Distributing, selling, leftover copies
What comes after printing and usually gets forgotten: organising the handover, late orders, closing the books — and what happens to the copies that are left.
After the print handover the project feels finished. It isn’t: three tasks are still to come, and all three land on one person if they weren’t shared out beforehand.
They aren’t big. But they are the part where an otherwise successful yearbook can still lose money or produce arguments.
1. Handing them out
Books arrive earlier than you think and weigh more than you think. 120 A5 copies are roughly four removal boxes and about 40 kilos. Settle two things before delivery:
- Where they get delivered. A private address is practical if somebody is there during the day. The school is practical if the office was asked first — taking in an unannounced pallet is nobody’s idea of fun.
- Who stores them. Until the handover they have to lie flat and dry. Not in a cellar, not in a car.
For the handover itself:
- One appointment, one hour, two people. Best at the leavers’ ball or when the certificates are handed out — everyone is there anyway.
- Print the name list, with payment status. Not on a phone: with no signal in the hall, the printout becomes the only truth.
- Tick off while the person stands in front of you. Not later from memory.
- Not paid = no book. It sounds strict, but it is the only rule that works. Make exceptions at the table and you never see the money.
If you hand the books out at the ball: plan it as a programme item, with a table and a time slot. A pile next to the cloakroom ends with five copies disappeared and three people who didn’t get one.
2. Late orders
There are always some: five to ten people who didn’t order a book and realise, leafing through somebody else’s, that they want one after all. Plus parents and grandparents who’d like a second.
Two routes, and you should decide beforehand which one:
Print a buffer. Ten per cent more than ordered. The simple way: demand is served immediately and the unit price is low, because the run went through in one go. The risk: leftovers, if you estimate too generously.
A collective reprint. Collect late orders up to a cut-off date and reprint once. The unit price is much higher because the setup costs are incurred again — so don’t sell late orders at the original price, or the year-group fund pays the difference.
Realistic recommendation: print a 10 % buffer. A reprint for twelve books is almost always the worse deal, and the spare copies find a use (see below).
3. Closing the books
The least popular part, and the one that causes arguments if it stays open too long.
- Everything on one page: income (sales, sponsors), expenditure (printing, shipping, merch), the difference.
- Note outstanding amounts by name and ask once kindly, once firmly. Then write them off — a year-group fund still chasing three people in September costs more nerves than it brings in.
- Use the surplus and vote on it. Leftover money belongs to the year group: a donation, one last party, a contribution to the ball, a gift to the school. What you should not do: leave it sitting with the treasurer “until we know what to do with it”.
- Send the accounts to everyone. One page. Nothing ends rumours about the year-group fund as thoroughly as a number everybody has seen.
If your year group collected the contributions through AbiHive, the basis is already there: the overview shows who has paid and how much has come in. That is exactly the list you need at the handover table, and the one the accounts rest on.
What happens to the leftover copies
Ten to twenty books will be left over. They aren’t worthless:
- The school archive. Two copies. Many schools collect yearbooks, and in fifteen years that will be the only copy anybody can still find.
- Sponsors. Take one round to every sponsor. It costs an afternoon and is the best groundwork the next year group could ask for.
- Teachers who contributed a lot, and the school office.
- Selling on at the ball, if you still have some — parents buy on the spot.
- One copy for the next year group. The most effective handover present there is: the next committee sees in five minutes what is possible. See Handing over to the next year group.
And there will still be five lying around. Give them away rather than storing them — a box of yearbooks in a cellar is never opened again.
The order, if it has to be quick
- Settle the delivery address and the storage place (before printing)
- Set and announce the handover date
- Print the name list with payment status
- Hand out, tick off, count what’s left
- Distribute the free copies (archive, sponsors, teachers)
- Close the books, send the accounts to everyone
- One copy plus the handover to the next year group
Takeaways
- Settle the delivery address and storage before printing. Books are heavy.
- Handover as an appointment with a printed name list, ticked off on the spot.
- Not paid = no book. No exceptions at the table.
- Printing a 10 % buffer is almost always better than a reprint.
- Close the books within four weeks and send the accounts to everyone.
- Leftover copies to the archive, the sponsors and the next year group.
More from Organisation
Schedule for a new year group: one school year, twelve stages
When do you start the yearbook, and what is due when? The process across a whole school year — with the dates that follow backwards from the leavers' ball.
Setting up the committee: who does what
How big does a yearbook committee need to be, which roles do you actually need, and how do you stop two people ending up doing everything? Roles, division, handovers.
Handing over to the next year group
Every year a committee starts from zero — even though the knowledge is already in the building. What to pass on, in what form, and the one hour that saves the next year group weeks.