PUBLICATIONS COMMITTEEReport for the October, 2003, Board Meeting"Word" Version of ReportThe 2004 Yearbook is slightly behind schedule and our hopes to get the book mailed out on time this year may be further affected by the departure of one of our publication staff members. The attempt to increase ads in the 2004 Yearbook with a slight drop in fees did not work. You will recall that we dropped the price of a full-page color ad from $545 to $495, and a similar drop for other ads. Despite this drop in ad prices, there was a 25% drop in the number of ad pages from last year. Thus, the 2004 Yearbook will have fewer pages than 2003. The combination of fewer ads, plus a lower fee for the ads we did get, could mean the Yearbook will lose money. In the four years from 1999 to 2003, there was a 56% drop in ad revenue (from $160,236 in 2000 to $71,222 in 2003). 2004 paints an even bleaker picture. Clearly, the Yearbook is in trouble. I note in the minutes of the October, 2002, meeting of the Board that you requested proposals on the Almanac and Yearbook’s future. The minutes of the February, 2003, and June, 2003, meetings indicate the requested proposals were not developed and presented to the Board. I was appointed as the new chair of CFA’s Publications Committee in June, 2003, and I quickly pulled together a task force to develop the requested proposals. On August 20 & 21, 2003, our group met at the CFA Central Office to develop a set of proposals for you. Attending this meeting were Tom Dent, Carol Krzanowski, Gina (Wiley) Lehman, Lorraine Saunders, Liz Watson, Eric Won, and myself. Also invited was Kathy Calhoun but work prevented her from joining us. My thanks to each of these people who gave up several days of their time to attend this meeting. Several attendees flew long distances to be with us. Our group had a diversified background and brought different talents and skills to the meeting. The one thing each of them brought with them was an incredible enthusiasm for the project. I think you will see that enthusiasm reflected in our proposals. ALMANAC One of the first things we discussed was the purpose for the Almanac. We felt that was crucial to any recommendations regarding the future of the Almanac. The Almanac succeeded The Quarterly, which was issued four times a year and included a show calendar and assorted business for our clubs, such as deadlines, a listing of judges, resolutions/amendments, etc. The Almanac was proposed to be a more frequent form of communication with our clubs; it has grown beyond the initial concept approved by the Board. Our group agreed that the purpose of the Almanac should be to present news that is “fleeting in nature.” It should include current events, such as the show calendar, show results, listings of Board members/judges/clerks, fees, and articles which do not contain information that would be more permanent in nature. Examples of such articles would be the annual article on statistics from the previous show season which appears in the August issue and the Distinguished Merit article which appears in the September issue each year. We considered, but rejected, the possibility of moving from a magazine to a newspaper format. We believed this would result in the loss of some corporate advertisers. The loss in photo quality would also make breeder ads less desirable. For those companies and breeders who continued to advertise, they would insist on lower ad rates. Thus, we thought any savings would be outweighed by loss in revenue. We have a proposal below to provide some of the Almanac contents on-line since the information is time-sensitive and the web is a better means of communicating information quickly. There is a built-in delay when providing information via a magazine that is printed and mailed to subscribers. We also have below a proposal to dramatically increase the number of ads placed in the Yearbook. As a result of these two proposals, we recommend reducing the frequency of issuing the Almanac. We propose publishing the Almanac six times a year rather than twelve. The Almanac lost $43,000 last year. That’s a dramatic loss to the association. A less frequent issuance would have the effect of lowering that loss. There would still be a loss, but Tom Dent, Gina Lehman and I analyzed the data and believe we can lower the loss to $29,000 a year. One of the factors contributing to this continued loss would be that our corporate advertisers who place an ad in each issue of the Almanac would only have six opportunities to advertise rather than twelve. This means we would only benefit from half the advertising income from our corporate advertisers. Since we would include two months worth of show results, etc. the per issue cost increases. We will not be reducing the contents by half simply by reducing the number of issues by half. The biggest benefit to putting out only six issues a year will be in the reduction of staff time devoted to the Almanac. Again, we will not be reducing staff time by half, since the larger issues will require more staff time than our current issues, but we do anticipate some savings in staff time. That puts less pressure on the staff and frees