Originally written by Crystal "Chaiya" Huff

What did you do?
I was the div head of publications, which included the departments of ad sales, newsletter, souvenir book, pocket program, and restaurant guide.

What went right?
We produced very successful publications. Even when some folks blew our deadlines, we had enough wiggle room to make most things fit into the publications, such that the printed material was reasonably accurate, and certainly as accurate as it could be in order to make our printing deadlines. They were printed with a very quick turnaround by Ambit Press, and delivered several hours early on Thursday afternoon (such that I had to scramble to make sure someone was on site who could receive them). Ambit was wonderful to work with, and gave us an estimate that was nearly $1K under what BFS quoted us, so despite the fact that they were a new vendor for us, the experiment was well worth it.

In total, the publications division consisted of five departments -- pocket program (PP), souvenir book (SB), restaurant guide (RG), newsletter, and ad sales. Originally, I believe RG and ad sales were in the marketing section of the hierarchy. They were a natural fit with publications, though, so adding them to the pubs division was not a problem at all. In the future, if there won't be an active marketing division, I believe this can be done again with ease.

Paul Selkirk wore hats for both PP and SB department head, and he did an excellent job. The SB was a smooth job, and came out looking fabulous. The PP had one or two minor hiccups (neither of which were Paul's fault), but recovered in plenty of time for publication. Both books were easy to read, looked really awesome, had few if any typos, and served us well as a convention. Surprisingly, small details that seemed less important (to my mind, at least) got compliments during the gripe session I attended. For example, an attendee complimented us on having the "notes" page on the back of the PP, as it was incredibly useful to him and his friends for schedule notation. There were numerous appreciative comments about the grid, layout, and style of the PP. The SB seemed to be less exhaustively examined by the average con-goer, but it was also appreciated as a good introduction to the guests of honor, etc. Paul has sent his own report to the staff list; please see that for further details.

Sybil Shearin handled the RG with a small staff (just Julia Suggs, I believe). She combined original fan art, google maps, some of last year's info, and an incredible amount of fact-checking to create this year's publication. Sybil did a fabulous job -- she was practically a plug-and-play department for me. I depended on her to do the right thing, and by and large, she did excellently. I would delegate to her anytime. Her report has already been sent to the staff list; please see it for further details.

Beca Oliveira was this year's newsletter editor. She and I jointly ran the newsletter, essentially, because she decided she wasn't up for being on site for most of the con. She is less alternative than the average Arisian, and the attendees she saw on her way in apparently startled her to such an extent that she decided she would rather email newsletter drafts in to me at con than hang out. She also had her paying job require far more of her time this weekend than expected, so it ended up working well that we would email her updates and she would email back the rough and final drafts of the newsletter editions. The newsletter averaged a staff of five for each edition, besides the editor, and I think that worked reasonably well. In total, we had two photographers, three proofreaders, one sysadmin, two writers, one editor, and two folks focussed on distribution, plus me (head cook and bottle washer).

Since Beca isn't likely to submit a final report, I have additional comments. We had many compliments on the newsletter. The fact that there was a finished newsletter printed and available when folks arrived Friday morning was very much appreciated. Editions had a much more interesting layout than in prior years. The "Ask Inara" column (written primarily by Yevgenia Khodor and Michael Tolan, with Heroes material by Mike Sprague) was incredibly popular. Having dropoff boxes in Ops and Info Booth really helped with receiving announcements for newsletter, although clearly (despite numerous posts to the various staff-related lists) some folks weren't organized about getting copy to the newsletter office in a timely manner. I'm sure that happens every year, but this year we were not up to the task of chasing down all the input that apparently usually gets chased down. Thankfully, the lines of communication between newsletter and programming cleared up mid-con, and folks in ops were in and out of the newsletter office often, so we did get most of the relevant info into the newsletter.

The editions for the newsletter were actually begun in December, well in advance of the con. Beca created a basic layout for each day and tweaked it as known announcements came in during December and early January. We also generated the "Ask Inara" content mainly during December, which was inserted once we were reasonably sure we'd have room for it. Having layout and design completed pre-con was a huge deal. It meant that we could collate submissions by 7 pm, send them to Beca for an hour or two's work on a draft, get the draft back and proofread, and have the whole newsletter edition done in under four hours, max. Toward the end of the con, it took only one hour to complete because so much advance work had been done. I highly recommend continuing this process in the future. It saved an incredible amount of time during the con, for all of us, and made the process much less stressful than it could have been. I also recommend that a similar "fun" column be generated for next year's newsletter. "Ask Inara" was the most popular part of the newsletter, to the point where some people were only reading that bit. "Quote of the Day" is also something we could have included earlier in the cycle with good results. I'm sure next year's staff can come up with an equally enjoyable idea.

