Our first couple of ‘inspirational’ calendars were full of lovely photos and printed on nice paper. We struggled to sell enough of them at £10 or so each to cover the cost of the print-run and the photography – and were often still left with a couple of hundred (representing hundreds of pounds) in the summer… So we adopted the approach of printing a lot of them, getting the pages sponsored and giving it away with the magazine. The calendar covers its costs and everyone gets one. I guess if you don’t like it, then it’s not like it’s cost you any extra. As I mentioned, we give the option of the page sponsor to supply their own artwork, or else we’ll supply something appropriate. Unfortunately, if they want to supply something inappropriate because they’re an ‘edgy’ company and want people to talk about (worked, hasn’t it?) then that’s what we go with, in the same way that we might not like every single advert that’s in the magazine, but they help it be made, so we’re happy to have the advertisers there.
However, if 500 of you want to send me £12 by August, I’ll produce and print you 500 copies of a lovely calendar for 2012 with some inspirational pictures in. But stumping up £5K and hoping to sell enough to cover the costs isn’t something we as a small independent company can afford. We do offer a few screensavers that’d be good to download and print out if you fancy an alternative…