up time for them to devote to other projects, such as what we hope will be a larger Yearbook. We propose that the Almanac accept classified ads. This would be a less expensive way to advertise and an attempt to bring in additional advertising revenue. Let’s give it a try. One other recommendation we have is to remove the minutes of the Board meetings and the proposed amendments/resolutions from the Almanac. We recommend making them available for free on-line and providing hard copies to anyone who wants them for a small fee to cover our costs, perhaps $10/year for all three sets of minutes and the proposed amendments/resolutions. Currently, CFA is making copies of this material available for free to all judges, club secretaries and Breed Council members. Since they are currently distributed via the Almanac, this means CFA is sending four free copies of the Almanac to hundreds of people who are not already subscribers. This is a very expensive way to distribute this material. We believe our recommendation makes financial sense. It would have the side benefit of making the minutes available sooner than having to wait for the production cycle of the magazine. Once the Secretary has finalized the minutes, it would be quick and easy to convert them for the web. Hard copies could be printed at, and mailed from, the Central Office for far less than the cost of an issue of the Almanac. ON-LINE ALMANAC For several years CFA has provided Epoints to subscribers for a fee of $25/year for the first set and additional sets (regional) for additional fees. Epoints is a listing of national and regional points which is provided monthly via an email attachment. We propose that effective January 1, 2004, CFA make Show Results available electronically each month for a fee of $25/year. This would be the same Show Results provided in the Almanac. Like Epoints, the Almanac would continue to carry the Show Results. For a subscription fee, subscribers could get the same information, just faster. We believe this would be very popular with those who are showing on a regular basis. Tom Dent and Connie Sellitto, the programmer on staff, agree that very little work would be required to make this available to the fancy and that this target date is realistic. Effective May 1, 2004, we propose having a web site with some of the information currently available in the Almanac. The site would be password protected and for a subscription fee (probably $50/year) we would provide Epoints, Show Results, a listing of current judges & clerks, and a listing of grands and DMs for the preceding month. These lists would be updated monthly at first, and after we gain experience, it is likely that this information could be updated weekly. As we gain experience, it is also anticipated that additional information would be made available, such as the White Pages – the directory that accompanies the January Almanac. By making this available on-line, information can be updated throughout the year rather than once a year as with the hard copy. We would also consider adding the statistics from the previous show season so exhibitors have easy access to this data when considering which shows to attend in the current season. In the future, advertising opportunities would be available on this web site and we would solicit photos of Grands and DMs for a fee. Once this web version of the Almanac is available, we propose to discontinue distributing Epoints via email. YEARBOOK As with the Almanac, we discussed the purpose of the Yearbook before working on a proposal for the future of the Yearbook. We agreed that the Yearbook is for material that is more permanent in nature, items that could be used in future years for research. It is also a major marketing tool to bring new people into the fancy. As noted above, the Yearbook has dramatically lost advertisers over the years. Along with this, fewer Yearbooks are sold each year. Many things have contributed to this situation. The popularity of cattery web sites is certainly one factor. Exhibitors can place photos of their cats on their web site, and brag about their accomplishments at the shows, almost instantly and for free, compared to waiting 9 months or longer for the Yearbook and paying $500 for a full-page color ad. That’s a long wait, and expensive when you consider the dwindling number of Yearbooks being sold. Any discussion of ceasing to publish the Yearbook meets with cries from many people who remember the Yearbook in its glory days, with many more pages, chock full of content and gorgeous photographs. Quite a few of today’s breeders and exhibitors comment that it was our Yearbook that brought them into the fancy. Many in Europe were drawn to CFA via our Yearbooks. Not too many years ago Marna Fogarty told me that 1/3 of our Yearbooks were sold overseas. The Yearbook was a wonderful ambassador for CFA. It was something which brought pride to our association, and rightly so. Rather than recommend that the Yearbook be folded into a 13th edition of the Almanac or that we simply do away with the Yearbook, our group has some recommendations which we think can bring the Yearbook back to life. We’re very excited