How to run a magazine pt. 3
And now it’s time for another “what Jacey doing this week” post. I hope you don’t get tired of reading these. I was just telling Jillian this morning, at the board meeting, that writing them is pretty helpful to me. Almost like a huge data dump of everything I have to do for the week, helps me get a handle on what needs to be done.
Okay, first the stage setting – We are at the very very end of the Autumn 2014 issue cycle, the middle of the Winter 2014 issue cycle, and the very beginning of the Summer 2015 issue.
First, the Autumn 2014 issue – community. Kitten is moving this month so he is running a bit behind on layout so instead of having it all to me and me working on it, he’s staying up late and sending me things each day. It’ll work out the same, but harder for him, I think.
He sends me the magazine in low-res pdfs, 20 pages at a time. I read through every page, look at every ad, every graphic, everything, and keep notes on anything I see that needs to be changed. Often it’s a “two” into a “2”, sometimes it’s a misspelling (this time it was “performance” instead of “performance”), and occasionally it’s a wrong caption (Deb will be much happier if we don’t call her fuzzy woolen sample a “slick woolen example”) or photos in the wrong order, and every once in a while it’s just that I want an ad switched with another ad.
I’d like to take this chance to publically say that when you see “fiber” spelled “fibre”, we didn’t miss that, we left it. We like to preserve regional spellings. If a Canadian writes the article, fibre will have lustre. If an American writes it, fiber will have luster. It appears that this makes some people see red but it’s just the way we roll.
So that’s what I’m doing right now, fine-tooth-combing the PDFs. After I send him my notes, he’ll fix any mistakes that are actually mistakes and uploads the files to the printer where I’ll look at them via their pre-press portal. This is super cool as it looks just like the magazine and if I’m feeling shaky about an issue, this step always eases my worries and I start getting excited. I look over everything once more and then give an ok or a no-kay. If it’s a no-kay, Kitten fixes the issue and re-uploads the troublesome pages.
Then it goes to press.
That’ll happen this week.
On Friday Levi will send the updated mailing list to the printer and if the name isn’t on that list, they don’t get a copy. Which reminds me, that’s the other thing I have to do, e-mail everyone that needs to but has yet to, resubscribe. We do that by comparing the e-mail addresses on the Autumn 2013 mailing list with the e-mail addresses on the Autumn 2014 mailing list. Not the slickest way, I’m sure, but it gets the job done.
Once that’s done, that issue drops off my cycle list. Shew. It’s always a relief. By September 10th, it’ll ship to readers.
The middle of the winter 2014 cycle is a bit easier. I just got back the articles from Levi (remember, I edit them, sent them to him, he edits them and sends them back). I look over them one more time and by the end of the week will send them all to Kitten.
Very Beginning of the Summer 2014 cycle means that between today and tomorrow I’ve got to e-mail everyone about their Fine Issue proposals. I’ve mostly got it planned out but there’s still a bit of work to do on it. I know all the articles but have to figure out the word counts and the budget. We have space for 35,000 words in each issue, that’s assuming we use roughly the same amount of photos and our ads are all full. Once I gave Kitten 49,000 words, 50% more than would fit. I’ve gotten better at planning but it’s always tricky.
In the misc. category, I’ve gotta get the website ads ready to go live in 10 days and get the website all prepped for the issue switch over. Thankfully, Jessica, who built the website, is taking on this job, I just have to get her the materials.
Of course there’s always e-mails and packing magazines for LYSs and back orders.
Oh, and I have to hurry and find a photo of a Shetland sheep! It’s an emergency!
xo,
jacey
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