Summer time and the livin's easy

Lately, judges and critiques are looking at seasonal or chronological books and asking, "why is summer so sparse?" That's because no one is getting out there and working on yearbook during the summer. You might ask, "Kat, what IS there to do during the summer?" Well guys, I have a few ideas for you.

- If you're trying out for a sport or going to camp for that sport, ask your coach if you can get some pictures of students during that time. You could have a spread about tryouts and camp together or do one for each.

-Did you or your friends go on vacation? If so, grab some of the photos from it to use for a summer vacation spread.

-I bet a few people at your school worked during the summer. Find out where people work by looking at their Facebook or if you're going to be by that place, snap a few photos. You could do a summer jobs spread in the yearbook as well.

-My favorite idea of all needs to happen now...Find out if anyone is going to study abroad or go to a foreign country to teach or help build houses. How interesting would it be to have a feature story page about them?

-Market the yearbook during the summer! At the end of the school year you can hand out flyers suggesting to students and their parents that if they missed out this year to get a yearbook, don't miss out next year. Order it now! You can offer the book for $5 off during summertime only.

-Sell OLD yearbooks. Put out a flyer if you have any old yearbooks laying around during graduation or any other event in the summer. If a parent see's their students freshman yearbook at graduation, they might just want to buy it off of you!

Another important thing to do during the summer is GO TO YEARBOOK CAMP! Here's a list of the things that can be finished before school starts if you come to camp...

- Theme

- Cover

- Endsheets

- Divider pages

- The layouts of at least three spreads in the yearbook

- Marketing ideas for the whole year

- New updated Facebook page for your yearbook

- Folios

- Graphics for the yearbook

- All of your fonts chosen for the entire year

- Finished ladder

- Deadlines sorted out and how many pages you'll be submitting during that time

- Who knows, you might even win a camera or an upgrade for your cover at camp during the auction. 
Go to www.walswortheast.com to find out more about the workshop.

If you have any other ideas and want us to share them, email us or post a comment below. 

Oh and PS- Thats Muggs (my puggle) enjoying herself on the beach.

Have It Your Way

As some of you know I started my yearbook career on the west coast (sort of) in Arizona. While I was there I got to know quite a few of the award winning advisers from California. Jim Jordan is one of my favorite people of all time and turn to him when I'm looking for great ways to better the yearbook programs I work with.

He has a great website through his school. It can be found here.

We know that this time of year it's really easy to take a break and try not to think about yearbook for awhile. This can be seriously detrimental to your program for next year, however, so we'd like to propose some fresh new ideas about how to start developing next year's theme now.

We've all heard about the tried and true method of a "theme packet." Some schools do individual packets, some break their classes up into groups of students, but this is a widely used method of getting the creative juices flowing and the conversation started about next year.

But what about starting the conversation as a class. Below is a link to a worksheet that asks very general questions that can get your students thinking about why next year is going to be different from every year before it. This is a great place to start when looking for a new, unique theme that is relevant to your school for next year.

Jim Jordan's Theme Development Worksheet.

Often doing a group brainstorming session can help your students begin to visualize and unite under a theme that the whole staff can get behind. Now, as with everything else you're never going to make 100% of people happy 100% of the time. If you have some competing personalities, sometimes an executive decision needs to be made, but here are some great Team Building resources for you to use to help get your staff working together.

Jim Jordan's Team Building Exercises. 

Remember a theme needs to be evident in the following places at the very least:

• cover
• endsheets
• title page
• dividers
• folio
• opening/closing

We LOVE doing theme brainstorming sessions, so if you'd like us to come into your class and help with theme development, don't hesitate to contact us!

Get your QR code on

Well, here it is, the real skinny on QR codes. QR (Quick Response) codes, which were actually created 17 years ago in Japan by a Toyota subsidiary, are becoming a big trend in marketing. All you need is a simple QR code reader (I use TapMedia LTD on my iPhone). We've been finding these codes in grocery stores, on movie posters and in our mail. When you use your phone to scan these codes they will normally take you a URL. Example: I found a QR code in the grocery store on cream cheese. When I scanned it, the code directed me to a site with a Philadelphia cream cheese recipe. YUM! So we thought, why not update you on how to use it for yearbook? Here are a few cool ways to use QR codes for yearbook this year and next...

