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Year Book Vendors
Hi everyone.
I was wondering if you guys can throw out a few names of yearbook vendors and describe what your experience with them has been like.
We are currently looking for a new yearbook vendor for the 2010/11 school year. Our contract is with memorybook. They have awesome customer service and a great online program that really puts us in control of designing the books! The only problem is the price. This year we ordered 300 books with 64 pages (only 4 are color) and we had personalized covers created by our 4th and 5th grade students.
Total cost......$4206.00 which puts the cost of the year books at $14.02 per book. Initially we were considering marking the book up to $15 or $16.00 - but the majority of the officers and committee members felt that was too much money to ask for an elementary school yearbook. I wasn't invovled with the PTA last year but apparently they sold the books for $13.00 and sold less than half of the shipment! The books are still in storage.
We have considered looking for outside sponsors - but have to be careful with how we present that due to the by-laws. We are not in a position to offer any funraisers to help offset the costs of the book because we have several events already scheduled and March is off limits due to state testing.
Eitherway, we are stuck with these books because the prior admin entered into a two year contract. But I just wondered who everyone else uses and what do you feel is a reasonable price to pay for an elementary year book?
Thanks
Terri
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Joyce Baugher on -
Our school uses Lifetouch, who also does our student portraits. Their customer support is excellent, and they offer an online application that we use to design and build our yearbook.
We pay around $10 for a soft-cover, full-color yearbook, and the cost to the students is $14.00.
We do a yearbook pre-sale at the beginning of the school year, and then the extras are offered to the students when they come in.
Hope that helps!
Joyce
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Permalink Reply by Terri Hodges on -
Thanks...sounds like the prices are pretty standard. I do like the idea of a pre-sale at the begining of the year. Something we will definitely have to try!!!
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Permalink Reply by Alskagrl on -
Hi Terri,
Our PTA was in a similar situation with excess yearbooks. We sold them for a discounted price at registration time and made up some of the money.
We also use Lifetouch and have been quite happy with their customer support!
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Permalink Reply by Stacey Carroll on
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This year we are using Larry Allen & Co. We have a 56 page full color soft cover book with a full color custom cover (its $1 less for one color cover) - we sold them for $17 each including tax. We did a pre-sale for a couple weeks and sold 447 books (there are a little more than 630 students in our elementary school). We order about 30 extra books for sale at a higher price at the end of the year for those who missed the pre-sale. We did a fifth grade cover art contest and featured the winner on front and the 4 runners up on the back quarter scaled.
Last year, we used Lifetouch. 56 full color pages, soft cover with full color cover (we had to choose one of their covers). I think we paid about $17 each also.
We just went with the company that does the school portraits. Our new administrator changed the portrait photographer this year so that is why we are now with Larry Allen & Co (I think they are a part of Herff Jones).
For lifetouch, they have a web-based program for laying out the yearbook.
For Larry Allen & Co, its a disk program that you load onto your computer.
Both companies were pretty easy to work with.
Our books are delivered in late May. We distribute them the last week or so of school. We offer our extras sale about three weeks before school is out. First come, first served. We sold out of extras last year (only about 3 people did not receive a book).
Hope this helps
Stacey
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