about these recommendations and believe they offer the only real hope to keep the Yearbook alive. We recommend that the Yearbook be more breed-focused. We suggest that all ads be placed in the book by breed. Each breed/division would have a two-page introduction. These two pages would include photos of the Top Three championship breed/division winners and list the Top Ten Cats of the breed/division in Championship, the Top Ten Kittens, and the Top Ten Cats in Premiership. Knowing the Yearbook would carry these lists might encourage people to show more in hopes of being included in this list. It also might encourage more people to advertise if they were able to brag about having achieved one of these wins. In this breed introduction, the Breed Council Secretary would provide a message about the breed which would include milestones for the breed from the preceding show season (the first Ocicat to be named CFA’s Best Kitten, the first time a Norwegian Forest Cat was Best Longhair Kitten in CFA, the first time four white Orientals made national wins, the first male DM of the breed, etc.). This would be followed by photos and a listing of the Grands and DMs for that breed and a listing of the color wins (if appropriate). We believe this will encourage more people to advertise. We recommend that for 2005 there be a one-time only “low ball” advertising rate that is dramatically lower than our usual rates. For example, rather than charging $495 for a full-page color ad, we recommend charging only $295 and similar reductions for the other types of ads. We also suggest that CFA institute an outreach program that aggressively solicit ads, rather than simply mailing out one solicitation and waiting for the ads to roll in – it ain’t happening. We would hire someone whose job would be to actively seek ads. In lieu of a salary, they would receive 10% of the ad income they bring to CFA. They would follow-up with our regional and national winners, with past advertisers, etc. They would contact businesses and encourage them to advertise. We have someone in mind who would be wonderful at this and who we believe would be interested. For the 2006 Yearbook, we would return to our traditional ad prices; however, we would offer frequent advertiser discounts. If this is your second year in a row of advertising in the Yearbook, you would receive a 10% discount, a 15% discount if this is your third year in a row to advertise, etc. After ten years in a row, you would receive a free ad! If we have advertisers who have been with us this long, we may be offering them free ads in 2006. We believe offering a more exciting book combined with discounts for advertising on a regular basis, we can keep advertisers coming back. Along with this, we acknowledge that we need to do a better job in quality control and customer service. It doesn’t do us much good to bring in new advertisers if they leave after one year due to errors in their ad, etc. Some things are out of our control, but for those things that are under our control, such as errors, we will make a concerted effort to dramatically improve. In addition to the breed focus, we plan to add more and better content in the form of general interest articles. We have already lined up some topics and authors for articles in 2005. We plan to include a three or four page summary of the minutes. We also want to change from our current hard cover to a flexible cover which will permit us to use exciting graphics to reflect the new, exciting contents. As Eric Won wrote, “With the soft, printable cover we’ll be able to create exciting images that project CFA as a vibrant organization, respectful of our rich heritage and energized by the prospects of an even greater future.” While the 2003 Yearbook earned a slight profit, the financial implications of the 2004 Yearbook are unknown at this point. Tom, Gina and I have analyzed the financial impact of our proposal for the 2005 Yearbook. We believe doubling the number of ads over 2003 is realistic. We also believe some staff time currently devoted to the Almanac can be redirected to the Yearbook, assuming you accept our Almanac recommendation above. We anticipate the 2005 Yearbook will lose money. After all, we’re adding 100 free pages when you consider our recommendation to add two pages per breed/division as an introduction. Those pages cost money, but hopefully will attract sufficient advertisers to offset some of the cost. If the increased ads materialize, that will result in increased staff time needed to design the ads and additional pages to carry those ads. We believe the 2005 Yearbook will lose $5,500. That is a one-time loss that we believe will be reversed in 2006 if we can hold onto many of the 2005 advertisers. The members of our Task Force are very, very excited about these proposals. We hope you share our excitement and we strongly encourage you to support these changes. I plan to attend the upcoming Board meeting in order to answer any questions or concerns you might have. In the meantime, please feel free to email me to discuss these proposals. Sincerely, MARK HANNON, Chair ACTION ITEMS:
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