• Use a QR code for your Facebook fan page. (If you scan the QR code above, it will take you to our MetroYearbooks Fan Page.)

• Everyone needs a good, funny, marketing idea. Make a QR code that goes to YearbookForever.com or the link to your online ordering, then print it on the iron on paper that you find at Staples or Michael's and press them onto your yearbook staff t-shirts. Anyone with a QR code reader will be able to use it.

• Don't just stop at t-shirts! Put a QR code on your own personal Facebook or on posters around the school promoting buying a yearbook.

• It doesn't just have to be a URL that your QR code takes you to. It can be a phone number or text. For example, go to http://qrcode.kaywa.com/ and enter in text like BUY A YEARBOOK and then when they use their reader it will come up in the Notes App on an iPhone, but I'm not sure about any other phones just yet.

But how can you use QR codes directly in your yearbook? Try these great ideas:

• Did you have a funny video during a pep rally, or a fantastic goal from your star lacrosse player that you have a video of? You can create a QR code and place it in your yearbook that takes your readers to a URL of that YouTube video.

• You don't have to stop with videos, what about that spring sport that hasn't quite finished yet and you couldn't get the entire scoreboard on your spread before the final deadline? Just create a QR code and place it under the "Scores" area on your page so that they can scan it and find out the final scores that link right to your schools website.

• When selling business ADs, tell them that for an extra $10, $25, (enter your amount here) you will put a QR code in for a direct link to their website. 

QR Code Generator that we like: http://qrcode.kaywa.com/

EVERYONE CAN DO THIS! Try it now!

What's a FourSquare?

Okay, so Kat and I are HUGE on FourSquare. If you haven't checked out this addicting app on your computer or iPhone or Droid, you're missing out.

This app allows you to "check in" to where you are (what a great way for our customers to know where we are!) and you can also earn the mayorship of these places. Kat and I are so competitive that we had to create separate "rooms" for our office so we could each have our own mayorship. Slightly ridiculous, we know. : p

BUT, now FourSquare can help you create a buzz about your yearbooks! You can create a location called "Yearbook Room" and that place can have a SPECIAL for students who use FourSquare. Maybe you just offer them a Sharpie to write in their books, or maybe $5 towards NEXT YEAR'S yearbook to incentivize them to order early! There are so many options, but this is a great way to market your book using today's most advanced and most recent technology.

Set up a FourSquare special for the yearbook room!

Lastly, you can create an account for your yearbook staff and use it light Twitter or Facebook to post updates about how the yearbook is going and people can follow you.

Follow us on FourSquare, too!

Yearbooks Are Forever

We all know how much time will goes into creating the masterpiece that is your yearbook, but sometimes at distribution we can start to feel like no one appreciates this. Use the below disclaimer to help people understand and make your distribution a little easier (with fewer parent phone calls).

STOP Before you write in your yearbook, READ THIS!
Check your new yearbook carefully. Be sure that there is no cover damage and check to see that there are no printing flaws in your book such as:
-blank pages
-pages in upside down
-missing pages
If such flaws are discovered, please return your book BEFORE you write in it. Once you have written in the book, it is yours to keep. This is a student publication. Although it is our intention to provide an accurate account of this school year, in a volume of this size produced by fellow humans, some errors are bound to occur. We apologize for any “typos” and hope you enjoy your memories!

Use this write up and make it look pretty and put it in all of your yearbooks and you will see a decrease in the unhappy parents and students!

Happy Distribution!

Get Your Yearbooks Here!

Hey y'all! 

After helping with Sherwood's Yearbook Distribution we thought we post some great insights about how best to handle your own delivery and distribution. Thank you to Donna and David Hutcherson from Naples, FL for these great ideas!

