About Treering

Choosing the right yearbook company is no small feat. To help guide you through this crucial process and ensure the perfect fit for your school community, Treering has crafted a list of ten essential questions every adviser should ask potential yearbook companies.

1. What is the real price per book, including all fees?

Determining the actual price per yearbook can be complex, although it shouldn’t be. There’s a reason: hidden fees (similar to this $30 hamburger!). Here are a few you can ask about now so you’re not surprised later:

• Minimum book requirements
• Missed-deadline fees
• Shipping costs (include customs fees for books printed outside the US)
• Software subscriptions
• Training and support costs
• Custom cover upgrades
• 100lb. paper upcharge
• Personalized pages costs
• Online photo storage fees

Request a detailed quote that breaks down all expenses, deadlines (more on these in a bit), and exclusions. Some companies offer per-book pricing that encompasses all these elements and more.

2. Are there any costs for which the school is responsible?

We believe the yearbook shouldn’t cost schools a single penny. Zip. Nada. Zilch. Traditional yearbook companies often burden schools with additional expenses.

Explore options that remove schools from the financial equation completely (except for the ability to earn money - see number eight!). Treering, for instance, adopts an all-inclusive, per-book pricing model. Families handle online purchases, and schools stick to the fun part - designing a beautiful book.

3. How user-friendly and powerful is the yearbook software?

Effective yearbook publishing software should be user-friendly and collaborative, facilitating the quick design of beautiful pages. Seek platforms with professionally curated templates, InDesign compatibility, unlimited photo storage, and seamless integration with popular services like Google Drive, Dropbox, and social media platforms.

Request a live demonstration to gauge the software's capabilities. See how to add and move a page in the yearbook, whether portrait pages auto-adjust when roster changes arise and what system they provide to help you collect and organize photos. Even better, request a free trial and explore the features for yourself.

4. How are each student's memories captured in their copy of the yearbook?

Raise your hand if you were ever disappointed when opening your yearbook because you were only featured once or twice.

Treering believes every child deserves to see personal memories in their own custom yearbook. In today’s world, where children have photos documenting their entire lives, it would be wonderful to include these unique memories in their individual copies of the yearbook.

5. Are you locked into a specific quantity of yearbooks?

One of the reasons traditional yearbook companies still use printing presses is because they’ve invested a good deal of money in them, resulting in a revenue model strongly favoring the publisher.

With this model, schools must commit to a certain number of books in advance. If you predict incorrectly, you’re either stuck with costly leftovers or you have students who can’t purchase a book. One of the benefits of Treering’s flexibility is that you don’t have to take this gamble.

6. How many deadlines does your yearbook company require?

Streamline the yearbook creation process by focusing on a single deadline—the day the book needs to be print-ready. Treering empowers editors to control and change this date at any time without incurring fees.

7. What's the turnaround time?

A yearbook publisher using digital, on-demand printing technology and domestic printers can guarantee that your yearbook will arrive within three weeks of clicking the print-ready button, allowing you to document more of the school year.

Ask about inclusive pricing that includes bulk shipping to the school and custom presorting for easy distribution. (Bonus if they provide a free, printed proof so you can ensure your final product is perfect before it goes to print!)

8. Can I raise money with the yearbook?

The yearbook can be a great way to raise money for essential areas like technology and supplies. With traditional yearbook companies, these fundraising dollars often go to paying a yearbook invoice instead.

If you add a fundraiser to the core price of your yearbook, you’ll want to make sure your school -  not your yearbook company - receives those funds.

9. What is the cost and level of support you'll receive?

Many yearbook companies will provide you with a local rep, which can be great if that person is readily available anytime you need them. Everyone edits their yearbook at different times, and you'll want someone who works on your schedule.

Make sure you’ll have help when and how you need it, see if they charge for different levels of support, and ensure you’ll have free access to help videos, training events, and articles.

10. How is the yearbook print quality?

Request a sample so you can see their print quality for yourself. Don’t worry; you don’t need to be an expert to judge the quality.

