How many did you come up with?

There aren鈥檛 many. That makes Association Media & Publishing鈥檚 annual meeting all the more special. It鈥檚 one of the few events that can help associations in their endeavors to grow memberships and keep members engaged. It is one of the few events focused on immersing attendees in association success models, best practices and insights from industry peers.

The 2019 will be held in Washington, D.C., on June 24-26. If you haven鈥檛 previously attended, you may not be aware that it鈥檚 the only comprehensive event that serves association, nonprofit and alumni publishing and communication professionals.

Those who attend will hear from the brightest and most influential association professionals and thought leaders. Speakers and panels allow attendees to glean insights on the latest publishing, communications and marketing trends, and best practices. As an added bonus, attendees have the opportunity to network with association colleagues and exhibitors and build important career connections.

This year鈥檚 keynote speakers include , General Manager of TicToc and Global Head of Strategy and Business Development for Bloomberg Digital, and , President and CEO of The Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers.

Session topics range from brand positioning and content workflow to social media and media kits.

If you鈥檙e still on the fence about attending, read on for several recaps from last year鈥檚 session topics to get a sense of the highly relevant and beneficial knowledge you鈥檒l gain in attending.

Promoting your Publication and Increasing Ad Sales

If you know who your audience is, it will make all of the difference in helping advertisers get to their target market. This session, 鈥淗ow to Promote your Publication and Increase Ad Sales,鈥� focused on how to attract the best advertisers for your audience. Some of the tips included thinking in terms of selling impact versus selling ads, doing an audience audit and how to determine if an advertiser is right for you. Our full recap is available here.

Technology and Your Publication

Member experience is an area that associations are always looking to improve and technology provides many routes to do just that. In one of the AM&P sessions, 鈥淲here Technology Can Take You 鈥� and Your Reader,鈥� a panel of technology experts shared their expertise and addressed concerns to help associations understand which technologies should be on their radar 鈥� and why. Read more about the panel participants and topics like mobile apps, mobile sites and reader engagement, here.

Publication and Communication Frequency

How often is often enough or not enough when it comes to publishing for your audience? Sarah Black, the Senior Manager of Editorial Services at Red Chair Communications, addressed that question in her session, 鈥淭he Strategy of Frequency in Publications and Communications.鈥� You can read more here about the questions to ask, best practices for channel strategy and how to measure results.

The AM&P Benchmarking Study Panel

This AM&P鈥檚 2017 benchmark study covered a range of topics: from publishing revenue, to outsourcing trends, to distribution costs and more. The panel for last year鈥檚 AM&P Annual Event focused on publishing revenue and the panelists discussed the future of print, social media, data collection and revenue possibilities to consider. Read our full recap here.

AM&P Excel Awards Gala

One more important note鈥攃oupled with the annual meeting is AM&P鈥檚 39^th Annual , which recognizes excellence and leadership in nonprofit association media, publishing, marketing and communications. You can read about this year鈥檚 Excel Awards finalists . The Gala takes place on June 24 and tickets, which are expected to sell out, are available on a first-come, first-serve basis.

To get a taste of some of the awards, and to read more about 杏吧原创 customers who won 2018 Excel awards, check out our Excel Awards recap article.

Register to Attend

Last year鈥檚 meeting was great, and this year鈥檚 annual meeting promises to be just as good (or even better!). The meeting is of interest to anyone within the world of associations and association publishers looking to augment and further their unique expertise within this landscape.

Visit AM&P鈥檚 to learn more about this year鈥檚 and . And make sure to .

The post The Industry-Focused Event Every Association Publisher Should Attend appeared first on 杏吧原创.

The term refers to volunteer opportunities to complete small tasks necessary for the success of a larger project. The opportunities typically take only minutes or an hour to complete and don鈥檛 require a long-term commitment.

Your association staff is busy. Your members are busy. No one has the bandwidth to take on new projects, even when they may be impactful.

It鈥檚 the familiar struggle to balance 鈥渘eed to do鈥� efforts that sustain an organization with 鈥渨ant to do鈥� efforts that help organizations grow, evolve and improve.

