Where to Ski And Snowboard -

Off to press ...

26th July 2010, by Wendy King

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“In a well written book, the letters are alive. They dance in their seats. Sometimes they rise and dance in the margins” - Robert Bringhurst

Will it be alright on the night? Well, we hope so. The last day of book production arrived, and we can blog the news that another edition of our wonderful guidebook is winging its way to the printers in Italy. Excellent. Time for a cuppa and to reflect on the past four months [ Blimey, did I say four months? Where has the time gone? It’s all a blur to me.] ...

Anyway, that’s about as long as it is to the new winter season - fab!

It’s an intense period, which stops rather abruptly once the pages are given the final thumbs up; although much of the foundation work for a new edition continues throughout the year. But, as the production managers put together the remaining bits and bobs, such as the cover, it was with a little anti-climax that there was little left to do yesterday - except, er, read the ‘book’ (and a very satisfying process it is too, approving all the individual pages ready to go).

The team has spent the past few days looking at every page, making adjustments or spotting things we might have missed earlier in the process. You need a good pair of eyes - we’ll several pairs of eyes really: as well as resort chapters, there are features, piste maps, photos and ads to place and check; page numbers to adjust – right down to the tiniest details such as updating numbers and straplines (the bits on the edge of each page).

Cross-check, cleared for take-off.

I love the variety involved and being involved: it’s like piecing together a giant jigsaw puzzle – which takes a lot of thought and writing, but fits together neatly at the end. Thankfully, we have a very slick database system to help us though; I’m mightily impressed by what we can achieve with it. When all hands are on deck checking information, you need a place to keep track of it all. Although, somehow I still manage to sprawl endless bits of paper and sticky notes over my desk!

We were seeing ‘stars’ yesterday: resort ratings for every major chapter in the book need to be checked against their chapter entry (which also includes stars next to each heading in the text). And those pretty little stars can cause quite a stir. The editors fiercely debate whether to raise or lower a rating, given our experiences, news from the resorts and reader comments – from which we receive lots of useful feedback. Everyone has their own opinions of course, on things such as fast lifts, snow, queues and extent.

Well, the work doesn’t stop there: we’re just as excited about getting on with the website, then the book launch, then the winter ... And about doing it all again next year!

But first, we’re off to toast the 15th edition of Where to Ski and Snowboard with a beer. 

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