Divide to conquer magazine production - Fine Point Communications

Magazine publication is the largest project that an independent school communicator often tackles in a year.

It’s expensive, involving not just the hard costs of printing and postage but also soft costs such as staff time and attention. It’s lengthy: The process stretches out over months. And it’s complex: With dozens of interlocking parts, just one bobbled step can disrupt the schedule.

The production process can easily overwhelm, especially as one juggles other responsibilities. To simplify things, approach each issue not as one giant project but as three smaller ones — the front of the book, the back of the book, and features in the middle.

A bonus: This arrangement brings greater focus to each section, instead of allowing the magazine to sprawl.

Three-part harmony

Use the front of the book to report campus happenings of note, especially academic news. The letter from the head of school, which is often the last piece of the issue, folds in here. So does the table of contents, which needs finalized page numbers. Accordingly, this section will have the latest deadlines.

The back of the book can have a strong development focus: Alumni class notes and life events traditionally run here, so other matters relating to alumni relations logically fit alongside. Copy for these pages should be due and designed first, since nothing here is particularly time-sensitive.

The middle of the book holds the marquee content: feature stories such as long-form narratives, personality profiles, photo essays, and more. These articles often require significant preparation, such as a special photo shoot for the subject of a profile. Features also draw close attention from stakeholders, so an editor should allow lots of time for review and to incorporate feedback.

The opening: campus and news

The front of the book particularly suits short, “quick-hit” pieces. For inspiration, flip inside three independent school magazines considered last year for the Robert Sibley Magazine of the Year Award (alongside five college magazines).

Lawrenceville School uses recurring briefs, such as “Lawrenceville 101” (a close look at one course), “They Said It” and “Old School” (pulling quotes from the school paper, decades apart), and the self-explanatory “3 things we learned producing this issue.”

Sidwell Friends alternates reported news items with photo pages capturing events. It has a regular “5 Questions” feature, and it wraps up the just-completed sports season. Sidwell does not include a letter from the head; instead, a letter from the editor begins the issue.

Williston Northampton relies more on photos in the front of the book than its two peers; several pages have fewer than 100 words. It also presents development news in this section, rather than later in the issue.

All three share a quick-turnaround nature; none of these pages would require much back-and-forth with stakeholders from an editor. They also do a fair amount of “repurposing” — using content already produced for other purposes, rather than relying on newly commissioned pieces.

The closing: Alumni updates

The structure of independent school magazines closely follows that of our collegiate counterparts. Nothing epitomizes this echo like Class Notes — the personal submissions from alumni in the back of each issue.

These invite alum participation, and schools often devote lots of space to Class Notes. Lots of time, too: Submissions have to be solicited, cleaned up, fact-checked and proofread, photos selected, and captions written. At some schools, the designed pages go to volunteer class agents for pre-publication review.

These steps mean that Class Notes gets the earliest copy deadline in each issue, often weeks ahead of the feature articles.

The back of the book can offer other enticements: Williston Northampton spotlights alumni gatherings with photo collections. Sidwell includes a crossword puzzle in each issue. And Lawrenceville invites the school archivist to reflect on the past and carry it into the present.

The middle: Features and storytelling

While Class Notes are a big draw, we like to think that people open and keep magazines for the feature stories.

Is your school a “theme school,” where each magazine issue focuses on one topic? If so, start the clock on your upcoming issue even earlier so you can identify, discuss and decide on options. As with chunking the magazine into sections, a theme can focus and organize articles. Some schools see them as too confining, though.

There’s no need to commission a lot of features: Lawrenceville, Sidwell Friends and Williston Northampton do just two or three in each issue. Consider doing fewer long stories but being more ambitious with each one.

As we advised in an earlier Refill, make sure that each feature — and, ideally, every story in a magazine — tells the reader why this matters, what this moment means to the school.

The stretch between when features are assigned and when the first drafts land is a great opportunity to shift editorial focus toward other parts of the book.

The process: Production essentials

Prioritize a good relationship with a designer who understands and follows your editorial direction. Some schools stay in-house for this service, while many others turn to off-campus solutions. Whichever option you choose, treat this as a partnership with give and take: A designer should feel comfortable raising ideas for presentation and, where, necessary, pushing back gently to maintain visual appeal.
Create and maintain a production calendar. We rely on spreadsheets to know the status of every piece in a given issue. Trying to keep all the information in your head is a fool’s errand: Our grid for one fall 2025 issue contained 22 columns and 30 rows. This sort of tracking will reveal whether any of the three sections is lagging the others.
Establish deadlines by working backward from when this issue should hit mailboxes. Allow two weeks for postal delivery and two more for printing. Then figure out production time from there. For instance, we advise schools to set their Class Notes deadline five months before the mailbox date. So a summer edition that targets July 31 in mailboxes would need Class Notes by Feb. 28.
Schedule regular check-ins with freelancers and staff about their assignments. These will update your production calendar, and they also keep everyone aware of the many moving parts and the importance of meeting deadlines.
Consider an off-campus managing editor. This person monitors the nitty-gritty of production and coordinates with the designer and printer to keep things on schedule; this allows an on-campus editor in chief to focus on the content. (If you’re interested, Fine Point Communications provides both this service and magazine writing to schools.)

Fine Point Off-Site update

It’s nearly time to unveil our brand-new conference for communications directors, the Fine Point Off-Site.

We are so excited to gather with directors on Feb. 25 in Seattle. Attendees are coming from across the country to discuss the issues most pertinent to independent school communications, led by experts in the field.

Our keynote speaker is two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Eli Saslow, who’ll describe how he turns moments of inspiration into unforgettable storytelling.

Bringing Eli to Seattle is just one lever we’ve pulled toward making this a great day of professional development, one well worth a communications director’s limited time.

If you live on the West Coast or will be coming to the NAIS Annual Conference, don’t miss this great opportunity!

What’s new at Fine Point Communications

Along with producing the Off-Site, Fine Point Communications will contribute to other events during the winter conference season:

On Feb. 4, our principal, Scott Butterworth, will present on crisis communications to the Small School Leaders Conference.
On Feb. 6, Scott will present on creativity in communications, development and admissions materials at the Educating Girls Symposium.
And Scott will co-present with Christina Hultholm of Grace Church School at the NYSAIS Advancement and Communications Conference, which runs March 4-6 in New Paltz, N.Y. Our topic will be “The Complete Communicator: Mastering the Skills That Matter Most.”