Boards.ie Calendar?

m_s_nixon

Any interest in having a boards.ie calendar composed of landscape pictures that represent a month of the year, we could run a monthly competition with the winner having their photo in the calendar next year, obviously it wouldn't include as many as the photobook but it'd still be fun

Ricky91t

I'd have to say nay,

The book is a big enough project,It's contributes to a charity that is well known on boards making the book quite popular,The book isn't cheap and I'm not 100% sure if people would like to buy a calendar after the book,The calendars would have to be ordered in bulk and you'd have to sort out the funding,If you don't make the money back people will be left out of pocket,Where as the book can be purchased by anyone and has unlimited numbers and no one on boards has to put any money into it,So financially it's a safe option and no one looses money.

Edit:This is just my opinion people,Feel free to agree or disagree with it,I couldn't care less!

wersal gummage

m_s_nixon wrote: »

we could run a monthly competition

but what if Valentia didn't win it ?;):D

kjt

wersal gummage wrote: »

but what if Valentia didn't win it ?;):D

LOL !!

AnCatDubh

You could always go for the self publishing option. Using something like redbubble you could create a calendar and then you would be at no loss when you go to sell.

Big problem though - lets assume its only half as popular an idea as the book is and you end up with 60 ready, willing, and able, photographers each duelling for the coveted space - well, how do you choose 11 more assuming I of course must have a page to myself!

Also consider impact - a two edge sword. On one hand, would it be diluting the impact of the sales of the book

or

on the other hand, a calendar might be a lower cost option for people that may find the book just a little out of reach in financial terms, or that might like to buy a half a dozen items as Christmas presents - then the calendar might be an option.

Calendar's through somewhere like red bubble would cost about US$20 which would include about US$3 of a markup.

m_s_nixon

Well the way I'd picture it working would be to run a competition every month, anyone who wants to enter submits a picture taken during that month and most thanked photo wins, or it could be done anonymously.

A quick search on the internet suggests i could have calendars printed and at my door in 14days for €2-3 a calendar (based on an order of 100 units).
Selling at €10 would mean a big donation to my wallet charity
A calendar would interest non-photographers in a way that the photobook doesn't, for example I'll only be buying one photobook this year because i simply don't know anyone else who'd be interested in it but I'd say a lot of people would buy more than one calendar

To avoid conflict with the book we could make a calendar from July '10 - June '11, no one else sells calendars in July so we'd have a monopoly on the market :pac: (joking, obviously!)

Covey

I'm predicting a yes vote on Lisbon and a no on the calender :rolleyes::p:p:p

Kbeg3

m_s_nixon wrote: »

A quick search on the internet suggests i could have calendars printed and at my door in 14days for €2-3 a calendar (based on an order of 100 units).

Do you have a link?

m_s_nixon

www.printing.ie i think it was, I'm sure with a bit of shopping around that price could be beaten anyway, all it is is 13 pieces of paper and a piece of metal at the end of the day!

m_s_nixon

m_s_nixon wrote: »

A quick search on the internet suggests i could have calendars printed and at my door in 14days for €2-3 a calendar (based on an order of 100 units)

actually, scrap that, i misunderstood the website where i got that quote from I'll look into it further if this is going to be a runner, i'd say they can certainly be gotten for <€5 though

Dodgykeeper

Think you are getting a bit carried away here ms nixon, surely getting the photo book out should be the priority...

Ricky91t

Dodgykeeper wrote: »

Think you are getting a bit carried away here ms nixon, surely getting the photo book out should be the priority...

There's no problem with someone getting prepared for something,As it is a calendar,if it goes ahead would possibly need to be sold first as it's needed for the end of the year,Where as the book isn't a calendar and therefore doesn't have to printed by a certain date and as a majority of customers are photography forum users and they will know about the release date anyway and if it needs to get adjusted.And I'm sure they'll understand if it's delayed slightly..

Try selling a 2010 calendar in March of April of that year,you won't get many sales,A book on the other hand titled "Boards.ie 2008-2009 photography book" being sold as the same time won't affect the sales..

Dodgykeeper

As far as I know the book is for the Charity, Santa Strike Force, at last years launch the lads all wore Santa Suits, people will give as christmas gifts, all this points to it being done before Christmas, also there will be approx 100 contributors to the book which garuntees 100 sales, there is a maximum of 12contributors for the Calender!

stcstc

I kinda agree with dodgy, so what about doing one of thos single page calenders, where there are images down either side etc

this way you could maybe put 40 or even 50 images on it?


also would keep the costs low

Ricky91t

Dodgykeeper wrote: »

As far as I know the book is for the Charity, Santa Strike Force, at last years launch the lads all wore Santa Suits, people will give as christmas gifts, all this points to it being done before Christmas, also there will be approx 100 contributors to the book which garuntees 100 sales, there is a maximum of 12contributors for the Calender!

Where are you getting the calendar numbers from?You could theme pages and put 3-4 photos onto it.
The calendar could easily be for charity too,It would only take seconds to get that sorted,The calendar being cheaper would appeal to a wider audience,Announcing it on boards and getting some backing from some other sites(pix.ie) maybe I'm sure you could boost the sales of the calendar...I'd much rather spend €10 on a calendar than alot more on a book,So it would possibly be a good idea to have something that appeals to a wider number of people that can't afford the book.

AnCatDubh

msnixon might confirm but I thought the approach was longer term which would avoid conflicting with the book.

Tallon

Ricky91t wrote: »

Where are you getting the calendar numbers from?

I'm guessing he means 12 months, as in a calender

Covey

If the no's win can we have another poll please? :P:)

Ricky91t

Covey wrote: »

If the no's win can we have another poll please? :P:)

LOL

Valentia

Covey wrote: »

If the no's win can we have another poll please? :P:)

I think the poll has been so cleverly worded that it is very unlikely to be a "no" vote .

Covey

Valentia wrote: »

I think the poll has been so cleverly worded that it is very unlikely to be a "no" vote .

Art imitates life, eh :D

m_s_nixon

AnCatDubh wrote: »

msnixon might confirm but I thought the approach was longer term which would avoid conflicting with the book.

I was suggesting this for next year, if it were to happen we'd need to start working on it at this time next year so if the images were to be chosen by a monthly contest then we'd need to run the contests from this month until septemer '10

Some conflict would be inevitable with the photobook due to the time of year, an option would be to do the photobook at a different time of year. Last year the photobook sold 204 copies with 98 guaranteed purchases from the contributors, so would changing the time of year really hurt sales much?

I'm not trying to ruffle any feathers, it's just an idea that came to me so i just thought i'd put it out there Unfortunately the poll is very even, i was hoping it'd be a landslide one way or the other!

EDIT: also meant to say that if it's felt that this would dilute the significance of the book then it shouldn't be considered, the photobook is a great project and I hope it runs for many years and nothing should take away from it

AnCatDubh

m_s_nixon wrote: »

Unfortunately the poll is very even, i was hoping it'd be a landslide one way or the other!

Ach at this stage with about 53% No and 47% Yes, I think it gives a mandate to burst on regardless - we shortcut the fact that the calendar can get legal guarantees from Europe if required that it won't conflict with the boards book, and negate the need to even run a second referendum poll. Sure it will save the country a fortune