That鈥檚 where micro-volunteer opportunities can be an effective solution.

A recent Associations Now article shares the story of an association chapter that is聽聽to contribute to the chapter鈥檚 newsletter, blog and social media in bite-size ways. These contributions not only help free up staff for other projects, but they freshen content ideas and they increase member engagement.

In that article, Michelle Chavez, Communications Chair for the Austin chapter of National Association for Catering and Events (NACE), explains, 鈥淢icro-volunteering opportunities are something new that we are trying out this year. We hope this will inspire members to get more involved over time, with the eventual goal that they might enjoy it so much they want to be on the board.鈥�

As Chavez also mentions in the article, members are eager to get involved in small but meaningful ways.

That sounds great, right? But, sticking with the theme of micro and bite-size, how can your association get started without 鈥渂iting off more than it can chew?鈥�

In our article about聽creating content and increasing engagement with member storytelling, we mention that your organization鈥檚 events are a great place to get started. At one of your member conferences, experiment by setting up an area for capturing stories on camera where you can control elements that impact video quality, like equipment, lighting and background noise.

Since members will already be on site, their travel and lodging is already covered, reducing the cost of such efforts. And, since attending members are away from their normal duties, they are much more likely to volunteer a few minutes to contribute to your content gathering effort.

Another idea is to weave micro-volunteering opportunities into the聽charitable activities your association is already using to support your organization鈥檚 mission. Consider how you can engage members who don鈥檛 have enough time to attend this year鈥檚 charitable events, but who can contribute by sharing personal stories about their rewarding experience from previous events.

Take note, however. As MissionBox shares in聽, members will lose interest in volunteering opportunities if they鈥檙e not well organized or if communication is poor.

Start small and experiment. As Katie Domanowski, Director of Communications for The American Academy of Dermatology, said in聽this article about developing new content efforts, 鈥淪ometimes you just need to try things to see what works.鈥�

The post How Micro-Volunteering Opportunities Can Engage Your Membership appeared first on 杏吧原创.

But we鈥檝e come to understand how print and mobile complement each other.

Whether our story has been about creating award winning mobile apps, or how associations can use mobile apps to engage their members, our articles have focused on utilizing mobile technology to help organizations improve results with the content they鈥檝e worked so hard to create for their audience.

So, it鈥檚 pretty satisfying to see the success story of mobile apps for magazine publishers and associations expand to other markets 鈥� in this case, catalog publishers.

is the largest manufacturer and distributor of 1955, 1956 and 1957 classic Chevrolet restoration and performance parts in the world. Often referred to as the Tri-Five, the 1955-56-57 models include the Chevy 150, 210, Bel Air, and Nomad.

These cars have inspired a number of enthusiast clubs, websites and businesses that cater to collectors and restorers. Their popularity also inspired the creation of Danchuk.

At its inception in 1976, Danchuk manufactured a single 1957 parking lens. Today, Danchuk manufactures such a wide variety of parts that they require a 750-page catalog to contain the inventory. And, to keep up with their ever-growing product line of products, Danchuk鈥檚 in-house art and photography department produces a new catalog each year.

The printed catalog is an invaluable sales tool for Danchuk. As we鈥檝e written before, print catalogs are popular and powerful because they don鈥檛 require power or internet, and they are always on. But, because it isn鈥檛 always convenient to carry around a 750-page catalog, a mobile app makes perfect sense as a companion.

Because Danchuk wanted to offer a mobile app experience that would feel similar to paging through their print catalog, 杏吧原创 creates a new version of Danchuk鈥檚 mobile app each time they publish a new catalog edition. The app even includes page references so users can refer from the app to the printed page.

The mobile app enables:

• Mobile access to Danchuk鈥檚 entire product offering
• Searching by part name or part number
• In-app ordering, with integration to Danchuk鈥檚 eCommerce system
• Inclusion of event promotion videos
• Inclusion of tech articles and instruction sheets
• In-app access to Danchuk鈥檚 newsletter and blog
• Push notifications
• App-exclusive offers

The best news? Danchuk has determined that their mobile app is paying for itself by increased product sales. This makes the app a business-savvy companion for their print catalog.