First, do the “see-through test.” Hold up a page - can you see through it? You’ll be able to easily see images from the other side of the page if the paper is less than 100lb. Next, do the “pull test.” Grab a page in the middle of the book and bounce the book up and down. Does the page rip or pull out? Finally, do the “fade test.” Leave the book out in the sun for a day. Does the cover start to fade? If it’s not UV-coated, it might.

Materials matter. Your yearbook not only holds the memories of the school year, but it’s something people hold onto for a lifetime - and should last that long.

Make every student the STAR of their own yearbook.

Everyone has thousands of photos at their fingertips. With Treering Yearbooks, you create a custom yearbook that your entire school will remember by giving each student custom pages filled with their own memories—like family vacations or hobbies that take place outside of school—in their individual copy of the yearbook. Now when each student opens their yearbook, they will find their memories and their photos making the yearbook personal to each student in your community, at no cost to the school.

1. Add Photos From Anywhere

Your school community can make their yearbooks custom by adding photos to their custom pages from your desktop or mobile device or by linking directly to Facebook, Instagram, Google Drive, Google Photos, or Dropbox.

2. Auto-Create Your Pages

Treering inspires students to tell the story of their year by choosing from memory prompts, like favorite songs and where they traveled, so they can remember the best parts of their year in and out of school. Just drag-and-drop these memories on their custom pages.

After you've selected your memories and photos, Treering will automatically populate them to your personal copy of the yearbook. You can stop there and they will look great, or you can choose to edit further. The choice is yours.

And if the two FREE pages you get with your Treering yearbook aren't enough, add as many as you need.

3. Remember Forever

Now when each student opens their yearbook, they will find their memories and their photos in their individual copy of the book, making the yearbook custom to each student in your school community.

Need ideas? Check out the winning designs from our parent design contest!

Creating a yearbook is no easy task. There are countless components from design and photography to storytelling and marketing. If you're teaching a class, there are documents to write and objectives to obtain. Club advisers also need a starting point. We know no two schools/classes/clubs are alike. You will find ALL the resources you need in a 100% editable format here. Our modular yearbook curriculum is flexible enough to work for any class, and even parent groups, and covers each yearbook topic. Oh, did we mention it's FREE? And CTE-aligned?

Module 1: Getting Started for the Adviser

This first module helps you as the teacher get organized and off to a great start. You'll find templates to help you customize your syllabus, grading rubrics, and so much more. You'll be ready for recruiting, parent orientation, and accreditation in a few clicks.

Module 2: Kicking Off the Year(book)

Set your students up for success. Here they will learn the importance of the yearbook, the purpose of the different roles, and how to work together as a team.

Module 3: Getting on the Same Page

The key to yearbook success is an organized plan. Your students will learn how to build a yearbook ladder, set up their photo folders, and begin assigning spreads.

Module 4: Creating a Theme From Beginning to End

Coming up with a yearbook theme is more than picking colors. Here, your students will learn the purpose of the yearbook theme and how to develop one on their own while applying it to this year's book.

Module 5: Design Makes it Real

Yearbook design is more than making a page pretty. In this module of the yearbook curriculum, students will learn the various elements of design and how to apply them consistently to their yearbook to re-enforce their theme.

Module 6: Raise Your Voice: Yearbook Storytelling

Telling the story of the year through headlines, captions, and interviews can be intimidating when working with limited space on each spread. In this module of the yearbook curriculum, students will have fun removing their fears and getting to the heart of the story.

Module 7: See the Year Through Your Favorite Lens

Level up your students' photography game. By learning some basics in exposure and composition, your yearbook photos will go from standard snapshots to professional, story-telling photographs.

Module 8: Spread the Word & Make Your Yearbook a Sell-out Success

Whether you're using your yearbook as a fundraiser or not, selling and marketing your yearbook is an important part of the yearbook process. Help your students build a marketing plan to reach their sales goals.

