Every year at this time, Hammock editors work with our clients to compile annual editorial slates. Here are a few hints we’ve learned that make the process go more smoothly—and pump up magazine stakeholders about the coming year.

Although it’s only July, media planners in advertising agencies across the country are gearing up for their 2009 planning efforts. That means that we are in full media kit mode here at Hammock—creating, editing, designing and distributing the 2009 kits for our clients to have the kits in front of buyers when they begin their planning phases. If your magazines are supported by advertising, here are 6 of our media kits tips to keep in mind during your media kit development:

My sweet mother rarely sends me an e-mail without a semicolon in it. She loves that little piece of punctuation. I’ll give her credit though; 99 percent of the time she uses it correctly.
For writers and editors, the semicolon is a must for adding variety to our words. But not everyone is a fan of the “supercomma” as it’s called by some. Is it stronger than a comma? Weaker than a period? Kinda.
Here are four common (and correct) ways to use a semicolon:

Our client’s magazines were being delayed once they entered the Bulk Mail Center. The magazines were entering a facility that served a large area of the heavily populated northeastern United States, but the magazines weren’t making it to our client’s members’ homes for three or four weeks. They were being transported from postal facility to postal facility to postal facility until they reached the local post office for delivery.
While participating in a webinar on postal concerns, I learned about a company that co-mails magazines together. We worked out a plan where:

• Our client’s magazines would be picked up at our printer, who would have them sorted by zip codes
• The magazines would be shipped to a center where hundreds of other magazines would be pooled together into mail streams by ZIP codes
• These large bundles of magazines would be directly trucked to USPS distribution centers close the subscribers’ homes
• The magazines arrived at the local post offices quicker and were delivered within 7-10 days after leaving the printer’s dock.

Plus, the client paid less in postage or postal freight.

Were always proud of the work we produce along with our clients. But its nice to be recognized for those effortsespecially when the group doing the recognizing is comprised of industry peers.
The Custom Publishing Councils Pearl Awards were announced last week and MyBusiness magazine (the member publication we produce for the 550,000 small-business members of NFIB) won the top award in the Editorial Excellence category for magazines with circulations of more than 125,000.
Woo hoo!!!!…ok, back to work.

From Hammock editor Bill Hudgins:
Serendipity: finding something unexpected and useful while searching for something else. One of my favorite words, it sounds like it belongs in an Ogden Nash poem. Im especially fond of it now, as a chance story assignment for a client has given me a new lease on life.
Back in summer 2005, I wrote a newsletter article for one of our clients, StoneCrest Medical Center, about a new procedure that uses a CT scanner to measure the amount of calcium in your hearts arteries  basically, how much, if any, hardening of the arteries you have. This in turn can indicate how likely you are to have potentially nasty clogs in your pipes.
Cool, I thought. Im over 50, have regular checkups, and I try to exercise and eat right, but my family has some heart disease history. Can’t hurt to get one. I live near another TriStar Hospital that offers the test and took it there. Took 10 minutes  less time than registering  and I didn’t have to skip breakfast or even put on a hospital gown.
The results were not what I expected. Instead of clean plumbing, the test ranked me in the low end of moderate hardening in a couple of spots. My doctor recommended a cardiac stress test to find out precisely what was happening in there.
Aside from having to postpone breakfast and that all-important first cup of java for several hours, the test was not bad. All my Stairmastering made the 12 minutes on a treadmill pretty easy. The cardiologist was encouraging but said the many photos they took of my ticker before and after would tell the tale. Just in case it came out bad, afterwards I indulged in a fair number of foods that might soon be off-limits.
This story has a happy ending. The stress test was negative, which is positive news. I still have to do what I can to keep the hardening at bay. But I can quit worrying about this and go back to a more immediate threat to my health: my daily commute on I-65.
I can only hope that the article that I wrote for our client’s newsletter will help someone else.

