Well I intend here to to explain just how to go about it. Now I have never printed a calendar in Australia, or the USA, but I cannot see that it will be very different. I am not talking about you finding 12 prints you like and sticking them together to produce a few copies for family and friends. If you want to do that then a company on our shop page will happily do that for you. No I mean getting a quality set of prints together, making a large print run and selling the finished calendar for a profit. Yes really publishing your own work.
Firstly to be successful you should work to a theme. Obviously that theme is one of choice, but it should be something that you believe in and that will be commercial. The pleasure and excitement of seeing your work in print and knowing your pictures will go all over the world is certainly gratification enough. Yet you must recoup the cost otherwise it is a wasted exercise.
Your calendars will not be bought by tourists remembering the scenes of their holidays, your glamour pictures will be gracing garage, factory, and office walls. If you theme it specifically then maybe just those interested in your subject matter. Whatever you do though, you must work out your profit margin. You should aim to produce around 10,000 single units because less than that really doesn't work out a lot cheaper. You pay for the initial set up costs, printing set up and sundries, and the quantity obliviously gets more without too much cost increase. I have discovered this 10,000 to be about right. Less and you have to sell at too high a price and more and you can sell more cheaply, but can you shift them all?
So to have 10,000 printed on good quality paper (You must aim for quality otherwise you're in competition with the mass producers) will cost around £8,000 sterling. Now remember your intention is to sell in bulk to companies that will want to overprint their company details on a blank space you provide, so they can send them to their clients.
So if you were to sell each unit for £2.50 then you would receive £25,000 sterling, less £8,000 costs giving you a profit of £17,0000. Not bad if you are only looking to cover costs. One thing that is very important is that you ensure your details as photographer are on every picture. It can bring about a lot of work.
Of course you are a photographer and not a salesman so unless you have that talent of selling, actually getting the calendars sold is not so easy. Here I suggest you could hire an agent. The simplest way to find such an agent is to find some printing firms that overprint calendars for clients and find out from them where they get their calendars and approach the agent direct. This is also a very good way of seeing how your calendar stacks up. If the agent's not interested in what you show him then maybe try another agent, or look critically again at your prints. Obviously the agent will take a cut, but remember he'll deliver and store your calendars so that is an expense you will not have to look at. Let me state the obvious here! An agent that specialises in pretty pink kittens will not be interested in your work. So ensure any agent you approach handles the type of work you do.
So lets look at what we have to do.
First get your prints together based on a theme. Find an agent as described above, take your prints along and discuss if he will supply on your behalf.
If the man from Delmonte he say yes, next you need a printer. Find several calendars that you like the quality of and they will all have printers details on them somewhere. Ring round and see what's what. Make sure you understand the terms of payment and that you can see proofs. Many will tell you their scanning is 100% and this negates the needs for proofs. Yeah sure!
Once you are satisfied that the printer will do you justice, that the agent is happy he can shift them, go for it.
Once your work is in print and circulating you will become a name and this in itself will reap more work. Also the kudos of producing a high gloss calendar when a possible client wants to see previous work is extraordinary, especially when you can talk about 10,000 units sold.
As a test you could put something together on your computer and get it commercially printed as a one off to see how it looks. Remember you could be the next Pirelli.
Time scale?
Basically you want the finished calendars for
August/September ready for sale. I know very few of you will attempt this, but I
really hope some of you will feel the time and investment well worthwhile, in
yourself.
Click picture for full image
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| Select a theme that will be commercial | ||
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