Thinking of making a calendar

..MD..

..MD..

Helen Shapiro
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As title really. I am thinking of making a calendar for next year. I have all the images I want .
I was just wondering who do you guys use and why..

I will be sorting this out over the next few weeks..:thumbs:

All and any info greatfully recived


few pointers I will be trying to see if a few local shops would be interested in selling them for me . Its not all about the money but if I made a quid all the better..

md:thumbs:
 
cheers guys:thumbs:



md:thumbs:
 
If you want to make a profit (or just break even!) you can forget Photobox! Their prices are fine for doing a one off, but if you want multiple copies you need to find somewhere cheaper. I did a calendar a couple of years ago, and ended up printing it myself on an A4 colour laser printer on nice quality paper. I then had it bound by a local print shop. I sold around 470 in the end, which was quite good going as I'd made 500. I did it for a local charity, so didn't charge for my time, and selling at £5 per calendar (12 pages plus cover sheet) with a cost-to-me of somehwere around £3.50 each made a reasonable profit for the charity.

It was a lot of work, but rewarding in the end, and nice to know that 470 houses all over the world had my photos up on their walls for a year :)
 
I made my own last year for the anniversary of school and church in the village I live in. Sold 60 and printed and bound them all myself, takes a LONG time but was so much cheaper than I could get them done at a printer (for such a small run). It does seem you need to do bulk or have a lot of spare time to make it work :(

I am tempted to try some more this year though, so gonna keep an eye on this thread :)
 
snowy said:
If you want to make a profit (or just break even!) you can forget Photobox! Their prices are fine for doing a one off, but if you want multiple copies you need to find somewhere cheaper. I did a calendar a couple of years ago, and ended up printing it myself on an A4 colour laser printer on nice quality paper. I then had it bound by a local print shop. I sold around 470 in the end, which was quite good going as I'd made 500. I did it for a local charity, so didn't charge for my time, and selling at £5 per calendar (12 pages plus cover sheet) with a cost-to-me of somehwere around £3.50 each made a reasonable profit for the charity.

It was a lot of work, but rewarding in the end, and nice to know that 470 houses all over the world had my photos up on their walls for a year :)
Click to expand...


this is what i am now thinking making the pages up and getting them printed then sent back to me to bind them... not the best way but prob the cheapest .. i can get the kids working :lol:


md :thumbs: thanks for taking the time....:thumbs:
 
Jimmy_Lemon said:
I made my own last year for the anniversary of school and church in the village I live in. Sold 60 and printed and bound them all myself, takes a LONG time but was so much cheaper than I could get them done at a printer (for such a small run). It does seem you need to do bulk or have a lot of spare time to make it work :(

I am tempted to try some more this year though, so gonna keep an eye on this thread :)
Click to expand...

My problem so far is the price getting them made out ... it leave no room for any profit...

i would like to sell for around the same as the tp calendar was as it seemed very good imho and the qc is great...


md:thumbs:
 
Think there is very little (if any) profit in the TP calendars though :( but yeah that sort of quality is what I am after, and what I can't quite replicate with home printing :( but worked out the unit cost for doing them myself were £2 for paper, ink, wire bind, hook - add time and wear and tear and you are talking £4 each and very little left for profit.
 
..MD.. said:
this is what i am now thinking making the pages up and getting them printed then sent back to me to bind them... not the best way but prob the cheapest .. i can get the kids working :lol:


md :thumbs: thanks for taking the time....:thumbs:
Click to expand...

Binding is a BIG faff, but yeah if you have slaves/kids to help it would cut costs, I picked up a binder 'fairly' cheaply last year and it works well but you have to get your eye in to go with any speed.
 
Jimmy_Lemon said:
Think there is very little (if any) profit in the TP calendars though :( but yeah that sort of quality is what I am after, and what I can't quite replicate with home printing :( but worked out the unit cost for doing them myself were £2 for paper, ink, wire bind, hook - add time and wear and tear and you are talking £4 each and very little left for profit.
Click to expand...

hmmmmm brain ticking over here :thinking:

maybe if a few of us got together we could get a few different ones done at a good rate for bulk orders :shrug:


md:shrug:
 
Incidentally, as far as calendar software goes, the best I found was actually Microsoft Publisher which has some very flexible calendar templates built in. I tried lots of other bespoke calendar programs and they were all rubbish by comparison.

