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Subject:Re: Placement of index and TOC? From:al -dot- geist -at- geistassociates -dot- com To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Fri, 19 May 2006 08:45:43 -0700 (PDT)
Donna Jones wrote:
> <<I finally find something in a magazine TOC and start digging through
> the pages only to find that none of the pages are numbered for 10 or 20
> pages on either side of the article. Or they have meaningless page
> numbers in the middle of the magazine--Advertisement page 1,
> Advertisement page 2--and I'm looking for page 119. Number the pages,
> people! And use consecutive numbers!>>
>
Geoff Hart replied:
> I remember asking a magazine publisher why they did this, and their
> answer was that the ads were provided as camera-ready copy (or
> print-ready PDF files nowadays) by the advertisers, and thus, given
> tight press deadlines, it wasn't possible for the desktop publisher to
> add the page numbers. The first part is true and acceptable; the latter
> part is probably nonsense. It's easy in most software to manually set
> the page numbers as a "top" layer that overprints (knocks out) even a
> full-page bleed, and not much harder to automate this with a bit of
> cleverness.
>
> I say "probably" because in some publishing setups, the advertisers and
> the publishers send separate files to the printer, who then merges
> them. In that case, there's not much the publisher can do about the
> problem because they have no idea where type will appear in the ads,
> and they can't risk offending an advertiser by ruining their ad design.
> Well, they could adopt a sensible publishing schedule with advertising
> deadlines far in advance of sending the files to the printer, but (i)
> most publishers aren't nearly this organized and (ii) advertisers pay
> most of the publishing costs, and would resist this approach. The same
> problems ensure that most publishers can't simply say "your ads cannot
> intrude on the running header or footer of our design". It would solve
> the problem neatly, but piss off the advertisers.
>
Most publications have relatively strict publishing guidelines because
everything is so automated. Those sections numbered as "Advertisement"
pages may be numbered so for a couple of reasons. It is not unusual for
companies to hire freelancers to develop articles. These freelancing
services are obtains through advertising/marketing firms, or hired
directly and they supplye complete articles that may be pure advertising,
but designed to look like magazine articles. Some publications use
different numbering schemes to separate them from the real stuff. Other
publications treat them as compartmentalized sidebars which are inserted,
as Geoff says, by the printer according to specifications from the
publisher. If you notice, the special advertisement sections are often a
complete signature which makes them easy to slip in during the pre-press
process. The only item in Geoff's reply I would argue is that
"advertisers pay most of the publishing costs." Advertisers pay ALL of the
publishing costs. In fact, advertisers pay nearly all the costs of
running a magazine. The only other revenue stream is from subscriptions
and sales, neither of which come close to advertising revenue. That
income is usually sucked up by the "fulfillment" company.
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