You can read our case study reviewing Danchuk鈥檚 app success here.

To learn more about how 杏吧原创鈥檚 mobile apps team can help you, contact us online or request a demonstration. We鈥檙e excited to identify ways mobile publishing apps can help you improve results with your audience.

The post Danchuk鈥檚 App is a Case Study of Mobile Success appeared first on 杏吧原创.

As we describe in Make Connections and Engage Readers with Storytelling, the idea of using personal stories to engage readers isn鈥檛 new.

And as we shared very recently, associations are successfully using storytelling to engage members at association events too.

So, when we saw that the (AGU) had partnered with to create their in honor of their 100th anniversary, we knew we needed to share the idea.

The mission of AGU鈥檚 project is to use member stories to engage the science community and to inspire the general public.

Many advancements have been the result of small and incremental contributions by individuals motivated to benefit science and humanity. The stories gathered by AGU鈥檚 project are an opportunity to reflect on those contributions and inspire others to contribute what they can, even if they think their contribution seems insignificant.

While your association鈥檚 mission may differ from AGU鈥檚, the idea of gathering and sharing stories to engage and motivate others still applies.

And, since engaging your audience with audio podcasts has become so much easier, your association can use storytelling to complement your content creation efforts without major investment.

For the audio stories that are getting a lot of traffic and listens, you might consider recruiting those story tellers to make a video for you. This will help attract the attention of members who prefer a visual element to keep them engaged.

As we鈥檝e shared in Five Ways Your Association Should be Using Video to Engage Members, these storytelling videos could be used to help:

• increase current members鈥� feeling of connection through direct involvement,
• recruit new members, and
• promote your association鈥檚 events.

To make your video efforts cost effective, you could consider setting up an area for capturing stories on camera at one of your association events. Members will already be taking care of travel and lodging costs. And you鈥檒l be able to control environmental elements that can impact video quality, such as equipment, lighting and background noise.

Does this sound like an engagement idea your association could take advantage of?

You can read more about how AGU partnered with StoryCorps .

The post A Storytelling Partnership That Enhanced Member Engagement appeared first on 杏吧原创.

If your organization is like many we鈥檝e spoken with, chances are good that you aren鈥檛 yet taking full advantage of what mobile can accomplish.

Engage, 杏吧原创鈥檚 newest app platform, can help.

Powered by a platform built with associations in mind, 杏吧原创鈥檚 Engage apps are stacked with functionality associations need to increase member engagement and provide an easy and affordable way to leverage mobile to extend the reach and engagement of the content you print with us.

The apps don鈥檛 stop there. In addition to handling content, the apps are designed to manage all aspects of association events, eCommerce, notifications, sponsorship and analytics.

In short, Engage apps provide associations a 360-degree view of their membership.

Grant Fritch, 杏吧原创鈥檚 App Architect, said, 鈥淲e鈥檝e been creating award-winning apps for associations for a while. But, because of the wide range of association needs, we鈥檝e been working to create a holistic app solution at a more affordable price.鈥�

The new app platform focuses on the three E鈥檚 of associations: Education, eCommerce and Engagement. And its SaaS-like scalability enables associations to manage member access at the individual level, even if they have a large membership.

Engage apps provide a single source of information for association membership, including:

• Publication content
• Event management for meetings and conferences
• Membership renewal and access to benefits
• News, blog, education and certification content

Publication content is formatted for mobile device readability with quick navigation and potential for continuous publishing in real time. Member retention functionality is included, and targeted messaging and notifications are supported. And sponsorship functionality provides associations the opportunity to increase advertising revenue with in-app promotions.

By integrating with association AMS systems, the app鈥檚 role-oriented structure enables management of gated content, and provides a high level of personalization. This is especially beneficial during association events, when members can receive notifications of the sessions they have planned to attend during a conference. There is even geo-fencing capability to send personalized welcome messages when they鈥檝e arrived at the association鈥檚 event space.

Are you ready to see how 杏吧原创鈥檚 Engage app can meet your association鈥檚 needs and increase member engagement without a huge investment of time or money?

