ask other teachers and the counselors’ office for recommendations. This recruitment work will enable you to have new staff members for the next year shadow current staff members in the spring and attend summer workshop.

5bSTAFFAS

A CLUB

THEMANAGE

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As a yearbook adviser, you’ll need a calendar to track all the moving parts to this project. At minimum, be sure to include:

• Cover/endsheet deadlines• Page submission deadlines (and then your

mini deadlines)• Senior portrait day• School picture day• School picture retake day• Ad sales deadlines• Book sales deadlines• Work days, nights, weekends• Club picture day• National, state and local yearbook competitions• Delivery day (the day the books arrive from the printer)• Distribution day (the day you hand out books

to students)• Workshops (summer, fall and spring)

Meet with the student activities director to get yearbook- related events on the school’s master calendar, starting with picture day.

6 YEAR-LONGCALENDAR

CREATE

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Marketing creates awareness about the yearbook and ads, explains why parents and students would want to buy them and tells parents and students how to purchase.

You need to market to parents because they are the people who usually pay for the book. Here are a few tactics to use at the beginning of the school year.

• Set up sales tables at:» Registration in August or September» Any back-to-school events that parents attend» Spirit week and homecoming

• Use Walsworth’s Parent Email Program (PEP), whichsends emails to your students’ parents, encouragingthem to buy a yearbook and ad. Ask your registrar forparent email addresses when you get the student list.To enroll in PEP, upload your student list with parentemail addresses into Marketing Central and then signup at walworthyearbooks.com/pep to get started.

• Use Walsworth’s Online Sales program and place a banner on your school website that takes buyers directlyto your online school store at yearbookforever.com.Online Sales relieves you of collecting money, and youget reports to track sales and distribute the books.Just activate your school store in Members Only.

• Schedule one or two Parent Ad Nights, whereparents can sit with a student designer and get theirsenior or personal ad designed and pay for it then.

The marketing tactics listed above, and many more, are in the following materials, along with information on selecting a marketing manager, training students and creating plans.

• “Engage Your Audience and Sell More Yearbooks with Strategic Marketing,” a unit of the Yearbook Suite curriculum

• “My Marketing Plan” book• Yearbook Marketing Checklist at

walsworthyearbooks.com/marketing• Marketing items online at

walsworthyearbooks.com/marketing, including guerrilla marketing editable PDFs and business ad sales scripts

7 MARKETING PLAN

SET UP

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Take inventory of the equipment you have and whether it’s working. Common yearbook staff equipment includes:

• Computers, plus software, Internet access,thumb drives

• Cameras, plus batteries, memory cards, flash cards,lenses, bags

• Locked storage such as a cabinet for cameras and acloset for books

• Cabinet for general yearbook supplies• Office or personal space for you• Space for yearbook staffers, including mailboxes or

cubbies for their things• Planning Kit and Starter Kit from Walsworth• Classroom space for work, instruction and

leadership meetings

Use the walls for organization and inspiration. Hang a large wall calendar to show deadlines, a white board for editors to write to-do lists and daily agendas, and fun posters from Walsworth. Designate a space on the wall for great design ideas to be taped.

Meet with your school or district technology coordinator to learn about your school’s Internet and firewall protocols. Give them the Network Administrators Guide, located at yearbookhelp.com.

Yearbook creation tends to cause a messy, unorganized environment. Appoint a group to keep the classroom organized. Schedule clean-up days. Make each staff member responsible for cleaning their personal space and around their computer area. Occasionally shut down the computers and wipe down the keyboards with anti- bacterial or alcohol wipes, especially during cold and flu season.

8 CLASSROOMPREPARE TH

E

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Review the materials listed below, decide what you should teach and what you should prepare your editors to teach.

Team-building activities are a good way to start the year, and letting your editors be in charge will help them learn to organize and work efficiently with their staff.

Make sure your editors know they should meet at least once a week outside of class for planning purposes. Their time in class or with the club should be devoted to helping the staff and answering questions.

Look through Walsworth’s Yearbook Suite curriculum, a great resource for teaching your students the basics of design, photography, reporting, copywriting and more.

Yearbook Suite has 11 units with printed student workbooks. Content is also available at yearbookhelp.com.

Our “New Advisers Field Guide to Yearbook” is a complete guide to everything you need to know to oversee yearbook your first couple of years.

Yearbook Suite also has an Adviser Edition that includes all 11 units plus the First 30 Days lesson plan for InDesign and Online Design. The First 30 Days lesson plan contains the lessons and activities from the Yearbook Suite your staff should learn in the first six weeks of school. You can also find it in the Adviser Timeline in your Planning Kit and at yearbookhelp.com.

