It’s also the week of the birth of Jake’s second baby, a wee lady-tike. Let’s dedicate this post to her. In response to his request for name suggestions I think she should be called Alice. May she tumble down many rabbit holes.

However, I’m not going to talk at length on the baby-making side of things. This is a family site…

Instead, in order to drag out this late night blog post I will comment on what a number of people have been coming back to us about – namely, how cheap our books are, if we make them any cheaper, and if they can make them any cheaper?!?

Clearly people are feeling the pinch, and this concern is very close to our hearts as well. Jake just recently explained a part of his logic for our name – AllYearbooks – that we’re gunning to provide good quality yearbooks to all who want them. That means keeping the price down.

First of all, let me assure you that we do our best. We work to very high standards of book production, and in order to keep our prices low, we keep our margins low. We don’t make so much per yearbook order, and live off a reputation that keeps us growing and keeps people coming back.

But our prices can only go so low, and the 10%  discounts we have at the moment can’t run all year, which leaves you with the big question: How do I make my yearbook cheap enough for everyone in the year to get one?

We’ve talked about this before, but it can always stand a rehashing. So, two tips:

TIP ONE: sells lots of yearbooks!

Ordering more yearbooks can bring the price down dramatically. I’m not suggesting you order books you don’t need – although we almost always get people wanting extras once they have been handed out – but make it clear to everyone that the more people who order books, the cheaper they will be.

Get promoting among the students:

• Put up posters – in common areas or in the halls (with permission of course). Our poster is online, or you can make your own
• Ask people what they want, and then give it to them. Students will be more interested if they feel represented in the yearbook plans
• Get everyone involved. Whether they plan at first to buy a book or not, everyone should be online filling in profiles. Again, it makes them closer to the resulting product
• Get everyone even more involved! Don’t only get them onto the site. Hold competitions for cover designs, articles, art pages, poems. Let them see their work in print
• Talk people into it. At the end of the day, you believe you’re making something cool that everyone will want. Just explain that and why

TIP TWO: raise extra funds.

Between our prices and a good large order you now have a book that isn’t expensive, but there will be some people strapped for cash in their last year. You want everyone to be able to get a book, so get some extra money to bring down the price for all.

• Sales. Boot-sales, cake sales, sales for anything you have spare or can make cheap. It all goes into the pot, and parents and students will be happy to help
• Events. Run, jog, cycle for money. Have a football marathon where players come on and go off and you keep it up all day. Whatever will be fun but tough
• Sponsorship. Local businesses might want an advert in your yearbook or a card handed out with the handout. A takeaway or sandwich bar will get plenty of goodwill amongst students who might be out and about and in need of a snack

Raise a hundred pounds, or a few hundred, and suddenly your yearbooks are that bit cheaper and some more people want to splash out on one.

Anyway, that’s what’s on the breeze – the recession is still alive people, and cheap is in. And there’s my excuse for a post to announce Jake’s new baby, without even getting his permission

For tips on making and uploading, scroll back and you’ll find Nic’s older post that tell you everything you need to know. This is just ideas, and nothing else
You can have as many or as few custom pages as you want and they will all be full colour. They don’t cost you any extra (we wouldn’t charge you for being creative). Of course they count towards your total page number, but the website can help you to keep track and keep on budget.

And ideas?

Be creative about it. Involve the other students – not just editors; open it up to the whole year. hold competitions for pages to go in, or just get a discussion going over inventive ideas. Here are some of our favourites from previous yearbooks.

• Ask the Head or Head of Year to write an introduction
• Get the yearbook committee to write a “Thank you and Goodbye” for the end of the book
• Put some message/signature pages in at the back.  This is a great way of making the book up to an even number of pages.  Either design your own or add them from the templates in All pages.
• Put a school or year photo in as one full page
• Ask someone to draw some pictures or cartoons
• Get together some quotes or funny things people have said
• Ask someone to write a diary for a school trip
• Include poems and stories people have written
• News of the year
• Adverts for local shops and businesses
• Reviews of a play or sports events

Finally, don’t forget the pages we make for you, in with the overall price!

• Make use of the online polls.  Set your own polls questions and get everyone to vote. Then have us make an awards page, or make your own.
• Create folders in the Photo gallery, have all the members upload, and give us something to make collages for you. It all make the book even better

The big thing for making your polls work is to be sure it’s inclusive and the questions are interesting for everyone in the year.

