Anyone tried doing photos for calendars?

[lerabu]

Hi all!

It is the holiday season and since I work in the Sales department of the company I am employed by we have spent the past few weeks visitng customers and among other things leaving calendars for the coming year etc...

During this time I observed closely the photographs of the calendar we were giving out and the ones that were already given by competition etc... Of course when you're into photographing you can't help to look without a "professional" deformation and I noticed that many of the photos were at best average and that I felt I could objectively do a better job at them.

The idea sprang to mind to pick out a few themes for next year and to try to prepare photo calendars and see if I could sell them (for better gear and to attempt to try to turn this wonderful hobby into a small trickle of money filling the home budget).

Does anyone have any experience in this field? Is it better to make the photos and sell them on to a calendar printing house or to make the calendar yourself (Up to the point of DTP) and then sell them on?

Any help is most welcome!

[shipsflyover]

My husband uses Cafepress to sell calendars. The money from the calendars helps support (pays some of the hosting, etc.) the web sites he runs for car data. He does not make much, though, and every year mourns a late start.

So my suggestions....

Locate on the internet several sites that let you create calendars from your own photos. Choose some photos and order calendars you make to try them out and make sure the quality is what you want. This is a must, because even a stellar photo can look terrible if the quality of the product is bad.

You will need to consider your intended audience carefully. General public? People who love star trail photos? Or do several different calendars.

Then have your 2013 calendars ready in SEPTEMBER of 2012 at the latest. You want word to get out about your great calendars, and that won't happen if you make them available in December.

You can still make calendars for this year, of course, but most people have already gotten free ones or bought the ones they want for 2012.

[shipsflyover]

Sorry, forgot to mention that selling photos to calendar companies can work but generally what I have heard about those companies is not the best news - some pay on time, some don't pay at all, etc. But it is worth looking into - just select the companies you submit to carefully, based on what you can find out about their reputation.

[SwissJon]

I make our family calendars every year.. I considered selling them, but this is the wrong time for it, you need to be selling at the beginning of August to the beginning of December. To be honest, it's a lot of hassle, but you could start taking photos for next years calendar.. I like to choose one photo I took in each month to reflect that season. So 12 months of photos takes 12 months to make, then sell them on an Xmas market..

Making your own is fairly simple. There's a few Photoshop and Lightroom templates available, or you can make your own.

Then you need to print the pages out onto thick paper and join them together using ring binders. I like these, but you might want to use a spiral binding machine instead