Archive:Exec report - Journal Editor 2008 - 2009

Journal Editor: Karolina Hanula

Advertisers:

I created a Media Kit in Adobe Indesign. This was great because I got to know the program a little bit before the journal got going. Although the Media Kit was ready in the fall, I did not actually start seriously soliciting advertisers until mid January, as I was out of the city and then country for most of December until mid January. As soon as I returned, however, I started emailing advertisers. I sent cover letters, with a pdf of the Media Kit directly to the Marketing Managers. If the company had advertised with us before, I knew exactly who to talk to thanks to Jeff Mottershead. I did not print out any Media Kits as I felt that it was unnecessary and that most of them would be trashed anyhow. The responses I received were varied. Many companies were uncomfortable because of the “global financial crisis.” Hillsound, a new store on Gortex Row, was interested in our club but had no advertising budget to spend. G3 prefers to advertise in national publications, rather than local journals. Others simply ignored my phone calls and emails and hid in the back every time I tried to get a solid ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer from them. In the end I ended up going mostly with those companies who have advertised with us before: Famous Foods, Arc’teryx, Bivouac, Mountain Equipment Co-op, Mountain Hardwear. Valhalla Pure purchased a two-page slot, but hardly decided to do so until the week before the printer deadline. A new advertiser this year was Ryder Eyewear, Thanks to Richard So’s recommendation. Wilderness Medical Consultants bought a half-page ad, having initially sought advertising space on our webpage. I think that it would have been more prudent to begin soliciting advertisers earlier, however, things somehow worked themselves out in the end. I attempted to sell personal ads this year, but no body seemed interested. Creating a Media Kit over the summer and then soliciting advertisers as soon as possible might be the best way to go.

Design:

The design aspect was a bit tricky as I know that my personal aesthetics are rather simple and monotonous. I wanted a really poignant cover photo that wasn’t necessarily “epic”. I wasn’t sure if I should ignore my own preferences and put some terrifying feat of alpinism on the cover, but in the end I decided to go with Ran’s photo or the Harrison Hut; it seemed to subtly embody a lot of what the VOC is about. For the layout, I used Iva Cheung’s VOCJ50 as a template and worked from there. I altered the maser pages and then input all of the articles manually. I’m not sure if there is a faster way of doing this, but it essentially took me two days and nights working non stop to get all of the articles in. I think it is a good idea to input articles as you edit them, which will make the last few days less of a crunch and minimize the amount of ridiculous mistakes.

I used Helvetica, as everybody was telling me what a magical font it is. Apparently it is being credited as having had a major influence on Obama’s presidential election. However, Jeff Mottershead has pointed out that although a sans serif font is great in headings, it might have been better had I used a serif font in the body text. In retrospect, I definitely agree: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sans-serif. Photos:

People seemed reluctant to submit photos to the journal this year, and the VOC gallery was looking pretty bare. I posted two or three threads on the forum soliciting photos and had only two or three replies. It would be good to be more aggressive on that front next year, as there are many brilliant photographers in the VOC.

Editing:

Editing was a massive crunch, as most people submitted their articles the day of, or the day after the deadline. There were a few articles submitted two days before the deadline, but they required little editing and mostly just made their way into the layout. Another member who had not confirmed an edit that was made a month earlier finally got around to reading it and did not want any changes made to her original draft. This caused a lot of confusion just ten hours before the printer deadline. I think for the future if a member doesn’t take the time to confirm an edit before the deadline, you shouldn’t feel bad about not putting his/her article into the journal.

I organized an editing blitz at Calhoun’s a week or two before the printer deadline. The point was to have people read over drafts to make sure no silly typos were there. Some people, however, got a bit too ambitious and edited a lot of the stylistics in the articles as well. This didn’t work out so well, as I didn’t have time to read over the articles before inputting them into the journal, and in cases I just ended up scraping the second edit for fear of losing the author’s original voice.

Printing:

We worked with Hemlock again this year, but there is plenty about them in the two previous exec reports. They were extremely helpful and patient throughout the process, and I think they did a great job getting the journal out on time. They even sent the hard proof to me in Alberta, as I was there the week after submitting the PDFs. We saved on shipping costs by driving up to Burnaby to pick up the journals ourselves.

Because of the growing number of active VOC members, we decided to print more journals this year. We had enough advertising revenue to print 300 copies of the VOCJ51 instead of the invoiced 250.

The cost of printing is going up as the quality of the VOCJ increases. There are many factors that make the Journal more expensive, such as FSC paper and cover lamination. If we want the Journal to keep getting better, we have to work harder at getting advertisements.

Suggested timeline for next year:

• Now: Make a Media Kit and start looking for advertisers
• Fall - Winter: Start soliciting articles and photos, edit and input them into the layout. Have one or two people read over the edits to make sure there are no typos or stupid mistakes. Later you can rearrange the order you want them in. Having somebody else checking “facts” such a names of people and mountains would be extremely helpful.
• March: Final layout and editing changes. Cover design. Submitting to printers.
• April: VOC Banquet, handing out journals, sending invoices and journals to advertisers, sleep.