Helen Francini ran ad sales. Despite being assigned to the job late (which was utterly my fault; I didn't initially know that ads were under my domain and then there was an email lag time in the middle of her recruitment to the job), she successfully sold $1625 in ads for the SB, which enabled our division to come in well under budget. The ad copy came in nearly on time for deadlines, and since Paul made space in the layout for those ads, everything went smoothly once we had the final copy. Helen has said that she would be interested in doing this task again for Arisia next year, and I heartily recommend her for the position. She has also submitted a report to the staff list; please refer to it for further details.

What went wrong? (And how would I fix it in the future, if needed?)
The PP was initially formatted without enough margin for trimming the edges of the book. The printer called me, I called Paul, they got together and sorted it out promptly. I don't believe this mistake will happen again, and it only cost us a little bit of time, which the printer had built into their schedule. Ultimately, not a real problem, and there shouldn't be an additional charge for this because of the review cycle scheduled in by the printer.

During the gripe session, one commenter said that the fold-out schedule grid didn't match the schedule listed in the main body of the PP. Paul seemed to be conferring with that individual when I had to go to my next meeting, so I don't know whether the attendee was confused or whether the grid was pulled slightly earlier than the rest of the PP content. Regardless, I mention it so we don't lose track of it for next year. We did have some proofreading efforts by the general staff as well as publications staff in particular, but this may have slipped through all the cracks.

There were a few comments at the gripe session about the icons used in the PP. Paul and I have a slight difference of opinion, here. I believe that, somewhere in the publication, there should be a key to the icons used. He overruled me, and we got comments about it in the gripe session. I'm not saying we need to have a key on each page, but at least once, it would be helpful to newer Arisians if we posted a key to the icons used in the book.

The PP was missing Anime and TV information. The person in charge of anime didn't resurface until January 13th, which was far too late for printing deadlines, even if we had been able to make room in the layout. Whoever ran Arisia TV didn't surface until the convention itself, so far as I can tell from my notes. This meant that none of that info was in the PP, and Arisia TV only made it into the Sunday morning newsletter edition. For the future, obviously, it would be ideal for people to submit their info on time, if not early. Given that anime and TV seem to be reasonably self-contained, I would hope that the schedules for each could be developed earlier in the year, although perhaps I just don't understand the complexity of the job. If that's the case, my apologies.

The only problem reported with the RG was that, in fact checking, it seems that most of the takeout and delivery option information per restaurant (not the same thing as delivery *services* available) was missing. Future editions of the RG might want to pay special attention to pizza delivery, as both Bertucci's and Cinderella's deliver to the hotel. :)

Again, as I don't believe Beca will be submitting a final report for newsletter, I have more fleshed-out comments on that area, particularly as I helped run it.

Newsletter distribution points were on floors 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 14, and 16 next to the elevators, as well as in the staff den, consuite, and info booth. Despite this, we had distribution problems because all of the elevator distribution boards were below eye level. This is my mistake -- I was told the hotel had plenty of extra easels to put Lisa Hertel's foam core pocket boards on. When I went to ask for the easels on Thursday night or Friday morning, there were none available for our use. Next year, have on the hotel resume to get 11 easels delivered to the newsletter room, and have newsletter staff run around setting them up with the first edition's distribution.

There are a lot of factors that go into printing the newsletter, and the decision to print it once a day was not an easy one. Ultimately, we felt that we didn't have enough trained staff or enough coping reserves to do two newsletters a day, other than the extra Masquerade/ Art Show edition. There were a number of programming changes over the course of the convention, but most of them were minor enough that we felt announcing them in the prior day's newsletter would suffice. This may have been a mistake, as when a panel was moved forward or back an hour in Fast Track, few people showed up at the new scheduled time but a number of folks showed up at the time published in the PP. In general, the pickup rate of the newsletter is far less than the pickup rate of the PP. I believe we had about 1000 Friday editions, 750 Saturday editions, 700 Sunday editions, 400 Masquerade editions, and 300 Monday editions picked up. We printed far more than that, of course, so that no distribution point was perpetually out of any of the editions. (More of each edition will be available at the debrief, for staff who want them.)

