Commentary: Closing Out The Year In Review

Be careful what you wish for. From mid-November through early January, no saying rings more true for us.

That’s because in 2015 we decided to produce an annual Speed On The Water Year In Review print magazine. It’s not just your average standard-size boating publication—the Year In Review is a photo-driven, oversized collectible edition that started at 132 pages, grew to 164 pages in 2016 and by 2017 had reached a whopping 196 pages.

Anchored by spectacular photography, the 2018 Speed On The Water Year In Review issue is in the final stages of production before it goes to the printer. Photo courtesy/copyright Pete Boden/Shoot 2 Thrill Pix.

The good news—at least for two editors currently working like mad men to get it in the hands of readers before the 2019 Miami International Boat Show in February—is that the magazine won’t get any bigger. Adding more pages to a book like this would make it prohibitively heavy and, as such, expensive to ship. In its present 196-page form, the issue weighs close to two pounds. And with its heavy, high-dollar internal print stock and stiff front and back covers, it’s not the kind of publication you can slap a label on and drop in the mail.

On that note, if you haven’t ordered your issue you need to get on that before Jan. 7, the date the issue is slated to be at printer. Shipping individual copies directly from the Minneapolis-based outfit handling physical production of the magazine costs a lot less than shipping individual copies from our offices in California. Translation? After Jan. 7, the issue price goes up.

Producing a Year In Review issue requires us to put in strange and unusual hours during the holidays. That’s not a complaint, just reality given the nature of the annual project. Heck, the last major events of the year—the Super Boat International Offshore World Championships and Florida Powerboat Club Key West Poker Run—didn’t even finish up until two weeks shy of Thanksgiving. No matter how much advance work we do for the issue throughout the year, the devil is in the details, meaning thousands of words worth of summaries and captions that need to be researched, written and fact-checked. Not to mention advertising materials that need to be produced at the same quality level.

In publishing a high-end, one-of-a-kind magazine, those details mean everything. Until the final PDF for the issue is uploaded to our printer in early January, they will consume us. This is crunch time.

Of course, that won’t stop us from taking off the rest of today—it is New Year’s Eve—and maybe even most of tomorrow. (Hard as it might be for those of you who know us well, we do have families and friends.) But come Jan. 2 we’ll be back at it and for the following five days, and much of the nights, our pace will be frenetic.

We can see the light at the end of the tunnel and we’re reasonably sure it’s not an oncoming train. So Happy New Year to all of you, and here’s to another spectacular Speed On The Water Year In Review issue—as well as the year on the water to come.

Click here to order the 2018 Speed On The Water Year In Review issue,