I've done previous posts about what goes on behind the scenes at NWHS, but our sales manager encouraged me to share with you a more in-depth look at the life of a magazine advertisement. This is a little something I cooked up (or maybe just wrote) for our sales reps to help them understand the process. Now I offer it to you, the public, for your entertaiment.
Little Alexander the Ad first awakens in the mind of his caregiver, Catherine the Client. Catherine the Client might have some ad design experience (or at least, she may want to try). She may have her own ad designer, or she may want NWHS to help her make Alexander into a grown-up ad, ready to go out and face the world. In any case, she dreams up Alexander and sends him, in one form or another, to Sammi the Superlative Sales Rep at NWHS.
Sometime around the end of May: Alexander Meets NWHSWhether Alexander has been schooled and finished or is barely green-broke and hardly fit to be let from his stall, he arrives at NWHS through his own special email address,
ads@nwhorsesource.com. But wait! He can't get out. He struggles and pleads, begs Selene the Magnanimous Sales Manager to please pass him along to Graphic Design, where he will become a real ad, but this is not yet to be.
Why not? Because his destined partner, Alicia the Ad Agreement hasn't come through yet. Alexander wallows in abandoned loneliness, surrounded by other ads trapped in their own emails, along with article queries, web contact form messages, misdirected press releases, the occasional insurance scam, and cries for attention from several media companies that have nothing to do with the horse industry. (Luckily for Alexander and his kin, the even less appropriate emails are generally redirected to the fiery inferno of the spam box).
Once the ever-essential Alicia comes through, she is inspected to be sure all her blanks are filled in, then she spends a nerve-wracking period biting the edges of her pages while she waits for the approval of Adam the Anecdotic Accountant. If she's found lacking, she dejectedly returns to Selene the Magnanimous Sales Manager, and then on to Sammi the Superlative Sales rep, who must get further information from Catherine the Client.
June 1st-4th: Catching CatherineAt this point, Catherine's email has probably crashed, she's out in the barn where there is no phone reception, and there is a rapidly-shrinking window of opportunity to catch her before she goes out on the road for her next show.
Phew. Someone managed to catch Catherine the Client as she came in to change clothes after the new mare knocked her down into a large pile of unmanaged manure (perhaps Catherine should visit our online archives to learn how to take care of that problem). Under the watchful eye of Selene the Magnanimous Sales Manager, Alicia the Ad Agreement has her remaining blanks filled, and she once again sits in Adam the Anecdotic Accountant's box as credit is checked, awaiting the painful yet exhilarating stamp of blue ink that proclaims her APPROVED.
June 5th: Putting Together the PiecesWith her new badge of blue, Alicia the Ad Agreement returns to Selene's box, where she sits and preens while our good friend Alexander the Ad is prepared to meet her for the first time. But first...
Selene fills out an insertion order with Alexander's name and vital statistics (size, shape, color...the ad world does not judge, it simply records) and Alexander is assigned a number, which is placed on the run sheet (so he doesn't get lost) and on his new insertion order. Only once all the pieces are in order can Alexander be sent to the place where emails grow into real ads: Gertie the Dynamic Graphic Designer.
June 6th: Theres Sumthing WRong Wiht allex&rAlicia's already in great shape, but here, with Gertie, is where Alexander's flaws come to light. If he's missing pieces, Catherine the Client (who is now on the road with six horses, three dogs, and a handful of grandchildren, none of whom have a working cell phone) must be contacted to supply the wayward photos or text. Likewise, if Alexander was noted as camera ready but needs changes or comes in the wrong size or format, Catherine must be reached.
Finally, Alexander's in decent shape. He has all his pieces, he's the right size and color, and he's feeling pretty beaten and bruised but good about himself. He's stored on the computer under his special code, and printed and clipped to his insertion order, where he awaits his penultimate challenge: Evelyn the Evil Editor.
Now, if Alexander has been a good boy and if Catherine the Client has either made a truly camera-ready ad that is thoroughly proofread by her own designers, or if Alexander is being picked up from the previous month and has already been through his trials, he has nothing to fear. Evelyn the Evil Editor will glance over him, make sure everything is in order, give him a nice red checkmark and send him off to finally meet Alicia.
If, however, Alexander is new, he'll get close scrutiny. Instead of a red check, he'll likely have commas slashed, capitals lower-cased, content de-tangled and other critiques. Nearly bleeding with red ink, he'll slump back over to Gertie to have his wounds stitched back up and a fresh, clean version of himself saved and reprinted. Then it's back to Evelyn, where the red pen waits again.
Eventually, sometimes after several rounds of slashes and hacks, Alexander receives the red check of approval and is united with Alicia.
June 7th-10th: A Beautiful Friendship (or, Three's a Companionable Crowd)
Combined data from Alicia and Alexander is entered into the pair's new best friend, Jerry the Job Sheet. Jerry watches out over Alicia and Alexander as they head back to Selene the Magnanimous Sales Manager and thence to Sammi the Superlative Sales Rep to await Catherine the Client's approval.
All that and we still don't have a magazine yet? Not quite.