Request a demo today and speak with our apps team.

The post Announcing Engage 鈥� A Mobile App for Associations appeared first on 杏吧原创.

Based on what has been popular recently, as well as what experts predict will be useful in the future, we鈥檝e prepared a list of trends to help you reach and engage your target customers.

Building trust

A common thread that seems to be running through all is the idea of using social media to build trust with your audience. In the wake of privacy issues and fake accounts, consumers are sometimes wary of interacting with brands on social media.

For that reason, it鈥檚 important for organizations to focus on being transparent and engaging with individuals in a way that鈥檚 authentic and valuable.

Here are just a few ways you can work to build trust through quality engagement:

• Use Twitter chats to publicly discuss topics important to your audience.
• Build a Facebook group for your audience focused on their interests.
• Hold regular Instagram or Facebook Live Q&As to address questions and concerns from your audience.

Upping your ad game

In today鈥檚 social media landscape, it鈥檚 still largely pay-to-play. This means that organic posts alone won鈥檛 get you the traffic or engagement your organization needs to make a significant impact with your social media marketing. Your organization will need to also include social ads as part of your overall strategy if you want to be successful.

With this in mind, special care should be taken to ensure that your ad campaigns are fresh and that you鈥檙e utilizing metrics that will help you measure campaign success. Try A/B testing your ad content and targeting to find a combination that works best for you.

Invest time in developing creative that gets your audience鈥檚 attention. To ensure the right people are seeing your ad content, you may need to revisit how you identify your target audience.

Providing more messaging opportunities

Customers are expecting good one-on-one social experiences. Trends suggest that social media users are actually spending more time on messaging than sharing news and content on their social media feeds. This means that your social media inboxes are an important place to connect and build stronger relationships with your audience.

If you want to ensure that you can provide an effective private messaging experience for your audience, enable Facebook Messenger on your Facebook Business Page. Similarly, if you don鈥檛 already have a chat bot on your site, you鈥檒l want to add plugins to your website that drive visitors to messaging apps where they can connect with someone about their questions and concerns.

Employees posting content

Another trend that organizations are adopting is using their own employees as influencers and brand advocates. While it is difficult for consumers to determine if brand deals with celebrities and other influencers are genuine, quality content posted from employees is seen as far more sincere and trustworthy.

Having your employees post sharable content on their own social media channels is a great way to expand your reach while building trust with your target audience. Make it easy for employees to post content by providing them with ideas and visuals that will help them show your brand in the best light.

Social media stories

While the social media story concept was first introduced by Snapchat, now Facebook, Instagram, and even YouTube have introduced similar features on their platform. These disappearing videos are a great way to provide valuable and exclusive content for your fans and followers. Stories allow you to offer real-time updates about your organization or behind-the-scenes videos that help your brand build trust with your audience.

Storifying social may be the most significant trend shift

While utilizing any of the trends above will help you better connect with your target audience, the most significant trend that organizations need to consider adopting this year is to reach and engage your fans, followers, and potential new customers. As a visual medium, stories have the power to not only grab your audience鈥檚 attention but show a more fun and personal side of your organization.

Rather than just sharing the same content on your static feed and stories, start creating story-specific content. This type of content should reflect the raw, unedited, and live action medium. Since story content typically disappears after 24 hours, this medium tends to be the best for sharing exciting news about your business as well as exclusive behind-the-scenes content.

When developing content for your stories, try experimenting with different formats. You can use a combination of video, text, and images to tell your story. You can use live videos to host a Q&A, announce the winners of a social media contest, or give a behind-the-scenes look at your company culture. Branded imagery is a good way to get the word out about upcoming promotions and campaigns. While text may just help add more details to some of the visuals you鈥檝e already shared.

Once you鈥檝e developed some compelling story content, use the highlight feature to categorize your content and make it available later. The highlight feature allows you to display content in categories on your profile for as long as you鈥檇 like. This is a great way to address frequently asked questions as well as organize content that鈥檚 based around a specific promotion or campaign.

杏吧原创 assists print customers with digital presence assessments and content assessments to help identify ways for organizations to grow their business. To learn more, contact us to let us know.

