The problem with that idea is that it would raise the cost considerably. With a single mass produced design the printer sets it up one time and lets it run. With individual designs each design will be another set up charge and interruptions in the printing.
It would get expensive rather quickly

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Merlin,
What's Life Without A Little Magic!

Yeah I know... Now I do have a brother in law in the printing business. You want me to see if he can get us some kind of deal?

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That goes without question Shell! lol See what he can offer in regards to price. I know that getting good quotes that are reflective of true costs would be best done once we have the layout and images in place, but preliminary costs would be great as well.

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They should have standard calendar sizes or templates. It's a very commonly ordered item. If they do, just make sure you get a quote for four color bleed on all pages. And ask for quotes on several different numbers, 500, 1000, 5000, 20000, 50000. It can't hurt to get prices on all of those, and it will show you the difference in price per item vs. quantity.

Also, he may have more than one type of press, and each different press will give you a different cost and a different quality. You can get samples to see the quality of each different procedure. Then you have more options that you can weigh against cost.

Actually, Rich, you should get price quotes and samples from as many printers as you can.

Also, if you decide what you can afford before-hand, then you already have the size of the calendar set, so you won't have to go back and try to redesign it. (That usually doesn't work very well.)

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"Let's eat, Grandpa!"
"Let's eat Grandpa!"

Punctuation. It saves lives.

There' a lot of good ideas here. I have been involved with a lot of good ideas that never get off the ground.

I'll commit one hundred bucks to just do it. Make another poll for pics, content, design or what ever. Your thoughts & efforts are commendable. Just do it. Contact me & the check is in the mail.

Thank you.

Thats very nice of you Rick. The main goal right now is to get a staple idea together, and create the base project from the images that coincide with the intent.

Once I have the images, I can put together, using various templates, many different designs.

If the cost to print isn't compatible with reality for an item that may not sell, we can always go the dreaded cafepress route.

I do not like those prefab sites, like cafepress, but they are a guaranteed resource.

Ideally, I would like to self print. I will get several quotes once I know what we actually need. I don't want to try and get quotes on an idea that isn't even established yet.

One thing you will find out about HC Rick is that we try to follow through on everything we start. A while back I was asked to create and implement a classifieds system on HC. I started out quickly by tossing together some classified forums. I am currently in the process of coding an actual classifieds system, which is what the members had expected from the beginning. lol

We do pretty much everything we discuss. It just takes longer than expected sometimes.

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ok we are going out with my sister and brother in-law tonight and I will bring it up, and see what he says.

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Ok spoke with Bill last night about the calendar. He made a lot of suggestions. Including that we probably don't want to use his company for 2 reasons, they are a little more expensive than most around here, and also because it is an election year and they get the majority of the political jobs around here they are going to be pretty busy....

some other suggestions he made were to try and go for the 8 1/2X11" pages. Because you would be able to fit more pages on each press can cut down costs of a larger size easily by a third. if not more. But when you put the 2 sheets together it would still make a decent sized calendar at 17X11 when open.

He also suggested that we try to get it printed in July as that is a slow month for most printing companies. Everyone has usually just gotten their annual reports out and haven't started on autumn stuff yet. Not to mention that its summer and most businesses usually take it easier then. Because the printing companies won't have as much business coming in they are more likely to be more competitive with the quotes.

Another thing he suggested was that instead of using coated paper to go with uncoated. He said that for an uncoated sheet (full size sheet with 4-8 calendar pages on it) will usually run $.50-.75 each. Whereas the coated sheet will run $.75-$1.25 each. Not only that the uncoated sheets are more eco-friendly and since we are a reptile group would probably be something we would be interested in.

I am sure there are other things that he suggested but I can't remember them all this morning, not to mention that it was pretty noisy at Fudruckers while we were talking...
He did say that Rich could feel free to e-mail him with any questions, also offered to take a look at it and make up specs for us to give to the printers that should help cut costs as well. He also seemed to think that some of the printers in the Mass area might be a bit more expensive than some, and offered to give us some names for companies around here.

Oh and yeah, forgot... If the # printed is above 500 the price will go down a little bit but usually anything about 1000 you will see a decent drop in cost per calendar.

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Thanks Shell! I will keep that email addy in my message box for the time being.

While I know the more you buy, the cheaper it gets, I just don't see a first order of 1000+ calendars happening. lol Even at 4-5 per calendar, we would be looking at a 3-5K investment into something that may not have as much a demand as people are likely to believe. lol

I can see a couple hundred in the first order, and if they sell, then consider going after a larger quantity.

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Yeah, we wouldn't want to order 1,000 calendars for 2009 and then end up with 700 left over, haha.

We just had a reptile specialty shop open up in Spokane, they are usually short lived but I bet if his business is going good I could get him to carry the calendar if we get them to him for a good price. I've also got a mom & pop pet store that MIGHT carry them, but I've never liked dealing with the people who work there.

Thanks for all that info Shell!

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Those who say it can't be done should get out of the way of those who are doing it.

~*~Lacey~*~

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