From Rex Hammock:
At the Folio Awards on Nov. 1, we learned this Ride magazine cover had won a Silver Ozzie in the non-profit/institutional/custom magazine category.
“It’s nice to be recognized by one’s peers,” as they say in the awards world. The Ozzies are a big deal in the magazine world because they recognize the best design of the year.
I’m very proud of our design team’s consistent performance in the Ozzie awards and am especially proud to learn that a cover from one of our magazines, Ride PWC, is one of three finalists for this year’s Ozzie for Best Cover (association, institutional or custom magazine — it is the official magazine of the American Watercraft Association). Being a finalist in this category is a great honor and I have great hopes that this particular cover wins the Ozzie.
I wouldn’t usually say this (I’d be blowing my “humility” cover), but I’m especially proud of this cover as it knowingly breaks many clich rules of “cover design” yet with great craft and success displays how powerful a medium magazines can be.
The interplay of photograph, typography along with the juxtaposition of words and images all connect in telling a wonderful story.
It makes me want to be down there, riding that PWC across the “R” and off into someplace great. I can just imagine those folks in the cars wishing they were on that PWC. I know the cover connects powerfully with the magazine’s readers in a way that only a PWC enthusiast can truly appreciate.
At Hammock Publishing, we think our job is to help our clients tell their stories. Some people may call this “branding.” We call it storytelling.
This is one of those times when I am not only amazed at how well our team helped tell the AWA & PWC story, they created a classic tale.

One of our clients is the American Watercraft Association , for whom we publish Ride Personal Watercraft Magazine. There’s a section in the magazine that is a joint project between AWA and Shawn Alladio, a world-renowned water safety and rescue trainer. In the days following Hurricane Katrina, Alladio and several colleagues went to New Orleans to assist in rescue efforts; their experience was chronicled by The New Yorker Magazine.

Hot of the presses is Hammock Publishing’s new collaboration with Conferon Global Services: The CGS Guide to Room Block Management. The 64-page resource details the best practices of the industrys leading meeting planning firm, drawing on its collective wisdom of 35 years of experience.
Because successful room block management is one of meeting planners’ toughest challenges, the CGS Guide breaks down the process for veterans and novices alike. The publication gives strategies for compiling group history, selecting a site, determining room counts, creating the proper mix of hotelsall while ensuring that meeting attendees are satisfied and associations remain on firm financial footing.
Hilton Hotels, sponsor of the Guide, shares cover billing with CGS. They will unveil the new publication at this weekend’s annual meeting of the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) in Nashville.

Hammock Publishing Inc. has won eight awards in the 17th Annual APEX Awards for Publication Excellence, including a Grand Award for American Spirit, the member magazine of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (NSDAR) – the third consecutive year that American Spirit has received this honor.
Hammock submitted the November/December 2004 issue for the competition. In making the award, the judges said of American Spirit: “Marvelous spreads with first rate photography, illustrations and type set the stage for compellingly written features. This meticulously crafted, exceptionally designed and written magazine is absolutely top-drawer.”
The contemporary iteration of a century-old publishing tradition, American Spirit is the official magazine of the DAR, one of the best-known and most celebrated women’s organizations in America. Available on national newsstands and by subscription, the bimonthly American Spirit reflects our nations fascination with historic preservation, travel, genealogy, collectibles and Americana.
Winning Awards of Excellence in the contest were:
Design & Layout – “Voyage of the Periauger” – American Spirit
Feature Writing – “When Women Lost the Right to Vote” – American Spirit
Best Redesign – Ride PWC Magazine, published for the American Watercraft Association
Most Improved Magazines & Journals – Ride May/June 2004
Magazine & Journal Writing – MyBusiness (published for the National Federation of Independent Business – April/May 2004
Web & Intranet Site Content & Writing – NFIB.com
Custom Published Newsletters – “Sumner Health” (published for Sumner Regional Health Systems Inc., – Autumn 2004