Happy New Year! The start of a new year is the perfect time to look back and evaluate what you and your yearbook staff have accomplished so far this school year.
As we’re sure you’ve discovered, yearbook can be challenging, but it’s also very rewarding. Take a moment to pat yourself on the back. You’ve made it this far, you’re doing great! However, even the most seasoned yearbook adviser will tell you, when it comes to fine tuning the yearbook process, there is always room for improvements and new goals that can be made.
Defining what you want to accomplish this year is the first step to reaching your goals. Let us help you kick off your New Year(book) Resolutions list by giving you some of our favorites and the tools you need to not only set these goals, but to crush them. Walsworth’s Favorite Top 10 New Year(book) Resolutions:
1. We will meet all of our deadlines.
Don’t let the deadline crunch get the best of you! Here are some tips to help you and your staff meet your deadlines.
- Hang the Headlines and Deadlines calendar up in your room.
- Set mini deadlines
- Plan ahead
- Reward yourself
Check out more great tips and articles on deadlines on our blog.
2. We will do more creative marketing and sell more books.
fBoosting your yearbooks sales doesn’t have to be as hard as you think! We have a multitude of tools that can help you get creative and have some fun with it.
- Our new eBook, Creative Ideas for Selling Your Yearbook, offers loads of marketing ideas that schools have already used to generate excitement about yearbook and promote their sales.
- Check out the Marketing Your Book There you will find plenty of resources to help you get the word out about yearbook to parents, students and even businesses!
- Remind parents to buy the yearbook with our Parent Email Program (PEP).
3. We will write better captions.
Photos are the most-seen element of any yearbook, which makes the blocks of text that accompany them – the captions – essentially the most important text written in the book.
- The Writing Yearbook Captions That Will CaptivateeBook will help your yearbook staff give captions the attention they deserve.
- Another great resource to help your staff learn to write better captions is the Completing your Copy with Captions and Headlines unit of the Yearbook Suite.
4. We will include more students in the yearbook.
Would you buy a yearbook if you weren’t in it? Probably not. Make it a resolution to increase coverage throughout your entire student body! Get each student in the book more than once.
- Check out how one school worked to increase coverage and in turn sold more yearbooks the following year.
- Increase coverage by adding more pictures to your Index.
- Need more ideas on how to increase coverage throughout your school? The Coverage: The Heart of the Yearbook unit of the Yearbook Suite curriculum can help.
5. We will take better photos.
Great photos help tell the story of the year in a way your readers will always remember. Up your photography game with help from these great resources.
- Beautiful, eye-catching photos are what makes a yearbook. Take a look at the amazing images in 100+ Great Yearbook Photos That Captured Our Attention and Why, and read what we thought made them stand out.
- In 2018, everyone can be a photographer! Your yearbook staffers are walking around every day with a state-of-the-art digital camera right in their pocket – their smartphones. In the eBook Using Your Smartphone to Capture Great Photos, learn how your staff can start using their smartphones and a few simple apps to take yearbook-quality pictures.
- Learn how to take quality photos by reviewing the Photojournalism: Telling Stories with Images unit of the Yearbook Suite.
6. We will spice up our index.
The index is one of the most viewed sections of your yearbook. Don’t let it be humdrum and boring. It deserves the same attention as the rest of your masterpiece! If you want to add a little zest to your index all it takes is a little time and energy. Here are six creative ideas on how to spice up your index.
7. We will find interesting story ideas and facts.
Every person has a story to tell, and with each new year, comes the opportunity to get creative. Always look for the most interesting stories and facts possible to capture your readers. The Yearbook Suite curriculum has several great units that will help you in this process.
- Before your yearbook staff can begin writing stories, they need to acquire the right information. The Art of the Interview will help your staff learn how to interview sources and get the information they need to write interesting stories.
- Find unique angles and kick-start the creative process with the Writing: Tell Me a Story
- The Walsworth blog is another great resource for finding interesting and unique story ideas! Check out our articles on interesting story ideas here.
8. We will recruit a great staff for next year.
Believe it or not, the time to recruit next year’s staff is already upon us! We have some tools that will help you recruit the best yearbook staff ever!
- Download the Recruiting Primer to find tips and information for the entire recruiting process. Everything from interviewing potential staffers to selecting the applicants.
- Don’t just wish upon a star for the best staff ever, attend a replay of the webinar Mirror, mirror on the wall: How to recruit the best yearbook staff of all! In the recording of this webinar, you will learn: where to look for the best students in your school; what mix of personality types make up a great yearbook team; techniques and materials to use in the recruiting process; and how to run an efficient application, interviewing and selection process.
- Learn how to recruit a fantastic yearbook staff and keep them by reading this article by Christina Vettraino Chatel, the former yearbook adviser at Troy High School in Troy, Michigan.
- Recruit a great staff by downloading these fun, professionally designed free marketing tools located on our Recruit a Great Staff page.
9. We will celebrate our successes.
So much hard work goes into creating the yearbook. Remember to take some time to celebrate all you’ve done! From creating spreads, to keeping your theme running throughout the book, to meeting individual deadlines, and finally to submitting your final masterpiece. Pat yourselves on the back! Have a pizza party, bring in donuts, hand out staff awards, go bowling, whatever ritual it is that you have. You guys rock, remember to always celebrate a job well done!
10. We will plan the best distribution day ever.
The smell of freshly printed yearbooks has to go down as one of the simplest pleasures in the yearbook world. Don’t hog it all to yourself! Share it with the school by hosting the best distribution day ever! Here are some tips and tricks on how to make your event one to remember.
- If you’ve never done it before, distribution day can be stressful – but it doesn’t have to be. Preparation is the key to success! We’ve put together a handy list, so you’ll have everything ready on the big day. Here are 10 steps to host a successful event.
- Prepare your big event with our Distribution Primer. The Distribution Primer breaks down everything you need to know, in great detail, to be ready for your upcoming yearbook distribution.
- Watch a replay of the webinar, “Yearbook Distribution: Distributing your love letter to the school,” hosted by Lisa Wallace, yearbook adviser at Fort Worth Country Day School, and Walsworth’s Mike Taylor, CJE. They tell you how to prepare for distribution day, how to promote the big event and other important tips to keep in mind to make sure your book distribution goes smoothly.
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