general
DO
• Determine what information you can contribute that will benefit readers. Ironically, your organization will benefit from publishing a periodical only if you can deliver information that will interest and benefit your readers. If the readers win, your organization will win. If readers do not win, your efforts will be wasted.

• Make content your top priority. The content of your publication -- not the paper, size, color or printing quality -- will reinforce your organization's connection with your reader, impressing, informing, and influencing them.

Many organizations spend the lion's share of their publishing budget on printing and mailing. Whatever is left goes to edit, write, find photos, and design the publication. Therein lies the single most important reason most corporate magazines and newsletters fail to accomplish their objectives.

Such publications are not only a waste of time and money, they also reflect poorly on the publisher.

Either commit the funds to publishing quality content that will interest and benefit your readers or don't publish.

• Find an custom publishing professional who can conceive of a suitable publication for your goals and audience, create an editorial plan to generate readership, devise subject matter and story angles that will intrigue readers and promote your programs, and find writers and designers to bring the ideas to life.

In David Stewart of Stewart Publications, you have found in someone who combines 20 years of publishing, editing, and design experience with an MBA's mind for business and marketing. Stewart can, in turn, call on a network of talented journalists and designers to ensure your publication meets the highest standards..

DON'T
• Leave your publication to amateurs. While it may be tempting to hand off the assignment of producing a publication to an in-house employee, do so only if you would contract with this person if they were not an employee. Your publication speaks volumes about your organizations. Putting it in the hands of an amateur puts your organization's reputation at risk.

• Settle for an agency that does not specialize in publications. In an age of specialization, you needn't rely on a large public relations or advertising agency to produce a publication. Just as you wouldn't entrust your broadcast advertising to an ad agency that specializes in direct-mail, don't trust your publication to a firm that specializes in collateral material or event planning. Producing quality publications is the only business of a custom publisher like Stewart Custom Publications.