TOPIC:

Manotas wrote:

Hi Jonny,

I understand your point of view....but i must honestly say i was very anxious for a new calendar !

Anyway, i agree with that the prices went drastically up, in concerns of postage and other fees.

I've had a look of what would cost tp produce such a calendar in Switzerland. ( Swiss calandar here )

I would pick the A4 option for 23.95 Swiss francs (more or less 19.50€). To reduce the costs i would pay the postage fee to my address.
In addition to this, to reduce the costs a bit more, the payment could be made via banktransfer in order to avoid pay pal fees.

To resume, i'd be happy to produce the calendar and send it to all the people who wants one, of course the postage may vary depending on the location.

By now i can just say it's going to cost 19.50€ + postage

Just keep me informed if anyone is intrested or if someone has a better idea.

Manotas

Wow... and I thought my printers were expensive at 10 GBP (11.65 EUR each)

Including the cost of printing, bulk shipping to me, tax on both of those, cost of card mailers, labels etc, Paypal fees, and the cost of posting onwards anywhere, I was looking at a price of 22 GBP (26 EUR) each - which i felt was ludicrous, it was expensive enough last year at 12 GBP (14 EUR).

Note the phrase "postage anywhere" - I took an average of the postage costs worldwide & added that into the price everyone paid. That could be interpreted as anyone in Europe subsidising anyone in North America or the Antipodes, but the alternative was to make them pay more for the same thing - which is really fairer?

I have no objection to you taking this on - but I'm concerned that your "business model" will mean that you calendars are at least as costly as mine would have been, with those further afield paying even more, and you'll make a loss due to not including the packing costs... and there still aren't the photos.

I'll wish you good luck with it - but I'm not going to be interested in purchasing one at the price you (or I) can produce them for. In fact, I've already bought a 30x30cm "Retro Cars" (naturally ) calendar (30x60, unfolded) for 2.50 GBP (3 EUR), posted, on eBay - there's just no competing with that.



I did look into uploading a calendar to the sort of online retailer that prints stuff on demand (cafe press, zazzle & so on) in the hope that a lost of the cost (re packing & shipping) could be avoided by individuals placing orders directly with the retailer in their own country, but that just wasn't going to work - either they didn't even make calendars, they did but they worked out even more expensive, and/or you couldn't buy the thing everywhere.




I realise this is all very negative, but, well, it is - I've given up on trying to make a 2014 calendar.


The only "better" idea I've had is to throw out the physical calendar itself - so someone draws up the grids for each month & bundles it all up in a PDF with photos & covers etc, then it's available for download at no (or low) cost - individuals can then print it out at their choice of quality - laser printer at work, photo paper & home, double sided laminated & bound at a copy shop, whatever.

Jonny,

I understand your point....

If you want to print a few calendars with self provided pictures, your provider is far cheaper than mine.
The proposal i made was just in order to keep the calendar "alive" beacause i think it's Tamiyabase's
Member showroom.

Anyway my purpose is not to make any money with this, if there is someone intrested in this project i will take this project on.

Manotas

For the last years calendar, I didn't actually have any cars built, and i lurked here a bit. Now I have a Supershot running and a Bigwig, close (gonna have to fork out for the rear underside panel some time).

To be honest, I find calendars boring, unless they are a new picture everyday.

I have an idea, starting January 1, there is a thread - A PICTURES ONLY THREAD - where people can post 1 pic a day of their car - in a seasonal setting. It doesn't have to be box art (my two are not box art) preferably should be the first 100 but maybe something else will slip in.

As for seasonal, yes, whilst you norther hemisphere people and chillin in minus 5 and snow, I shall be sweating it out in +35 with 90% humidity - still seasonal for me!

Maybe the critique that was posted earlier could be put up to remind people what we are looking for but as this is for us to look at others cars and not the pro- version of a calendar, if the antenna is a bit loose or such, eh, doesn't matter.

Thoughts?

Hay Ewe

The problem is it is all about quantity. If you wanted 10,000 copies I am sure you could get them for pennies. This is a problem I run across all the time for sourcing all kinds of things for my small business. Suppliers are just not interested in selling a few 10's of something. I think a possible solution would be one of the online printers where you use a pre-prepared template and/or do most of the layout work yourself online.

I found this online printer that seems reasonable at about GBP5 +VAT each for 25 calendars.

I've also used Vistaprint in the past and they're not too bad for small quantities. A quick look there shows a cost of about £150 +VAT for 25 pcs delivered to UK.