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We鈥檝e shared how you can make connections and engage your magazine and journal readers with storytelling. The same technique can be used to enhance your association meetings and keep your audience invested and coming back for more.

You鈥檙e already building networking time into your events. Arrange for some of those networking activities to be directed by members who have stories to tell.

For members who have a good story but may not be comfortable in front of an audience, use video instead. These tips for conducting good interviews will help you create great videos that you can show at a networking activity or post on your event website.

Combining member storytelling with these tips for a great event meeting聽will add significant value to your efforts to improve retention, both for membership and for event attendance.

For additional event engagement ideas, and for some specific examples of how associations have put these storytelling ideas to work, read this article from Associations Now:

When members gather at conferences, you have a big opportunity to collect their stories to showcase the people who make up your community. Some specific tools, distribution channels, and strategies will help you put them in the spotlight.

Face-to-face communication has grown scarcer in this digital age, when emails, texts, and social media posts often replace direct, two-way conversation. But if you surveyed your members tomorrow, I would be willing to bet they鈥檇 say that relationship strength, community, and face-to-face connections are primary reasons why they feel a sense of belonging to your organization.

Don鈥檛 get me wrong鈥攄igital communications and social networking definitely make it easier for members to stay connected 24/7, but it鈥檚 at annual meetings or other conferences where people put down their devices and connect as human beings.

What if you want to document these interactions as they happen and seize the moment to capture some of your members鈥� impressions, experiences, and best thinking? You鈥檒l be showcasing your members being 鈥渕ore human humans鈥濃�攖o use a phrase describing a driver of change identified by the ASAE ForesightWorks research initiative.

You may want to consider a few simple storytelling strategies to create evergreen content featuring your members that will last well beyond the meeting 鈥� .

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Because I鈥檝e subscribed to scores of magazines over the years, I鈥檝e seen my share of subscription renewal campaigns.

Frankly, I鈥檝e rarely been impressed by a magazine publisher鈥檚 subscription renewal campaign. It鈥檚 often the same messaging 鈥� 鈥淲e want you back!鈥� or 鈥淟ast chance!鈥� and 鈥淪pecial offer. Act now!鈥�

But, when I recently received a subscription renewal campaign from , it got my attention.

Instead of a renewal letter, Consumer Reports (CR) sent 16-page excerpts of their magazine that were chock full of examples of the valuable information and insights they provide. These promotional magazines are often referred to as magalogs.

Their message wasn鈥檛 locked away inside an envelope. And their value statement wasn鈥檛 lost inside a form letter encouraging me to renew.

Instead, they provided their value statement in a visually engaging short-form magazine format.

I picked it up. I flipped through the pages. I felt compelled to renew, and I decided to act.

It wasn鈥檛 until the next day that it dawned on me that Consumer Reports鈥� subscription renewal campaign had succeeded where so many others had failed. And that was when I decided to contact their marketing group to learn more about the campaign in order to share it with 杏吧原创鈥檚 blog readers. I wanted to share their insights about subscription renewal efforts like email campaigns, mailed renewal letters, magazine excerpts, blown-in inserts, polybag inserts, etc.

Here is what I learned from Dawn Nelson, Senior Director of Marketing at Consumer Reports.

What touchpoints does Consumer Reports utilize to encourage subscription renewal for the print magazine?

Dawn Nelson: For renewals, we use traditional renewal letter mailings along with emails where possible. For members enrolled in our continuous service program, who receive the magazine with uninterrupted service and then a bill about two months before their expiration date, the bill is the way they pay and renew to continue their service.

Gift mailings that encourage a member to renew their own magazine and give a gift to someone for free is another method.聽

While our magazine insert cards and 鈥渇ree standing insert鈥� magalogs in newspapers twice a year are meant to get new members, sometimes existing members use these options to renew an existing membership.

What is the approximate percentage breakdown of re-subscribers for each of the renewal touchpoints?

DN: For our traditional renewal mailings, approximately 90 percent renew through our renewal mailings. The remainder renew through emails and insert cards.聽

Are the 16-page magalogs sent to all readers with lapsing subscriptions, or a specific subset?