You could have a small survey at school to let people pick out polls to vote on, or to select nominees. It’s good to try to make them funny, with some in jokes about the school

With the nominees, if you’re selecting a few for each award, include as many people as possible somewhere. Don’t put the same people – or all people from one social group – up for every poll. Try to spread the nominations around. It’ll get everyone more involved!

Here are some example questions that previous customers have used in the polls. You may or may not want separate questions for male and female winners:

- Best looking
- Best dressed
- Best body
- Hollywood smile
- Prettiest eyes
- Awesome hair award
- Biggest flirt
- Largest ego
- Drama queen
- Class clown
- Teachers’ pet
- Cutest/best couple
- Most likely to be a millionaire
- Most likely to win a Nobel prize
- Most likely to save the world
- Most likely to be Prime Minister
- Most likely to end up in jail
- Biggest nerd
- Most likely to become a WAG
- Best homework excuse
- Most likely to win an Olympic medal
- Funniest person
- Most likely to be on Big Brother
- The [name of school] prize for outstanding achievement in the field of excellence

With little enough interest in yearbooks today, I might as well take the opportunity to point out something that might be obvious, but is still a problem.

Mis-typed emails don’t work.

It’s true – this seemingly natural supposition has been the cause of no end of troubles this year, and it’s only February.

When you’re an editor creating an online yearbook, or asking for a copy of our information pack/yearbook sample, you’re always using a closed system connected to us through our website to make the enquiry. So it’s VITAL that you make sure the email address you put in is typed correctly, and that it’s one you check regularly!

Otherwise people make enquiries of us and then think we’ve forgotten them, as we pelt emails out in variations of .com, .co.uk, .org. .sch.uk, all just to try to figure out what was put in wrong.

Now we’ve got members signing up to yearbooks in droves, there another problem emerging. Pretty regularly we get emails bouncing that are members who have forgotten their password and are asking for a new one.

When you need a new password we send an email to confirm, so you need a working email address!

The yearbook online can only be so clever, and we are certainly not psychic (how much easier things would be if we were!). We need phone contacts as well, for emergencies, but emails are usually better, and the ‘emergencies’ are often that we’ve had no reply for months!

I’m asking all yearbook editors now – if you haven’t heard from us in a while and are wondering, send us an email from your most used email account, and make sure we’re not desparately trying to get hold of you.

And if you get a member telling you that they can’t get into the yearbook and can’t get a new password, get their email address and check it with us – odds are they’ve put it in wrong!

Sincerely – comments from the Cod

“do we have to go through the website to make our yearbook? – can we not send you the information and you make it into the yearbook?”

We get asked a lot, and I think it shows how people are thinking about the website in the wrong way.

Most yearbook publishers work primarily from a set of style templates and encourage you to choose one – of course they do … we all do … we’ve designed templates we think look nice and so we offer them about. It’s natural.

Now, when planning yearbook profile pages, you think about how you want them to look, the questions you want the members to write about and the order you want the members in.

So you’ve had a think, you’ve sent an email or letter to everyone in the year asking them to return their answers … it’ll take some time, but that’s ok, because you’ve picked the style you want for the pages and asked your yearbook publisher to send you a page mock-up by post or email.

You wait a bit. You get to see the mock-up – whether it’s right or wrong, you’re maybe running out of time, and you’re busy chasing member information, that you have to get gathered together to send pretty soon because the designers need time to make up the pages, so the mock-up will be fine – never mind…

Now, some yearbook companies might offer to make every single page unique – if that’s what you’re after then that’s fine: it will cost a lot more, and you’re probably looking at printing and delivery wait of 2 months rather than 2 weeks, but some people are looking for that service.

BUT – most companies will make page that look very much the same, with some variation in colour between groups, and just with the different member information. So, why wait two weeks for them to mock-up a template, or for 4 weeks while they fill it in with the information that you’ve collected.

If you write your question on our site, rather than in an email, you can get every member who logs in to type directly into that space, and they can come back and re-edit at any time until you’re ready to start proof-reading. They put a photo straight onto the site. They put other photos into sub-headed folders where other members can view them and share comments.

Ok, not everyone will login. But not everyone will reply to your editor’s email, or fill in their form. You’ll always be chasing some people – it’s easier when you can look at everyone who HAS got it done in alphabetical order and know their information is already as good as on the page – in fact you can see the page, waiting for a proof-read!