The newsletter could have used things like shuttle schedule and hotel recycling info. For next year, this data shouldn't be hard to coordinate, if someone remembers that it would be useful. The hotel is in the process of going green, and they do separate their trash for us, so folks shouldn't be worried about throwing away their recycling. Shuttle info for next year will of course be different, and hopefully the shuttle runs will be on a more predictable schedule, as well. In addition, perhaps people learned this year that if they don't submit copy to the newsletter, it doesn't get printed. I coordinated data with various folks who ran events, as well as various areas of the staff who wanted notes in the newsletter. This worked reasonably well, but could definitely be improved next year.

Errata communication between programming and newsletter was initially rough. What worked in the end was having a google doc edited by programming as soon as they had a change to announce, and then that document was gone over by newsletter staff just before generation of the rough draft newsletter edition. Once we ironed out the details (making sure each change listed said what time and day, as well as the panelist and panel in question), this worked quite well. Specifically, Rachel Silber and Jeff Warner were fabulous with this, once they realized it was a concern.

I don't believe that two editions of newsletter were needed per day this year (other than the extra Masq edition, obviously). That's a judgement call to be made per year, though, I think, if there's enough staff to do it. This year, the staff was mostly new to newsletter, there wasn't a lot of immediately vital information to distribute, and we had fewer submissions than expected for reported events and announcements.

Finally, there was a miscommunication between Lew Wolkoff (editor of the newsletter in prior years) and myself. After a number of initial emails, I stopped getting responses from him and never received the pre-Thanksgiving work we had discussed. What I should have done was call him, at that point, but I was too busy with other aspects of my job and honestly didn't think of it. For that, I am incredibly sorry. After I sent a few more emails, I decided he had gone dark. I sent him an email politely saying that we had found someone else who wanted to do the newsletter, and she had already started putting together layout ideas. I assumed when I didn't hear back from him on that email that he decided to work a different area of the convention this year. Instead, he apparently never received my emails and arrived late Friday night with the assumption that he was again the newsletter editor. It was quite stressful and embarrassing, all around. He ended up being quite an asset to the Ops Division instead, but I suspect he is still quite unhappy with me over this miscommunication, for which I am very sorry.

For next year's newsletter needs, here's what I would recommend: If there are a large number of programming changes (for whatever reason), have a separate publications errata sheet, making it a totally separate publication to be updated every few hours, as needed. (Change the color of the sheet each time it's updated.)

Make the newsletter deadline noon instead of 6 pm, and figure on having an edition of the newsletter out on the racks by 4 pm. This gives 2 am submitters a chance to get their info into the next edition, and it has the newsletter info out well in advance of the evening's parties. Have a few reporters running around the convention (my lone reporter flaked out on me, and I didn't have the time for the job), and submit a few paragraphs of reporting to add to the newsletter. Have four or five people photographers, instead of this year's two photographers (one of whom was largely overburdened with two other at-con jobs).

If there must be two editions of the newsletter per day, then the other deadline could be midnight for submissions, and have it roll off the printer at 4 or 5 am for the early birds. If you were to do it this way, you would have more accurate information every 12 hours, but it would be at great cost to the staff's sleep, and I would very, very highly recommend having an entirely different newsletter team for the AM versus PM editions. Even working with an average staff of five per day, doing the newsletter was a lot of work this year, required a lot of coordination and a lot of hours.

On more a more general publication note, there was some confusion this year as to which branch of Arisia should produce the staff card/ sheet for the con. It led to a bit of frustration in all areas. In the future, I agree with comments about having this be a task assigned specifically to one entity. Because I didn't realize that it was thought to be on my plate, I didn't make sure it got accomplished. Sorry ...

What sort of schedule/timeline did you use (and how would you
alter it next year, if applicable)?

The official pubs timeline was supposed to be as follows:

9/1/2007 deadline for NCOA database updates; create mini mailer postcard for printing
9/14/2007 integrate NCOA into the database; master of mini mailer postcard to printer
9/21/2007 send database to printer for mini mailer
9/28/2007 bulk mailing of mini mailer to post office, foreign and domestic
10/1/2007 write ad solicitation for all publications; preliminary panelist list from Programming for SB
10/15/2007 ad solicitation sent out
11/9/2007 get floor plan and list of artists from Art Show
11/14/2007 SB ad reservation deadline
11/21/2007 Rough draft data from Programming for schedule to start doing layout for PP
11/23/2007 submit hotel resume info to Hotel
11/30/2007 GOH bios to SB; get all panelist bios from Programming for SB
12/1/2007 RG final content deadline; SB ad copy deadline
12/3/2007 proof of RG to concom
12/7/2007 Get staff list from all divisions possible, at least rough draft
12/10/2007 proof of RG back from concom, & do final edits; get updated version of schedule from Programming for 2nd draft of PP
12/14/2007 SB final content deadline (including any late ads)
12/15/2007 RG in pdf for website & sent to printer
12/30/2007 proof of grid to concom
12/31/2007 proof of SB to concom; proofread PP; proof of PP to concom
1/5/2008 final corrections to grid back from concom
1/2/2008 PP & SB proofs back from concom
1/7/2008 SB due at printer; PP due at printer; grid due at printer
1/10/2008 all pre-con publications should be at printer, proofs back from printer, and in production at printer
1/10/2008 newsletter layout established, begin filling in with copy from various areas of the con
1/11/2008 Palm Pilot schedule and grid published on website (really, all printed materials should be on website in pdf & html formats)
1/16/2008 known submissions for newsletter received at newsletter@arisia.org for first edition
1/17/2008 all publications delivered from printer to con; print first edition of the newsletter daily at con, continue collating data and printing newsletter, with an extra edition for Masq (we chose to do only one edition on all other days)