Printing yourself only really works if you've got a good quality laser printer. Inkjet is too slow and too expensive. You can get colour laser printers really cheap these days, and on high quality paper the output is easily good enough for calendars.

You can also buy the ring binding machines plus notch cutters, but it was cheaper (and easier!) for me to use my local print shop to do that bit as they didn't charge very much at all.
 
I do a calendar for another small forum and I've struck up a good relationship with our local Kall Kwik printers. The most I've had printed is 50 and they work out at a little over £2.50 each for 14pages and spiral binding. I get to choose the paper quality and a couple of times I've had an extra one or two at no extra cost (it helps that I stress that I'm doing them to raise funds for a charity).

Good luck!
 
I made a calendar last year, I used the calendar templates from Digital Photo magazine and did the calendar on Photoshop, I uploaded the calendar to Fileprint and they did the spiral bound and printing, I ordered 20 copies. The calendar from Fileprint was about £2.50, I sold the calendars at £5 per calendar (12 pages and cover) :)
 
HappySnapper said:
I made a calendar last year, I used the calendar templates from Digital Photo magazine and did the calendar on Photoshop, I uploaded the calendar to Fileprint and they did the spiral bound and printing, I ordered 20 copies. The calendar from Fileprint was about £2.50, I sold the calendars at £5 per calendar (12 pages and cover) :)
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that sounds a fair price imho :thumbs:


md:thumbs:
 
good call happysnapper.. i just googled fileprint having never heard of them before and wow! some good prices there.. cheers:)
 
:thumbs:

Yep I will get one of theose calendars done and see how it looks. If its ok I might see if a few local shops would be interested...;)


cheers matey


md:thumbs:


any other company's worth a try :shrug:
 
HappySnapper said:
I made a calendar last year, I used the calendar templates from Digital Photo magazine and did the calendar on Photoshop, I uploaded the calendar to Fileprint and they did the spiral bound and printing, I ordered 20 copies. The calendar from Fileprint was about £2.50, I sold the calendars at £5 per calendar (12 pages and cover) :)
Click to expand...

:eek: That sounds almost too good to be true! What sort of calendars did they print for you? It's not entirely clear from their website what you get for your £2.50.
 
What is the print quality like from Fileprint, HappySnapper?
 
I ordered an A3 from fileprint purely as an example as I was orderng same one from photobox at 5.99.. the difference is massive and I wont be ordering from fileprint again. poor quality all round. the packaging was a joke and arrived in an a4 jiffy bag bent at all 4 corners and shall we say lumpy.. colours are awful... paper/card or whatever was a lot thicker than photobox but probably its downfall..

I guess in this instance it is true you get what you pay for :(
 
KIPAX said:
I ordered an A3 from fileprint purely as an example as I was orderng same one from photobox at 5.99.. the difference is massive and I wont be ordering from fileprint again. poor quality all round. the packaging was a joke and arrived in an a4 jiffy bag bent at all 4 corners and shall we say lumpy.. colours are awful... paper/card or whatever was a lot thicker than photobox but probably its downfall..

I guess in this instance it is true you get what you pay for :(
Click to expand...

Thanks for that write up mate I was going to make one today and get it ordered.:thinking:

Think ill wait a while now.

md:thumbs:
 
That was for one A3 print.. nothing else.. calanders might be great.. its put me off to be honest but at those prices might be worth getting one just to see... I hate putting people off ..but that was my experience and got the print on sat after reading this thread.. so delivery quick :)
 
i make mine myself ;) I have all the binding machinery etc, made me a fortune last year
 
I'm using google calender, it's simple, but enough for me
 
I produced a family calendar using template from Digital Photo for a couple of years. Very small runs, less than 6 copies. Printed at home on a photo printer. As calenders they are very expensive (probably about £13 ea, working on £1 per A4 print incl paper and ink), as personal gifts they were very cheap.

Hardest thing was finding a binder that would do the small runs.
 
I bought a binder for £25, 100 combs for £2.99. The binder cuts, then binds the calenders. I got A4 clear pvc front page covers, The calenders looked great. Printed at home on photo paper using calenter software from DP magazine.
Dean:)
 
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