In the mean time, editors can:

• change the questions at any stage
• move the members into a different arrangement of groups, without loosing any data
• change the page order
• try out and fiddle with the available templates as many times as you want at any stage
• submit the online photo folders filled up by the members to us to make collage pages
• run an electronic voting poll
• add message pages
• upload pages they make themslevs

We realise the online system can be daunting, but we promise that there are zero data security issues, no ability for non-editors to change major settings and total editorial control over the content. Even if you only use it as a surrogate email inbox, it’s still more secure and more efficient than using an email inbox.

That was a long rant, so here’s a breakdown of the two processes – sending off yearbook information or setting up an online yearbook. I have tried my hardest to be fair and make the first option as efficient as I possible can…

OPTION ONE: Sending off the raw information to be made into a book (which we don’t offer):

1. Plan the questions for the students and how much space they will have to write in
2. Email the students to ask for emails with profile text and photos
3. Pick a design from a range of options
4. Email the design team ask them to mock up a version
5. Wait
6. Look at the mock-up they email back and decide if you like it
7. If the design is not right, repeat steps 3 to 6
8. Wait for students to respond
9. Chase students who have not responded
10. Gather information into ordered files to make into a cd
11. Send stuff to the yearbook publisher
12. Wait
13. Receive proof and check for things to be changed
14. If the proof is not right, repeat steps 11 to 13
15. Send book to be printed and delivered

OPTION TWO: Creation with the online yearbook site (which we DO offer):

1. Create the questions for the students and set the space they will have to write in
2. Email the students to ask them to login, fill in their profiles and upload photos
3. Pick a design from a range of options
4. Create the pdf of the pages online and see if you likethe design
5. If the design is not right, repeat steps 3 to 6
6. Wait for students to respond
7. Chase students who have not responded
8. Create the pdf proof online and print or check online for things to be changed
9. If the proof is not right, change it
10. Email us that the book is ready to be printed and delivered

That’s as clear as I can figure it out. They’re similar, but when you can do the latter and not spend time waiting and not pay postage, where’s the appeal of the former? And god forbid you ever wanted to change your design part way through, or you had a serious problem with the proof!

If you’re going to all the effort of gathering the information to your own computer, you might as well go the extra step of making the pages yourself, and then we’ll be on hand to help with the uploading and conversion, and still design your covers, make collages, awards, etc etc.

And we have one service with one price, which gets you everything.

People seem to see online yearbooks as frightening, unpredictable or just restrictive – actually, it’s just a way to do the same thing with less work

A great way to start is collecting deposits – it makes people want to try it out and it helps you know who’s interested and serious about buying. In ‘help and resources’ in the online yearbook, there’s a spreadsheet for collecting deposits and contact details and keep up with everyone who wants a yearbook.

Here’s a short crash course on getting people involved:

• The best thing to do is just get people logging on! Once they’re in the yearbook they’ll get into it.
• Book an IT room and set up all the computers (and get in some tea and a few biscuits). You can ask for permission to do it in a free period and just heave people show up and login.
• The poster in the resources has a space to write on the yearbook’s invitation code, so you could put that up in the common room.
• We also have the email invite option in ‘members’ for mass emailing – so if you get everyone’s email you can send an invitation that will take them straight to the site.
• Facebook or myspace can also be used – in particular a facebook group. Just don’t put the invite code on there, or you might get people logging in from everywhere!
• Putting a few more photo galleries with different headings will also help keep members interested
• A good place to look for tips is here in the blog. Track back through the entries! There’s other tips in the blog about getting sponsorship and other things for editors of the yearbook.

Have a go with what you can find, and ask us if you need any specific help – or if there’s a resource you’d like that we don’t provide yet!

After a couple of months of extra development – where Jake and Jamie basically decided to skip ahead and stick a load of extra stuff – we launched on Tuesday, with a swift and nifty update on Wednesday to bring in the new menus.

And since then – nothing but excitement! Everyone we’ve spoken to can’t believe how cool the site looks and functions now. Which makes the weeks of waiting and testing so much more worthwhile

Amongst the thing that are now up there is the long awaited two photos per profile page – available on every template we do!

There’s a whole range of new templates for your yearbook profiles, and plenty more where they came from – we’ll be adding more special templates that we’ve designed over the next few weeks, and any specific ideas YOU had, we can usually put together something in a morning

We’ve also got new style features like rounded borders for profiles and photos, and the new page upload and page order functions that are a thousand times easier and quicker to use.

So it may have been a long time coming, but it was well worth it!