I was brought on as pubs div head somewhere between July and August. (I dithered over it for a month or more, actually, as I wasn't sure I was up to that amount of work.)

August through September, really, I was filling in the pubs bit of the org chart while trying to figure out the game plan. I took a long look at the timeline spreadsheet, and tried to figure out whether the published and drop dead deadlines were at all reasonable with what my staff and the printers were suggesting. I had a couple of meetings, division-wide and one-on-one, to make sure I knew what was going on and who was planning to do what.

October and November were spent telling people to generate content, making sure copy matched actual plans of various entities, warning people about deadlines, etc.

December was when the real fun began. We approximately followed the timeline as detailed above, with minor edits. We got the SB and RG to the printer early. The newsletter templates and "Ask Inara" content was generated early. The PP was nearly in on time, until the formatting issue mentioned above. All else seemed to flow approximately according to plan, and we came in way under budget.

If I were to do it all over again, my major change would be doing the ad stuff and SB-related stuff earlier. I would also sent earlier, more frequent, and more copious notes to the general staff list and staff-announce about when things needed to be in for publications deadlines. Managing others' expectations earlier and more thoroughly would have been a good move. :)

Vendors/Expenses and Budget?
Rick Kovalcik took care of the toner, paper, and maintenance kit order for his black & white printer (used for all but the masquerade edition of the newsletter), and his receipts came to $436.98. Paul took care of the toner for his color printer (used for the masquerade edition of the newsletter), which came to $112.06.

Buzz organized the Braille PP printing via the vendor Jennco, which I believe cost around $200. (I don't have his receipt yet, at least so far as I can tell.)

The big expense was, of course, the professional printer for the PP, SB, and RG. We used Ambit Press this year, a first for Arisia. I've had a bit of experience with them in my mundane life, and they were located in Kendall Square, so I asked them for a bid as well as the bid we got from Charlie at BFS. Initial bid from Ambit was nearly $800 less than BFS, and the timeline both printers gave me had a difference of only one day on the PP (by far the hardest publication to print), so I decided that day was worth the savings. In the process of printing, of course, a few factors changed (how many RGs to print, needing to slightly reformat the PP margins, which cost us a day of printing, etc.). I do not currently know the final bill cost, although I have put out some feelers to try to find out before we get the credit card bill.

The total budget for this year's pubs division was $9,149.89, plus the addition of the ads sold by Helen, which comes to a total of $10,744.89 in money we could have spent on publications. The final cost of printing from Ambit is not yet in my inbox, but if we estimate it to be $8K (and I know it's somewhere around that, since the initial estimate was $7700), and estimate the Braille PP to be around $200, then publications' total cost this year might be as much as $2,000.00 under budget. Even if I'm forgetting something in my calculations, we definitely saved the con a lot of money. I am exceedingly proud of this fact.

Experiments to try next year?
Other than described above? Very little.

Having people email newsletter input was great. More of that, please.

I do think that the newsletter editor should be an experienced user of layout and publishing tools, as that worked extremely well for us this year. Also, I think the publications in general could use additional whimsy and silliness.

Mike suggests I get hookers & booze for everybody (or at least my staff) with the extra money in the budget. ;)

Any comments about the rest of the con?
I had a fabulous time this year, as did most of my staff. Poor Beca was scared away by extreme attendee behavior, I think, but everything else was a smashing success.

Ideally, this report and those of my department heads will furnish enough information that anyone organized enough can take this info and run with it for publications next year. I didn't specifically train a replacement because my choice of assistant div head was uninterested in the job for this year or next. I do have some ideas for who would be capable of running pubs next year, but I don't know if Jill has someone in mind already. :)