Alexander and his friends bounce back and forth between Catherine, Sammi, Selene, Gertie and Evelyn until no one can find any more flaws.
June 11th: Further Adventures with the Evil Editor
By this point, Evelyn the Evil Editor is chomping on her inbox because the magazine must be paginated
today and a few little Alexander-like creatures have not yet come back approved. As soon as they do, they return to Gertie, who makes sure all design times are duly noted, then offers them to Adam, who assures that Alexander will be provided for during his life as a real ad. With this established, he is tucked away in a file next to Evelyn's desk marked PAGINATION: DO NOT EXIT.
Finally, the day has arrived when Alexander will be placed amongst his fellow ads in what will eventually become the next issue of the magazine. A template that marks out all 72 (or so) of the magazine's pages sits on Evelyn's desk next to a giant cup of coffee. She's already had enough to make her already unclear handwriting nearly illegible, and a row of sharpened pencils sits by the scattered pages, waiting to prove it. No actual desktop is visible, except a small ring around the coffee cup.
Evelyn sketches out the layout of the magazine with her rapidly dulling pencils. Alexander must be placed in the best position possible, given the following circumstances: he cannot be on the same spread as a competitor's ad (they may get into a fight and Alexander isn't nearly as tough as he likes to think he is); if he was at the front of the magazine last month, he goes in the back this month; if she can, Evelyn will place him with a relevant article; Alexander must mix in correctly with other ads of varying size and shape, plus if he's color he must stay on a page allotted for color (remember, we don't judge—we just record).
Evelyn scribbles, erases, scribbles, drinks coffee, scribbles and scribbles some more. Once every ad has found a place (oh, look! Alexander is on page 53, next to the Horse Farm Management article that Catherine the Client needs to read), Alexander--and every other ad--is pulled out of the Pagination file (it's not an exit, it's a temporary vacation) and compared visually with the other ads in the same spread to ensure they'll work together effectively. Sometimes more scribbling occurs, but eventually, the scribbled template is handed to Gertie.
At this point, Andrew finds himself pulled from the electronic file where he had been sleeping, complete and whole, and placed in an electronic version of the magazine. This will be his permanent home...at least it should be.
June 12th: Down to the Virtual WireBut wait! Catherine just called and wanted to make a few changes to Alexander. A picture here, maybe a word or two there. She's back from her travels and just had a brilliant idea. Can she make the change? Well, that depends...
Changes at this point mean that Gertie must alter files that have already been placed, and there's no time to proof anything out. Not only is Gertie's time taken away from completing the rest of the magazine, but there's a chance the file won't be changed in all the right places and Catherine will think she's getting one thing when, in fact, the computer says another. For emergency changes, this may be worth it, though Catherine must be willing to pay for the time, since now Gertie must put in extra hours to get the job done.
Phew, okay, Catherine decided it wasn't
that important to change around her photos once she heard the fee. Gertie finalizes the magazine and she and Evelyn look through it (see
http://nwhorsesource.livejournal.com/tag/magazine+production+process for details) and the final file is metamorphosed, through the magic of computer science, into Peter the Print-Friendly PDF. Peter is uploaded to the printer's ftp site, carrying Andrew and his companions off into strange new worlds.
June 13th-14th: PDF Peter Propagates in Perpetuity (Not Really)Peter is opened by the printer, checked and converted, fixing formatting errors and incompatibilities with the printers' system. PDF Peter II, Son of Peter, is then uploaded to the printer's ftp site, from whence he is snatched back to NWHS, opened, dissected for errors, then approved or annotated for changes.
Any changes at this stage that stem from the printer's conversion are taken care of on their end. Changes from Gertie or Evelyn are subject to charge. Once Evelyn approves PDF Peter II, he is added to the print queue.
June 15th: Stop the Press!Catherine the Client may not want to pay, but her cousin, Rhonda the Realtor just lowered the price on one of her horse properties and wants to know if we can make the change. It's only the fifteenth, after all. The magazine doesn't come out for another half month.
Sammi the Superlative Sales Rep turns to Selene the Magnanimous Sales Manager, who checks with Evelyn the Evil Editor. Is the magazine REALLY at press? Yes. Alexander and his friends are all queued up and ready to become ink on paper. The process may have already begun. If Rhonda would like to pay to reset the printing plates for the entire magazine, she is welcome to do so. Otherwise, she must wait until the following month. But won't her clients be happy when they find that the little ranch house is $100,000 less than advertised?
June 16th-30th: Alexander on the Road
Yes, it's still a couple of weeks before the magazine hits the stands. But after printing, bundling, boxing and shipping, there's plenty of time for Alexander to reflect on his duties now that he is a real ad as he ships from the printer to the mailing house and from there to the stores and stands.
Between printing and reaching the customer, Alexander has rumbled along in the backs of trucks and sat shivering on a mailroom floor, but now he can relax. He's in the hands of Ricki the Reader, who will treasure him, at last.
Or at least let him inspire her to go buy her horse a treat.
We had a lovely overcast--but not too cold--day at Hovander Park in Ferndale, WA, and hopefully in December you will be able to view the results when you see our cover!