When your books arrive:

• Count/confirm the total number of boxes before the delivery person leaves
• Note any damaged boxes BEFORE you sign for them
• If anything is damaged (even the boxes) do the following:
• note it on the shipping slip you sign
• take a picture of the damage  
• make sure you have a copy of your signed shipping form, even if it's a photocopy
• Secure the books/boxes in a safe, locked area, perhaps even a secret place.  

 When you first see your book:

• Enjoy the fruits of your labor!
  Advisers and staffs often get so wrapped up in checking everything out that they forget to just enjoy the book itself. We encourage you and your staff to look through the book the first time as if you had just purchased one, excited about the content and enjoying the pictures and articles. There is plenty of time for evaluation later, just remember how hard you've all worked and that you deserve to just savor the moment!

Tips for a Smooth Distribution Day:

• The distribution list is your most important tool on distribution day.                                  It serves as an indication of those who have purchased books and as a record of those who have received their books. 
•  Have the distribution list available with space for each student to sign.
• Once a student has picked up his/her book highlight their name for easy viewing of students who still need to pick up their book.

Plan ahead for the following:

• Assistance 
• Make a list of support personnel you need to assist in preparing for distribution day.
• Be sure people like the school secretary are well informed, as they will probably field a lot of calls as distribution draws near.  
• Distribution plan
• Diagram your plan for distributing books; know how you want students to proceed through the distribution process.
• Will students come to pick up their books in one central area, or will the books go to classrooms during the day?
• If they go to one place, will they be called randomly or by grade?
• Will you need posters/signs for directions/instructions?
• Supplies:
• Tables and chairs? 
• Carts to transport boxes of books?
• Trash cans for waste paper and wrappings?
• Extra copies of distribution lists
• Notepads, pencils, markers, tape, sharpies, highlighters, etc
• Getting the word out:
• school website, Facebook, etc.
• teacher/student email
• automatic phone calls
• daily announcements
• PTA or school newsletters
• student newspaper
• Problems:
• Plan ahead for problems and have one person in charge of that task
• Have an extra table open for problems (students not on distribution list, etc.)
•  FUN!
• Don’t forget to have fun!
• Have music playing loud enough to be heard by everyone, but not to interfere with their talking/book signing.
• Refreshments: consider this for a money-maker but remember it requires more planning and cleanup.
• Prizes: distribute door prizes or give away free book covers, autograph supplements or namestamping for next year.
• Sell gel pens or glitter pens especially if you have darkly printed endsheets

Brainstorm these ideas NOW with your staff - come up with great ideas and maybe even make some money! Check our YouTube channel for video of how Sherwood High does their distribution.

CSPA Speakers

Check us out at CSPA! We taught two classes: Don't sell your yearbooks like its 1965 and Yearbooks after High School. If you want any information regarding either of those sessions please don't hesitate to contact us!

Kid Tested, Adviser Approved.

Welcome to Metro Yearbooks Blog!

We are Kat Phillips and Whitney Moore and we are the yearbook reps in Northern Virginia, DC and Montgomery County, Maryland for Walsworth Publishing Company. :)

We love yearbooks and have both been doing them since high school. We want to use this first blog to talk about why our staffs and advisers love to work with us and we want you to use this blog to show you what they say, too!

Some things about us:

• We Talk with our staffs, not at them.
• We might start off talking about prom dresses, but we end up talking about picas. :)
• We help our staffs create the book that they dream up and can even help you win awards if that's what's important to you.
• We share a young, trendy perspective with you and your staff. We are up to date with the latest fashion and design trends and can easily help you apply them to your book.
• Together we give you the best of both worlds. Kat's professional design background and Whitney's journalism degree give you a leg up in all of the areas of yearbook.
• We both know exactly what it takes to be a yearbook adviser. We have managed student-run publications at the university level so we understand that running a yearbook isn't just about the final product.

Stay tuned for links to our YouTube channel with videos of our current staffs and advisers!