We did our own yearbook for the second year in a row this past Spring. We did the lay-out and then had a local printer copy and bind it. We got around 250 books, 72 pages, mostly black and white but 2 color pages. Cost was about $8.50 and we charged $10 or $11. Fifth graders got a free copy. The cover art was done by a fifth grader and voted on by the faculty and yearbook committee.
For a yearbook committee we had a creative memory consultant and a couple of people that were really good on the computer. The rest of us (all 3) were diligent about getting pictures of every grade. We also had a wedding photographer that took the candid class pictures. The company (Christmas City) that took the student pictures for purchase gave us all those head shots for free and also supplied and developed all our film for FREE.
If you have someone that is into scrapbooking and have a local printing company that has done any kind of advertising book with pictures you really don't need a yearbook company. The first year was a little hard but, honestly, the money we saved and the freedom we had to do everything on our time schedule made it worth it.
Hard back and soft back is always a hot topic in a school. Most kids want hard backed books but can only afford the soft cover books. Sounds like my tastes in automobiles! I would love to drive a Lexus but have a Hyundai instead!
It seems that most elementary schools choose to go soft covers due to cost. Middle schools of grades 5-6 may also go with soft covers. Our 7-8 grade students want the hard cover like their older brothers and sisters in high school, but most are unwilling to part with the money which can range from $20 to 35.
We had a difficult time two years running in selling the minimum 350 books even though we have 630 students in our building. I truly believe it is competition for the dollar. Although we are one of the 203 poor schools in Ohio, we still see kids show up at football, volleyball games, and field trips with $20 to 30 in their pockets. Many of these are the same kids on reduced or free lunch programs.
This competition for the dollar makes some decisions pretty simple. The result may not be popular, but at least a yearbook can break even with a softcover. Most of the extra books I do come to me partly due to schools not being able to sell the books they have contracted to sell. In Ohio, it is not legal for a school organization to run in the red. So selling all the books is a must.
Another key to yearbook sales is getting the word out. Kids forget to bring money. Parents need to know when the sale is on.
We use School Pictures and they do our individual student pictures also. We are private, so I don't know about public schools, but they do a good job of producing it for us. We layout the "special" pages and they do the class ones. It runs us about $12 but we are a small school and it is b&w w/ soft cover, etc.
We're K-5 with just under 500 students. Our yearbooks are soft cover, black & white and costs students $8.50. As stated earlier, we use Lifetouch and to get candid shots in like the previous poster mentioned we have teachers and room parents take shots during parties, events, and just daily classroom activities and then our Head Room parents are provided a page to fill with collages of these pictures. The parents add some clipart and captions and the pages turn out really cute.
Hi, I'm new to this forum. I am a middle school language arts and reading teacher in a suburb of Dayton, OH. I have been doing our school's yearbook for more than fifteen years.
We have been a Taylor Publishing customer during that time and have never had a problem with them. Taylor provides four or five programs, some of which will provide software for creation of layouts and management.
I also complete yearbooks for about sixteen other schools who either don't have the expertise or a staff member willing to do a yearbook.
I use Pagemaker 7.0 and a Taylor plug-in called YB!Pro to create my files. I save time by using the Yearbook Pro plug-in because it flows my digital mugshot photos into the publication in a matter of seconds! No more alphabetizing and placing stickers on the backs of student mugshot photos then marking them for page placement and page number, a job that usually took me at least a week!
Our book is $25 with fifty-six pages of black and white. An additional tip-in of four color will add $800 to the total cost.
I also use a printing company out of Mansfield, OH that will do 56 page softbacked book for about $11 each.
Lifetouch is very active in our area especially in elementary settings. I have seen some of these books, and they seem to have very good quality; however, they tend to lack candid pictures because their photographers only visit the schools on a limitied basis.
JHB - our elementary school book this past year was full-color, about 40 pages, but SOFT-COVER. Our price was $12 or $15 (can't remember) and we profited over $2.4k from about 400 books (710 kids, 30 classrooms). We used Kaiser Studios which might be a local company. The $ details are from memory.
The key factor in price, I think is binding. My son's middle school book was at least $30. More pages, but very little color. I would MUCH rather pay $20 for a soft cover middle school year book and save the really fancy keepsake book (i.e. hard-cover, lots of color) for high school.
