Does anyone use a desktop program to create pamphlets or flyers for promoting yourself (your entertainment)? What software have you found to work best, easiest? Thanks for any thoughts of suggestions.

Glenn

Glenn...
I have been using MS Publisher and feel pretty comfortable with it. If you are familiar with MS Word...the learning curve isn't so bad.
Eddie

I think it's important to decide first how good your promotional materials need to be. If you're trying to communicate with sophisticated agents, bookers or corporate clients, your materials need to approach the level of professionalism these folks are used to seeing.

* Photographs should be shot to layout, not taken and then incorporated into the piece.

* Depending on the size of the final product, a digital image must be at least 6 meg to appoximate the quality of a 4"x6"
35 mm photo done with 200 ASA transparancy film. Cover shots for high end corporate brochures, annual reports, etc. are often done with the equivalent of 90-110 meg.

* Industry standard for brochure quality work is Quark Express, usually done on a Mac.

* Every area has excellent designers who work for $35.00-$50.00 per hour. They know how to format the work so that an image setter will convert accurately to film, plate or direct to press. That $75.00-$100.00 may be the best money you'll ever spend. That's about the cost of MS Publisher, which is easily spotted by communications proessionals (look at spacing between characters).

* While the situation is changing, many top printers resist receiving a file generated on a PC. You'll read that there is no difference between a quark file generated on a PC vs. one generated on a Mac, it just ain't so.

* Have someone with editing experience take a look. Often, we're too close to the subject to be objective.

If you're working on your primary marketing tool, it just makes good sense to put your best foot foreward, with a look as professional as you are.

As a booker for three establishments, I don't even consider hiring people who don't care enough about their profession to send in less than professionally done promotional
materials.

I should talk...I don't have demos, a brochure or even a headshot.

Hope this is useful.

Russ

I use MS Publisher. It works very well for what I need it to do. But, I print the brochures myself and do not send them to a "professional" printer. I don't think very many people could tell the difference.
If you are doing large quantities, that's another matter. It's not cost-efficient to print large quantities of a color brochure on a home PC.
DonM

Thanks for the replies. For my needs now, MSP should do the job. Altho I've never used it, I have it on my MS Office 2000 disk, plus I found a MSP 2000 tutorial online... so bingo. Besides, I only have 100 learning curves going, I needed another one.

Glenn...I've been in the publishing and business-to-business communications field for over 30 years.I teach business communication at the college level and am a consultant to Fortune 500 companies. Believe me, you can immediately tell a MS publisher job printed on a home computer. There are inexpensive ways to do what you need to do in a much more professional manner.

1. Send a text file of the copy to a local service bureau. That way, an operstor can flow copy in a way which is spaced correctly
and will be formatted with the right dpi for a professional look.

2. Go to a digital output house for production. These are Kinko type houses for the communications industry. They use very high quality (and expensive)printers and can justify images so they back-up correctly.
Cost is usually .75C a side, and you can use coated stock, which is necessary for acceptable reproduction of photographs.

I hate to see anyone spend the time learning a program when there is little or no chance that the final result will be a professional one. Even small churches use Pagemaker, instead of MS Publisher, and that's not even
a good enough program to do what you need to do.

I get 10 or more solicitations a week from
entertainers a week. The vast majority go in the trash. Unprofessional work tells me a lot about the level of professionalism of the entertainer.

A professional letter, customized to the decision maker, with an attached headshot and possibly a song list is much better.

If you'd like to talk about this, give me a call at 1-859-253-0390.

Just trying to help...

Russ

There are of course two sides to everything. I have also been in the publishing business for a long time, with a degree in Advertising/Journalistic Management. I was advertising manager for a large oil company and owned my own newspaper for several years.
The people at the Kinkos and other copy places here are really not very professional. Most are young "kids" who will try to do what you tell them, and nothing more. Maybe they are better in your area.
I also use coated stock and do not work from the supplied templates in Publisher.
I will agree with Russ that a nice personalized letter with song list and photo work very well, if you enclose a CD.
The idea of a brochure is to get people to listen and judge you from your sound. Russ, I'll bet you have eliminated some good acts without listening to their music over the years by judging them from the appearance of their package, which is, I suppose, what you are saying.
Anyway, we're all only trying to help and offering the benefit of our personal experiences. There is a learning curve in any computer software program. Maybe it seems easy to me because of my background.
DonM

Don...you're right, I may have missed hiring some excellent acts because I didn't think their promotional material was up to par.

With me, that's the way it goes. Anyone who doesn't respect the business enough to prepare professional marketing materials doesn't respect me or the profession. Sloppiness and a lack of knowledge about a very important part of the business is, I think, an indicator of general competence.

I was certainly not suggesting that anyone go to Kinko's for output, but simply trying to describe what services a professional service bureau offers.

This is just me, and I respect everyone's right to do whatever they want...

To Glenn...BEST OF LUCK!


Russ

Russ, I can see your point. The product must be well-presented.
Peace.
DonM

Don...Always interested in sharing experiences and hitories of others in the communication business. Maby we could swap "war stories" (not here-my email is MCCI@prodigy.net. Be great to hear from you when and if you have the time...

Best personal regards,

Russ

How bout that? Several of us ol' graphics/advertising guys here. I had an ad agency and a print production business for almost 20 years, and had a staff of 13. When I first started I thought it was my duty to encourage all my clients to have the best, slickest, glitziest graphics they could afford.

With time, I learned all advertising should be designed to the market it is trying to attract. Example: K Mart ads appeal to an entirely different clientele than Macy's...and it is reflected in the kind of cheesey look of their print adverting.

This does not mean any less thought goes into a cheaper looking ad or brochure. It's an image thing. Look at the grocery and appliance retailer inserts and ads...many of the ads look like a flea market with a dizzying array of offers, a variety of fonts in different sizes scattered everywhere, crooked pictures, cheap stock, and screaming headlines like SALE, SAVE, etc. Those kind of ads can be a bear to put together and take loads of time. And they are not cheap to create and produce.

Then compare that with a Rolex ad. One big, high quality picture and one to five words in the entire ad. Much of the time, price of the product is absent from such ads.

The entertainment directors of Caribbean cruise lines here in Florida want an entire, well produced package, including video. Some of the local venues will hire entertainers from a phone number scribbled on a cocktail napkin. But, in the end, we are ultimately judged on the basis of our performance in front of an audience.
Different market. Different approach.

Image. Image. Image.
If your clientele includes, say, County Fairs as well as fancy Country Clubs and hotels, it's only common sense to use unique approaches to each. Consider the price ranges paid by different clientele, the styles of music you offer, the clientele those styles and venues attract.

All in all, I like being able to produce custom fliers with MS Publisher...but I would not hesitate using a graphic designer, professional photographer, typesetting house, a 4-color printer, embosser, die-cutter and the like if the return on investment justified it.

Eddie

Well-put, Eddie. Now about MS Publisher...
(just kidding!).

Russ