Yearbookhelp.com provides Walsworth customers with the answers to any question about yearbook they may have. Access it using your Members Only username and password.

Also watch for the Yearbook Today emails, which are sent weekly during the school year. They contain a bell ringer exercise called the Class Kickoff and a short calendar of reminders with items you should be doing around that time.

9 TRAIN

ANDTEACH

STAFFYOUR

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Most yearbooks have a name (some do not). Each volume of the yearbook tells the story of that school year. To help tell that story, staffs come up with themes. A theme is usually a phrase plus graphic elements. It’s used on the cover, endsheets, title page and divider pages.

To guide students in brainstorming for and developing their theme, use the “Finding Your Theme” unit of the Yearbook Suite. They can also get help with their theme and cover with the Yearbook Blueprint in the Planning Kit or at yearbookhelp.com.

The ladder is the map of your coverage plans for the year. It will help you make sure events don’t get missed, but it needs to be flexible to allow for events not yet on the school calendar.

Consider asking your rep to sit down with you to help plan your first ladder, to make sure you are meeting deadlines correctly.

The ladder is a diagram of signatures and flats. Yearbooks are printed 16 pages at a time. Each 16-page section is called a signature. Each signature is divided into two flats, A and B. Write the topic and other information that will go on each page on the ladder.

Start by writing in the essentials that must be in the book — title page, table of contents, divider pages, colophon, index, and possibly ads. Now you have an idea of how many pages will be used for these structural components.

Then estimate your section lengths (look at previous books if you have no idea), and begin to piece together how your book will look. Generally, these are the percentage of pages devot-ed to traditional sections of a yearbook: student life: 20-25%; clubs/activities: 12-15%; academics: 10-15%; sports: 18-22%; people: 22-28%; ads/community (depends on number and size of ads sold).

When filling out the ladder, start thinking about deadlines. Once you know your submission deadlines, look at the school calendar to determine which pages can be completed prior to your deadlines.

When your submission deadlines are set, create mini-deadlines to give staff time to cover events, do interviews, take photos, write stories, design spreads, and have everything proof-read. Mini-deadlines keep students organized and feeling less overwhelmed because they accomplish a spread in pieces rather than tackling the entire thing at once. Spread these deadlines over a four- to five-week period.

10 YEARBOOKCREATE TH

E

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Workshops offer a concentrated experience for training, yearbook development and bonding. Summer, fall and spring workshops have different goals.

The summer workshop allows your students to get tech training, develop their theme concept including cover design and spread templates, and bond with each other. With this work done before the first day of school, students can jump right in to coverage. Students should know that a summer workshop is fun but expectations are high for them to accomplish their work.

Editors and others in leadership positions should be encouraged to attend a summer workshop, plus any staff members who want to go. Have them pay at least one-third to one-half of the cost so they are invested in it. And let students and parents know the dates early enough for them to plan their summer.

Early in the school year, analyze the yearbook budget and include the amount the yearbook program will contribute to the overall cost of the workshop, based on the previous year’s workshop information. Consider how to raise the money if the yearbook program will be paying a portion, such as selling more ads or books, or possibly raising the cost of the book by $5.

Discuss options for student fundraising to help them offset their portion of the cost.

A fall workshop provides the opportunity to learn about theme development, improving design, taking better photos, improving coverage and getting the cover designed if not done previously.

A spring workshop can be held for next year’s staff to introduce them to their jobs, get some tech training and learn to market their yearbook and sell ads over the summer.

Walsworth’s adviser-only workshop, Adviser Academy, is held in July in Kansas City and provides three days of classes in beginning and advanced tracks, plus a middle school track and the option to tour Walsworth’s printing facilities or attend advanced tech training. You can network with advisers from across the country, and leave with stacks of great resources and feeling ready for the year ahead.

11 AND

ATTENDWORKSHOPS

PLAN

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• Set up tables in the gym, cafeteria or elsewhere forstudents to pick up their yearbooks.

• Same as above, but turn distribution into asigning party.

• Deliver to homeroom or English classes.• Hand out at an assembly where the staff is recognized

for their work.• Hand out at registration in August or September.

Use the Distribution Checklist, found at the end of the Distribution Primer located at walsworthyearbooks.com/distributionday, to have a successful distribution.

12 DISTRIBUTIONAfter you and your staff are done with all the hard work, one day your books will arrive – that’s called delivery day. And getting the books into the hands of each student and other purchasers takes planning – and that’s called distribution.

Find out how distribution has been done at your school. You may have to do it that way this year, but then determine if that tradition should continue or if there is a better way. There are several ways to distribute your yearbook.

PREPARE FOR

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USE THESE RESOURCES TO GUIDE AND SUPPORT YOU DURING YOUR FIRST YEAR AND BEYOND.