Module 9: Edit or Regret It

Mistakes happen to everyone. With this step-by-step checklist, your students will learn how to avoid as many as possible before sending your yearbook to print.

Using the Free Yearbook Curriculum

Like all things Treering, this yearbook curriculum is flexible. Here's how advisers and coordinators told us they use it:

• Flipped classroom: assign a reading and discuss it the next day
• I Do, You Do, We Do: student editors take a chunk of a module, model it, teach it, and then the class applies it together
• Traditional instruction: plug and play!

You know your students best!

Since 2009, you’ve trusted us to capture and print your priceless memories, and we reflect on this honor every holiday season. Thank you for trusting us with this invaluable task. We wish you all the best this holiday season, and we can’t wait to get to work in 2024. Happy holidays!

Some quick 2023 stats:

• School communities donated over 7000 yearbooks
• Through yearbook sales, schools raised over $2 Million
• Families customized nearly 500,000 custom pages

15 Years of Treering: It is our Birthday

Here’s what you can expect in 2024: from January through December, we will celebrate our 15th birthday with goodies for you. You are the reason Treering Yearbooks continues to grow and innovate.

Giveaways Galore in 2024

Since we can’t hand out plastic goodie bags with sticky hands and noisemakers to every member of the Treering community, coffee, gift cards, custom pages, and other freebies will have to do.

Spoiler alert: Treering’s annual design contests are not going anywhere.

“Treering in the Wild”

Last year, at the PTO Today conference in Chicago, IL, an editor said she loved seeing “Treering in the wild,” and it stuck with us. In 2024, we’re leaving our home offices and Google Meets for more IRL conversations and celebrations.

New Ways to Capture and Share Memories

Personalized memories are here to stay. How families and yearbook coordinators collect and share them once again will get a shake-up at our hands.

2024 Growth Opportunities

From new Yearbook Club webinars for yearbook coordinators and advisers to multi-day virtual events and mini-tutorials, we pledge to continue supporting you by answering your questions and simplifying the design-to-print process.

To learn more about how you can be involved in Treering’s 15th birthday celebrations,

• Engage with Treering Yearbooks on Facebook, Instagram, X, formerly known as Twitter, and TikTok
• Read the monthly editor newsletter
• Subscribe to the blog

Staff pictured

Top: Sara C. (Sales), Jordan O. (Community Advocate Team), Ali J. (Sales), Gia W. (Sales), Ed G. (Product Evangelist), Liz T. (Customer Success Manager), Dara A. (Sales), Kate H. (Sales)

Bottom: Dustin A. (Community Advocate Team), Katie P. (Customer Success Manager), Shannon H. (Sales/Social), Sandra V. (Engagement and Onboarding), Louise Kate L. (Community Advocate Team), Aisa A. (Community Advocate Team)

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Since 2009, you’ve trusted us to capture and print your priceless memories, and we reflect on this honor every holiday season. In addition to helping schools raise nearly $2 million in the 2022 school year, we printed over 600,000 custom pages in 2022—that’s a lot of joy. Thank you for trusting us with this invaluable task. We wish you all the best this holiday season and we can’t wait to get to work in 2023. Happy holidays!

What to Expect in 2023

• Semi-monthly training through Yearbook Club
• Design contests for editors and parents
• Your memories arriving within three weeks of clicking Print Ready
• New predesigned “About Me,” “Year in Review,” and “Best of…” pages
• Superior support as you design, market, and distribute your best book yet
• Weekly blog articles to provide inspiration and resources – subscribe and have them sent to your email

Staff pictured

Top: Chrissy K. (Customer Success Manager), Jason S. (Customer Success Manager), Jen C. (Customer Success Manager), Niri B. (Customer Success Manager), Brian M. (Director of Engineering) with Titan

Bottom: Melizza T. (Community Advocate Team Supervisor), Codey V. (Community Advocate Team – Quality Assurance), Daneesha B. (Community Advocate Team), Ramona E. (Community Advocate Team), Robelyn O. (Community Advocate Team)