Calendar Girl Blog: Other Calendars
About once a month, someone from somewhere in the world emails or phones to ask if I would be kind enough to tell them how to make, market and sell a calendar.
Inevitably, I have mixed feelings.
By nature, I'm generous with ideas. I've got more than my lifetimes share so I'm happy to cast the extras far and wide. That's one side of the coin. The other side includes the feeling that no more calendar competition need be created. Or at least, I don't need to help create competition. After all, how many calendars does a household need?
Yet another side of the multi-sided coin is the thought that Breast of Canada is one of a kind and not likely to be affected by competition. Then of course there's the learning curve that I bent myself around. Do I spare someone else such a personally transformational experience by spilling my beans?
Further to this is the ABC'S of publishing an annual product. Practical stuff like the sheer weight of the boxes bearing 50 calendars, the best before date that renders the products worth from full to half price over night, the need for a one year timeline, the dim distribution scene, the front loaded costs of creation, the risk of world events that shift consumer habits, the constantly increasing shipping rates.....makes the idea of 'fundraising calendar' seem instantly foolish.
Calendar Girl does not want to piss on anyone's parade. But when I hear the chirpy voice of yet another person who wants me to tell them how to make a calendar, my cynical self rears up.
Calendar Girl
Tags: Calendar Girl Blog, calendar girl blog, Breast of Canada Calendar, Sue Richards, fundraising calendar.
Inevitably, I have mixed feelings.
By nature, I'm generous with ideas. I've got more than my lifetimes share so I'm happy to cast the extras far and wide. That's one side of the coin. The other side includes the feeling that no more calendar competition need be created. Or at least, I don't need to help create competition. After all, how many calendars does a household need?
Yet another side of the multi-sided coin is the thought that Breast of Canada is one of a kind and not likely to be affected by competition. Then of course there's the learning curve that I bent myself around. Do I spare someone else such a personally transformational experience by spilling my beans?
Further to this is the ABC'S of publishing an annual product. Practical stuff like the sheer weight of the boxes bearing 50 calendars, the best before date that renders the products worth from full to half price over night, the need for a one year timeline, the dim distribution scene, the front loaded costs of creation, the risk of world events that shift consumer habits, the constantly increasing shipping rates.....makes the idea of 'fundraising calendar' seem instantly foolish.
Calendar Girl does not want to piss on anyone's parade. But when I hear the chirpy voice of yet another person who wants me to tell them how to make a calendar, my cynical self rears up.
Calendar Girl
Tags: Calendar Girl Blog, calendar girl blog, Breast of Canada Calendar, Sue Richards, fundraising calendar.
posted by Sue Richards at 12:47 PM
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