RESOURCES LOCATION HOW TO ACCESS

DVISERNEW RESOURCES

New Advisers Field Guide to YearbookThis unit explains everything first-year advisers need to know, as well as how and when to do it, to succeed in their first year. It also serves as a refresher for veteran advisers.

Yearbook HelpThe most comprehensive online resource for yearbook advisers.

Adviser Mentor ProgramWe match experienced, successful yearbook advisers (the mentors) with yearbook adviser rookies to offer the rookies additional support, camaraderie and wisdom.

Members OnlyYour personalized online home, full of resources, including status reports regarding production and Online Sales; access to Online Design, W|eCare, Support Download, and a web ladder.

Support DownloadEnhancements and ClikArt for InDesign users are here.

Parent Email Program (PEP)Reminding parents to buy the yearbook and giving your sales a boost is easy with PEP.

walsworthyearbooks.comOur website is full of information, ideas and assistance.

walsworthyearbooks.com/yearbooksuite

yearbookhelp.com

walsworthyearbooks.com/adviser- mentor-program/

Login page at walsworthyearbooks.com

Login page at walsworthyearbooks.com

walsworthyearbooks.com/pep

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Click on the New Advisers Field Guide and download the PDF

Enter your Members Only username and password

Talk to your local sales representative

Click on Login and access using your username and password

Click on Login, enter your username and password and click on Support Download

walsworthyearbooks.com

USE THESE RESOURCES TO GUIDE AND SUPPORT YOU DURING YOUR FIRST YEAR AND BEYOND.

RESOURCES LOCATION HOW TO ACCESS

DVISERNEW RESOURCES

Yearbook Suite curriculumTeach all aspects of yearbook with this 11-unit curriculum, plus an AdviserEdition and the New Advisers FieldGuide to Yearbook

Idea FileLet this magazine guide you through the year, with two issues published each school year, covering all things yearbook.

Yearbook TodayThis email is sent weekly during the school year, providing a bell ringer lesson and a short calendar of to-dos.

Planning Kit and Starter KitWalsworth items sent to your school to help you plan, create, submit and market your yearbook.

Adviser TimelineThis item helps you plan your first visit of the year with your yearbook rep. With a calendar and deadline planner, it will keep you on track all year.

W|eCare Live, online desktop support from our technicians via screen-sharing with your computer.

walsworthyearbooks.com/yearbooksuite or yearbookhelp.com

walsworthyearbooks.com/ideafile

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Find it in your email every Wednesday or Thursday; see the compiled emails at yearbookhelp.com

Receive Planning Kit in the mail in the spring; receive the Starter Kit in the mail in the fall. Review items at yearbookhelp.com

In the Planning Kit and at yearbookhelp.com

Flip through current and past issues online

Click on Login, enter your username and password and click on Live Technical Help during business hours.

Click on Read all topics under Start Here and scroll down to YearbookToday

Onyearbookhelp.com,click on an item under Curriculum

Yearbook BlueprintEach year this contains hot new trends, predesigned covers and endsheets, brainstorming tips, fonts, Formula Colors, and even sketch sheets to start developing a terrific theme.

In the Planning Kit and at yearbookhelp.com

Click on Read all topics under Start Here and scroll down

Click on Read all topics under Start Here and scroll down

Click on Read all topics under Start Here and scroll down

walsworthyearbooks.com

USE THESE RESOURCES TO GUIDE AND SUPPORT YOU DURING YOUR FIRST YEAR AND BEYOND.

RESOURCES LOCATION HOW TO ACCESS

DVISERNEW RESOURCES

Student Press Law CenterThis organization provides free legal advice to student media.

Journalism Education AssociationThis organization is for journalism teachers, providing resources and great support.

Market Your BookContains Customized Marketing, manuals and many marketing items to help you tell students and parents how to buy a yearbook.

Online Sales Puts yearbooks and ads sales online for the convenience of your buyers; credit cards and PayPal accepted 24/7 and you can easily access reports.

yearbookforever.com This is the place online where you send parents and students to buy a yearbook and ads using Online Sales.

Sales and Marketing Central Track sales goals, enter in-school sales, track and market directly to non-buyers, and get detailed financial and distribution reports.

splc.org

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jea.org

walsworthyearbooks.com/marketing

walsworthyearbooks.com

yearbookforever.com

At the Student Press Law Center website

Click on login, enter your username and password, and click on Sales Central or Marketing Central banners.

Click on Login, enter your username and password, and click on Sell Online button.

Once you are there, click the links to see all the materials and information available.

At the Journalism Education Association website

Marketing questionsEmail address to send any questions about marketing.

marketingyearbooks@walsworth.com