Today, I printed out one numbered piece of paper for every page in the yearbook. As we start turning in pages, we print out the final layouts – this is a pretty good way to judge color and to see duplicates – a person in the book too many times. The walls of my room look like a counting exercise. Can’t wait to see them all filled.
We are also in the continuing saga of what to do about declining sales. I’m out of ideas. Between our continual churn of new students and the recession, there is no permanent solution. It was suggested that we raise the price of the book, but I think that will only drive sales down even more. I’m open to ideas from my readers.
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We have the same problem. School of 1800 with 50% buying a book. I’m new this year but been doing yearbooks for 8 years. Next year we’re hoping the huge improvements to quality we’ve made this year will help but also probably going to downsize the book in pages and bells and whistles that cost so much so we could actually drop the price some. Many students tell me they could come up with the money but have other things they’d rather spend it on. We charge $55 for a 272 page size 9 book.
I wish we had 50 percent. We have about 15 percent, really about 50 percent of the senior class.
You’ve heard my lament for 8 years on this subject. It is a hard one. Is there a club or group that will buy a number of books to give as prizes? I had two clubs do that the last few years, each buying 10 books, and it helped. Got the book into kids’ hands who normally wouldn’t have bought the book. Last year, with 2700 students, I sold 380 books. The average price–$70. But, started as low as $50 if they would preorder before the end of the previous year, then $65 for the first two weeks of school. Any leftover books I sold for $80. Making a smaller book last year helped me leave with money in the account. A first for yearbook.