Look out for more features and updates in the weeks to come

Now we want to see what you can do!

Jake’s had a lot of kookie competition ideas this year, but this is the best yet. We want you to email us your snowman pictures!

Stick them in an email with the subject line: ‘Snowman Yearbook Challange: ‘ followed by the name of the school yearbook you’ve created with us.

The best and most original snowman will get put up on our website homepage, and we’ll do your school a double-page collage spread of your wintry photos for free! (so, for you editors, that will be on top of the 10 free collage sides you get already!)

So get outside and use the weather. Enjoy yourselves – we look forward to some very cool snowmen!

The 5 minute walk to work was a near-death experience – people glanced fearfully from curtained windows, cars slewed along the streets and Lucifer himself was stood atop the church spire opposite, waving his pitchfork and dancing a little jig.

I won’t make any jokes about the English inability to deal with a little snow – if you’re interested, the morning radio is rife with them. It’s been said, rather defensively, that other countries are little better at dealing with their roads, and that may well be true. They just have the sense not to go to work.

Anyway, if you’re off school or even have a free period that was once a PE lesson, it’s a great time to hop on with the yearbook work (good link hey )

Anyone who hasn’t yet set up their member pages should go online this afternoon and tomorrow – there’s change a-comin’. Jake and Jamie are on their final test runs before the new profile system goes live!

If you’ve already got your profile pages set up in the online yearbook, check out the new style features available such as curved borders and the second profile pic (big, detailed, excited-as-a-schoolboy blog post written by Jake to come)

Even for everyone set up online, there’s work to be done. Go to the yearbook and create that Snow Week photo folder. We look forward to seeing the pics and making wintry collages

Thankfully, we don’t see emails with a horrifying hyphen: year-book or year-books. But, we do see a LOT of emails asking about a year book or year books, and one of Jake’s earliest comments on ‘house style’ was about using the word yearbook without a space – I didn’t know you had a choice!

With a background in linguistics and language history, I am sad enough to find the distinction interesting, so I looked into the background of the word. (and you get to read about it )

My girlfriend spent much of her childhood in America, and went to school there,  so that seemed a good place to start. Her high school certainly talked about yearbooks and not ‘year book’ or ‘year books’, and she gave a characteristic sardonic look at the suggestion that anyone might.

So far so good – as we know, Americans invented the school yearbook concept. Sadly, as well as a linguist I’m a pedant (they go together), so I looked further, and that meant Wikipedia…

Yearbooks are published in nearly all schools and universities throughout the US, and also those in Canada and Australia, but the form changes considerably.

In America, the yearbooks feature the entire school, with extra space for leavers and lots more feature pages for societies and sports teams. By the end of high school you’d have four yearbooks – not bad as a way to track yourself through and keep up with all the people you knew from different years!

In Australia, the yearbook is more like a magazine of events throughout the school year. It’s edited by teachers on the whole, and can be so lacking in student life that enterprising year 12 leavers will frequently make their own yearbook to publish separately.

Yearbooks in England – a relatively new phenomenon – take to doing a single school year, and so tend to give more like a quarter or half a page per student (depending on price). Apparently, it’s more common for year 11 to break down into forms, and for year 13 to have all the members alphabetically in one group (we’ll have to check our statistics and give some Beta!)

Everyone in the world produces sponsor pages to get money flowing – EVERYONE uses ‘yearbook’ and not ‘year book’.

But Wikipedia’s not the best for etymology. It does, however, disambiguate to ‘year books’ which were English law reports detailing precedents and legal tradition from the 13th through to the 16th century.

This looked promising, and sure enough an online etymological dictionary gave the original sense of ‘yearbook’ as a book of case reports from the law-courts for that year. It comes from a compound of year+book.

The earliest citation of yearbook in this sense was 1588, conveniently placed to be the English language’s continuation of the ‘year books’ mentioned on Wikipedia.

Much later, in 1926, you get the first appearance of ‘yearbook’ in the sense of a school annual in American English – so, yes, the Yanks really did invent it.

There’s your answer. Year book and year books is out; yearbook and yearbooks is in. (year-book/year-books doesn’t even get near the door)

Obviously, spellings tend to be governed by current linguistic trends, but more to the point, there was a conscious shift from year book to yearbook, and it happened a long time ago. Not only shouldn’t we use the two-word ‘year book’, but we shouldn’t have been using it for the last 500 years

Yours faithfully – comments from the Cod