DN: These 鈥渕agalogs鈥� (blend of magazine/catalog) are an acquisition technique mailed to people who are not currently members of CR, or to former members who have let their magazine expire and whom we鈥檙e trying to get to re-join.

We start those efforts when someone鈥檚 membership is 6 months expired to ensure we鈥檝e allowed for all renewal and post-expire renewal efforts to have mailed. We use proprietary models that CR statisticians build to help us find those people who are most likely to re-join so they could be six month expired up to several years expired. 聽

What is the approximate cost comparison between CR鈥檚 renewal campaigns that are mailed?

DN: Compared to a renewal letter that mails at a third class non-profit rate (we鈥檒l call that 1x), the continuous service mailings are bills that mail first class, making them about 2.7x.

The magalog is not a standard renewal, but for comparison, it is about 1.75x the cost of a renewal letter mailing based on high volume rollout costs.

What renewal campaigns has CR abandoned because past attempts showed they were overly expensive and/or ineffective?

DN: In the past, CR used to call our members and ask them to renew.聽 At the same time, CR started an advocacy campaign to stop robo-calls, which put the practice of calling members at odds with the changes we were promoting in the marketplace. So, we stopped it.聽

Another tactic we abandoned several years ago was a renewal wrap 鈥� a targeted promotion covering the magazine with a card for the customer to return if they decide to renew. The paper stock costs were high, and we still needed to bill the customer for the order if they returned the card, so we stopped that too.

Do you have any other insights you鈥檇 like to share with our magazine clients regarding subscription renewal efforts?

DN: There are three types of renewals:

• Regular renewals, comprised of renewal mailings that typically begin six months in advance of the customer鈥檚 last issue,
• Auto Billing, continuous service that is billed annually, where bills begin mailing about two months in advance of the customer鈥檚 last issue, and
• Credit Card Auto Renewal, continuous service with annual charges on a credit card, where the customer is notified about 30 days prior to the credit card charge.

Credit Card Auto Renewal has the highest renewal rate and is the most desirable renewal offer for Consumer Reports.

My advice is to always look at acquisition response rates and retention rates together. Some acquisition packages have a high response rate, but may attract a customer who doesn鈥檛 renew well. It鈥檚 important to look at the results in terms of a longer term customer value that maximizes your brand鈥檚 profitability.

杏吧原创 is grateful for the insights provided by Dawn Nelson and Consumer Reports. We would like to hear your subscription renewal insights. Comment below or send a note to Contact Us.

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Like so many other organizations, we utilize web forms to help identify potential clients. And, like other organizations I鈥檝e talked to, we aren鈥檛 always certain we鈥檙e doing things as effectively as possible.

So, when I saw the article title, , I was interested immediately.

Even given the caveats regarding the number of survey respondents and some murkiness surrounding conversion rate calculation methods, I found the article鈥檚 key takeaways instructive.

Do your forms have the right number of response fields? Are you using the most effective lead magnets? Are you using the right metrics to enable you make performance improvements along the way?

This article covers those questions and more. Enjoy the read:

Despite the process being fairly straightforward, our strategies often fluctuate in how we accomplish lead capture. Similarly, the results we achieve can vary quite a bit, too.

Unfortunately, the diversity of lead capture strategies, tools, and results can make it difficult to know precisely which process you should follow with your own marketing team — which is why we decided to conduct a survey.

To ensure you’re able to optimize your lead capture strategy 鈥� .

The post Are Your Lead Capture Methods Working This Well? appeared first on 杏吧原创.

Over the next couple of years, Staats turned those notes into , and he was gracious enough to spend time with us describing the project and why he selected 杏吧原创 to manufacture the book.

杏吧原创: What was your vision for the book, and who is the intended audience?

John Staats: Honestly, I had students in mind, and anybody with an artistic inclination who might not think of a career in game design because they aren’t familiar with what goes into projects like that. In the book, I share how there’s really no magic. It’s just a lot of hard work and is more attainable than people realize. So, I wanted to show how human the process is in hopes of inspiring people to consider the career field.

