PSF Python Brochure
Contents
Members:
MarcAndreLemburg (lead)
- Armin Stroß-Radschinski (layout, design, production)
- Jan-Ulrich Haseke (text)
Note: This page has been made publicly viewable. It is available without PSF login.
Introduction
The PSF marketing material project aims to design, produce and ship professional quality marketing material for Python.
The first goal is to create a Python brochure which show-cases Python's application spaces, how it helps users to achieve their tasks and what its benefits are in a professional and educational setting.
Summary
The project is led by Marc-André Lemburg who is in contact with the people behind the Plone brochure created by the German Zope User Group (DZUG): Jan Ulrich Hasecke and Armin Stroß-Radschinski.
We started working on the concept a few weeks after World Plone Day in April 2010 and had several meetings and conference calls to take the idea forward.
The project has been running since Dec 2010, making slow, but steady progress. It's one of those projects that take time and lots of effort to get to the finishing line.
For more details, please see the brochure support site at:
Project Setup
In order to run the project, Armin's company Evenios Publishing is taking care of the brochure production work and also processes the ad sales. This has the advantage that EU companies who sign up for ads can get the VAT back and companies outside the EU don't have to be billed VAT at all.
The PSF has signed a contract with Evenios Publishing to produce the brochure under a predefined budget plan. After successful production, Evenios will also take care of distributing the brochures to interested parties with the PSF managing the selection process.
Our aim is to make the project a zero sum project for the PSF by having Evenios pay back the initial PSF kickoff investment at the end of the project. This is why we need the help of sponsors to refinance the production costs.
Project Plan
We have finished the first phases:
- Concept
- Budget/production/sponsor/distributions plans
Support website (http://brochure.getpython.info/)
- Finding/editing/creating success stories and editorial content
- Layout
Distribution of the booklets and flyers at PyCon US and EuroPython conferences
- Marketing the brochure idea to the community at these conferences (in person and through contact scouts)
- Payment platform for ads, reference entries, subscriptions and educational sponsorships
- Creating preview booklets and flyers for the brochure
- Getting approvals from all content suppliers
- Creating a PDF preview of the complete brochure which can be sent out to sponsors
- Selling the various ads and sponsorship options to help refinance the production and distribution costs
- Printing of the brochure
We're now in the last phase:
- Distribution of the brochures to conferences, user groups, universities, schools, etc.
Most of the 10,000 printed brochures have been distributed already. We only have a few boxes left.
Due to too many community orders and an overall increase in costs (for e.g. running a shopping system and due to the many delays we had to deal with), we will not have money left to refund the initial upfront investment back to the PSF.
Late in May 2016, the PSF board has granted an extra USD 3500 budget to cover the shipping costs of the remaining brochures.
Sponsor Options
All options are listed on our sponsorship page, and you can also order them online:
Ads and Reference Entries
There are 11 half-page ads available in the brochure and 12 reference sponsor entries.
The reference sponsor entries are meant for companies providing Python services, have a fixed layout and provide a great value for money: the companies will not only be listed in 10.000+ copies of the brochure, but they will also each get a box of around 120 copies of the brochure.
Educational Sponsorship
In case you missed it in the last report: we have also added a new sponsor option: the educational sponsorship.
This works much like the subscription sponsorship where a company can order extra brochure copies at very reasonable prices. The difference is that companies can order extra copies for educational institutions of their choice or of the PSF's choice. The bill will be paid by the company and the boxes will go straight to the institution.
Help find Sponsors
If you know possible sponsors or are interested in sponsoring the brochure yourself, please check the available sponsorship plans we have available:
If you have questions, please ping me directly or write to brochure@getpython.info.
Help find Success Stories
Since we'll be continuing to work on the brochure project and also continue to collect success stories, we're always interested in getting in contact with people behind interesting projects and companies using Python to do great things.
If you know such people, please contact us and consider signing up as contact scout to provide on-site help at conferences or other events:
and, if you're interested in the project, please consider signing up to our newsletter:
Issues
None.
Future plans
If the project goes well (and things look great at the moment), we'll follow up with a second edition of the brochure, Python flyers using material extracted from the brochure, translated versions of the brochure and also consider creating marketing material more targeted at specific user groups or application fields.
In the long run, we'd also like to take the idea of producing marketing material beyond printed material and develop booth setups, giveaways, CDs, etc. to support conference organizers and local user groups wishing to promote Python at their events.