Digital yearbooks are a great way to raise funds. Physical, printed yearbooks can be costly and, as you said, ads can really only defray some of those costs.

Digital yearbooks, however, can be made for relatively cheap and sold at a much higher profit margin. Selling a $1 CD or DVD for $20 is a heck of a lot better way to raise funds than selling a $14 yearbook for that same $20.

I've also seen some schools that cut down their printed yearbook to a manageable, affordable size and pair it with a digital yearbook that can obviously hold much more information.

Yearbook Alive is the only company that I've dealt with and I've found them to be great. It's easy to use and it's relatively cheap. I don't know of any other companies offering this service, but I'm sure there are others.

Yearbooks have gotten so expensive that no money is left over for the school. In fact, the ads that are sold really just defray some of the cost. i have been researching a way to make money on the yearbook and till make it affordable for the students. This is what I have come up with so far.

Odyssey Interactive - A Digital Media Company

It allows ful color pics, individual sudent pages and signing of each others books.