Since it’s essentially an educational book, I’d ideally like to see it used as a textbook in classrooms as much as a coffee-table book for gaming fans who want to know how World of Warcraft came together.

When you decided to share your experiences, how did you determine it should be a coffee-table book?

Staats: Well, I had a lot of images and screenshots showing how a game comes together during development. A lot of people think it would be fun working at a game company, but the fun doesn’t really happen until the last five percent of the process when the game is actually playable. Before that, it’s fairly ugly and full of snags that stop you from progressing in the game.

I thought it would be interesting to readers to see how the pieces come together incrementally, so I included about 130 images with descriptive captions to visually describe that progression. For instance, I show stuff that is invisible to a player. If your character is walking down some stairs in a crypt, you’re actually walking down a ramp that slices midway through the stairs. It’s a simplified geometry, and an image showing what a player is actually walking on is enlightening.

Another example is showing what’s going on when a player collides with something like a wall. The player is in a box like a dreidel, so if you walk into a wall, the game doesn’t have to look at the geometry of your arm or toes. As far as the game is concerned, it’s using the geometry of a simple box to provide visualization of the collision. I think there’s a lot of beauty and elegance in what’s going on behind the scenes.

Does it have a diary feel?

Staats: I wrote the book with non-technical people in mind. I explain basic things, like what a game engine is, and how animation works. So, when I mention those things in the chronological narrative, readers know what I’m talking about.

It’s based on notes I took each month during the four years I worked on the World of Warcraft design team, but it’s not a diary. It’s like the anatomy of a computer game company and gives you a comprehensive understanding of the product and the process.

How did you get into a career designing games?

Staats: Back in grade school, I would make homemade Dungeons and Dragons novels for my cousins. They would buy a game and would read it and see all the spoilers of the little adventure we were supposed to play. So I’d make up my own stories.

Then, when I discovered that had released for free to the public, I was one of the hobbyists who was super enthusiastic about turning those old Dungeons and Dragons modules into 3d spaces in order to walk through them visually. I was so into it that after four and a half years of doing that for long hours, I inadvertently built a portfolio that was professional level quality. That led to the opportunity to work at on the World of Warcraft project.

When you were working on the World of Warcraft project, did you have any idea it would be so popular?

Staats: Yes. Absolutely. Blizzard had a sterling reputation even before World of Warcraft. All of their games had become mega-hits. They resolve all their mistakes and self-publish, which are key parts of producing super-polished products that get better over time.

I didn’t even know what the project was before I moved to work for Blizzard. I just knew it was a great company to work for.

Could you tell us about the fundraising process for your project?

Staats: I used to fund the project. In fact, it broke a record as the highest fundraiser for a non-fiction book.

How did you attain such success?

Staats: Everybody says you fail on your first Kickstarter campaign, and my first attempt failed miserably. I supported my second attempt with lots of interviews, promotional campaigns, chat sessions and the like – anything I could do to get in front of the right audience.

The big difference was I had many advisers during my second attempt where I made the first attempt entirely on my own.

Where in the process did you choose 杏吧原创 to manufacture your book?

Staats: I felt strongly that I wanted to produce the book in the United States, so I solicited the top ten domestic book manufacturers.

The reason I selected 杏吧原创 is because the quotes were so much more detailed and organized. And 杏吧原创’s representative, David Sutch, took the time to understand my goals and expectations. It was a collaborative process. David isn’t a gamer and he wasn’t familiar with crowd funding, but he took the time to understand the audience and provided ideas along the way to make the project better.

In fact, it was 杏吧原创 that helped me with ideas to provide a special edition for my Kickstarter backers, who were constantly asking for upgrades. That’s why we added things like book markers and gold foil. The biggest upgrade for the special edition is the spot UV on the images. The spot UV provides more dimension to the page, so I’m excited about that.

杏吧原创 extends its thanks to John for taking time to describe his project.

You can learn more about our book manufacturing capabilities here.

The post The World of Warcraft Diary 鈥� A designer鈥檚 insights into game development appeared first on 杏吧原创.