The 2018 version ofTrends in State Courts was mailed out during the last week of June. The collective sigh of relief you heard from NCSC headquarters came from Deborah Smith (right), its managing editor, and Trends’ other editors, Blake Kavanagh (left) and Chuck Campbell.

This story — told by Smith and Kavanagh, both NCSC analysts in our Knowledge and Information Services Department — is about the incredible amount of preparation and coordination that goes into producing Trends, which we hope you have seen and enjoyed by now.  If you haven't, it's available online here.

Creating Trends, which had a run of 3,000 copies this year, is a year-round endeavor, done by lots of people who also do many other things throughout the year.

Kavanagh: This (July) is the only month when we don’t do anything (related to Trends). But that’s a lie: People call and request copies, and we send them out. And by July we've already created a folder for the next year’s book.

Smith: If we think of people who would be good authors, we put that in the folder, or if we have ideas for stories, they go in there. In August, we really start gearing up, and in September we have a Trends Committee call. (This is a committee that helps the editors determine which topics and stories to pursue.) We give them the ideas we have, and they help us fill in the blanks. We have to do this in September because the deadline for (story idea) abstracts is in October.

…At this time of year, we’ve got a lot of balls in the air. We have to keep in mind what NACM, CCJ and COSCA members are interested in. We’re looking for research that we might want someone to write about. We’re balancing the states. We want to make sure the authors aren’t from the same two or three states. We’re also narrowing down the abstracts and running them by (NCSC External Affairs Vice President) Jesse (Rutledge) and (Knowledge and Information Services Director) Dave (Hartt).

Kavanagh: By the end of October and the beginning of November, we’re contacting authors who we know we’re working with. And that’s when we do soliciting, trying to find other authors for topics we want to cover. In November and December, we get real aggressive with that because if we don’t have our authors lined up by the end of the year, no one will have the time to write stories.

Smith: We start talking with Neal (Kauder, the page designer) in January. He wants to know what all the articles will be about. By January, we think we know that, but sometimes the articles and abstracts don’t match up.

Kavanagh: Starting in late January, the review board starts getting stories. (The review board, like an academic peer review group, edits the stories to make sure they’re complete.)

Smith: We don’t tell the review board who the authors are. It’s totally anonymous. An author could be a colleague, a friend or a frenemy of someone on the review board. If the reviewer is a little harsh, we don’t want the author to know where the criticism came from.

Kavanagh: It’s a small world.

Smith: Most review board edits and suggestions start making their way to the authors in February and March.

Kavanagh: After that, stories go to Chuck for copy editing. Copy editing stretches into May, and stories are going back and forth from the editors to the authors the whole time.

Smith: We usually get the cover from Neal in February or early March and then we walk that around. (Walking it around involves showing it to different people at NCSC headquarters and asking them if they understand the message the designer is trying to convey.) …In May, authors see the proofs and the graphics and images that go with their stories, and we get their input. This can spill into early June. During this time, we (Smith and Kavanagh) are also proofing stories and graphics.

Kavanagh: We go to the printer in early to mid-June, and we get it back in late June, and the distribution begins.

Smith: We had a run of 3,000 copies this year and a distribution list of about 2,600, so we’ll have extras to send out when we get requests or when someone wants to take a box of them to a conference.

Kavanagh: It’s one of my favorite things I do here. I love working with Deborah and Chuck.