How Idunna Gets Done

[lwood]

This started out as me describing what-all I'd been up to today, but then I realised that the primary thing, getting Idunna ready to ship, needed more context. So:


Your Troth Dollars at Work: How Idunna Gets Done

Idunna is the quarterly publication for The Troth. The production schedule goes like this:

1. Diana gathers material on the issue's theme for a couple of months, doing some preliminary layout, proofreading, back-and-forth with contributors, etc.


2. A week or two before press time, she e-mails her columnists, asking for their columns. Finalizing the layout will take a full day's work, two if there's a real problem making everything fit.


3. During this time, I assemble and edit the Troth's members-only newsletter, Mimir's Well, which summarizes what the Rede and officers have been up to in the past quarter. Mimir's Well can be anywhere from two to eleven pages, although it's usually around six. I would be surprised if more than twenty people actually read it, but it's important to me that the membership knows what their Rede is up to.


4. My other job before press time is to ensure the integrity of the mailing list, the Troth's single most important asset. I make sure everyone who's joined or renewed by credit card is current in our database. Also, I announce on all the Troth mailing lists that now would be a great time to tell us that you've moved, and make more changes to the database accordingly.


5. Just before press time, I ask our database administrator to make sure that the database knows that a new issue is ready to print. From that list, I determine how many copies we need of both Idunna and Mimir's Well. As it's possible to subscribe to Idunna and not be a member of the Troth, these aren't the same number!


6. On Press Day, I go to Diana's house. Idunna is taken to the printer's as a PDF file. Diana could make the PDF by herself, but with a complicated publication like Idunna, niggly things can go wrong, especially with the fonts, so I may as well be there. Besides, this gives a fresh set of eyes (mine) a chance to proofread the issue both before and after the PDF is made.


7. The PDF is put on a Zip disk as well as uploaded to an undisclosed location on my server for archival purposes.


8. Then, Zip disk in hand, we drive to Krishna Copy, a local print shop that gets lots of business throughout the pagan and heathen communities. Diana figures that if they happen to read our stuff, they won't freak at anything particularly polytheistic. They're small, family-run, are competitively priced, and deliver the finished product to us for no additional charge, which are all more reasons to like them. A gent named Manu usualy handles Diana's print runs, and as he's familiar with us things usually go quite swiftly. We usually lump this in with a visit to the Troth PO Box, as they're only a couple blocks apart.


9. If this issue is supposed to go out First Class, while we're at the Post Office we buy a ridiculous amount of postage. A First Class issue will cost as much as $1.52 to sent. Bulk Mail costs a third of that, but has its own problems.


10. Then we wait.


11. Two days after we submit the print job for Idunna, Mimir's Well, and anything else that has to go in the packet (e.g., Trothmoot registration forms), Krishna drops the finished products off at Diana's house.


12. There are always some last-minute changes to make to the mailing list, so I make sure we're really really done before printing out labels.


13. Diana, myself, and whoever we can rope into helping (grandchildren, random friends who stop by, emberleo, you know, whoever) will spend 6-10 hours stuffing, stamping, labelling, and otherwise preparing packets for the post, often over two days. We average 250 copies per mailing, so it's a lot of work!


14. After that, some potent potable is broken out and we cheer getting Idunna ready for the mail. Note, please, that the hooch is nowhere near the aforementioned mail, because the Postal Wights just don't need that kind of offering.


15. If it's going out bulk, we have to carefully sort things into packages held together with rubber bands as part of the envelope-stuffing process. One of the reasons bulk mail is so cheap is because we're going the Post Office's work for them, and it shows. The packets are put in sacks for delivery down at the Downtown Berkeley Post Office, which is where our Bulk Mail Permit is kept. We have to go to the Bulk Mail Unit for this, which is always fascinating to me because it's clearly a place where Things Get Done as opposed to a place where People Are Handled (i.e., the front desk of the PO).


16. If it's First Class, once they're stamped they go in Official Post Office Bins in my trunk and I take them to the local Mother of All Post Offices, which is this immense complex in West Oakland that handles some ridiculous quantity of mail. They prefer that I go 'round back--again, where Things Are Done, but that's not always feasable. Still, as all of the East Bay's mail, if not all the Bay Area mail, has to come through the Mother of Post Offices, I figure I've shaved a day off the delivery time taking it there myself.


17. Somewhere in all of this, Diana and possibly I go to the front side of any post office to handle anything that doesn't fit the usual scheme. This includes all international ones, which are always sent First Class/Air Mail, because otherwise the travel time would be ridiculous. We're debating what to do about Hawai'i and Alaska, as we have one member in each. This time, Alaska is going Bulk with everyone else, but Hawai'i is going First Class; I'm afraid it'd go by slow boat and by way of Timbuktu or some such.


18. The Post Office takes it from there... at least until we start getting the trickle of returned mail from the things that don't go through!

And that's how Idunna Gets Done.

-- Lorrie

Comments

[ex-mommybir.livejournal.com]

So what would it cost a non-Trothling like myself to subscribe to Idunna, eh?

[lwood.livejournal.com]

Twenty bucks a year -- same as a membership, actually. The differences are that you can't vote for Rede (Board of Directors) members and you can't be on the members-only e-mail list. This may be going up when the Rede meets next due to increases in printing and postage costs, so I'd send it in sooner rather than later.

Send your check or money order to:

The Troth, c/o Diana L. Paxson
PO Box 472
Berkeley, CA 94701-0472

-- Lorrie

[ex-mommybir.livejournal.com]

Thankee! I think I shall be sending in my check in the next week.

[lwood.livejournal.com]

Thankyew, the Troth appreciates your support. 8-)

-- Lorrie

[shantak.livejournal.com]

Go first class! I shall eagerly await my issue. *fluff pillow to wait by mailbox* But really, bulk works too. I get all my other magazines after they appear on the shelves at the bookstores. Price one pays for island living.

And darnit, I like stuffing envelopes too bad I'm too far away to help. Grrr.

*hugs*

[lwood.livejournal.com]

Oh, don't worry... there are always more envelopes...

-- Lorrie