More than two thirds of Calvendo users in Germany are satisfied or even very satisfied with our self-publishing platform for calendars and poster books. Our latest user survey therefore gives us the thumbs up and makes us very happy! And since we’re about to launch Calvendo in the UK, where we hope to build a similar community of photographers and creative people, that is very good news indeed.

A few of the findings in more detail: Two thirds of the respondents enjoy publishing with Calvendo and more than 70% recommend us to family and friends. “We’re really pleased with this very positive feedback,” comments CEO Hans-Joachim Jauch, who – together with the Calvendo team – set up the platform in Germany in October 2012. “Within a short period of time we’ve managed to reach high levels of acceptance among the photography and creative community which is very encouraging for us. The Calvendo combination of providing an online layout tool, support by a jury and international marketing and sales opportunities seems to be as convincing as we hoped it would be.”

Calvendo users are surveyed at least once per year. The very positive grades for the platform’s technology and creative options it offers that we received last time were repeated in our latest survey. The feedback about our jury’s work that checks each calendar is also a very important indicator for us: Calvendo self-publishers are happy about the jury’s support and advice and respect its decisions, no matter if they were asked to modify their submissions in order to improve quality or even if their calendars were rejected. A large majority of users considers our tips how to make their product better to be useful or even very useful.

The survey also shows that users are happy about the swiftness with which they receive feedback from the jury. This dialogue between our experts and self-publishers is very important for us and an important part of the Calvendo philosophy: Good photography alone doesn’t automatically make a good calendar. In order to market and sell a product successfully, elements such as title, font and keywords used are just as important. And this is where the jury comes in: “Our jury can provide valuable support which is vital because in the end we want our self-publishers and their projects to be successful,” so Jauch.

Further aspects that make our users like Calvendo are the high print quality of our calendars and poster books, the possibility to set up an author’s profile and last but not least the money they can make when they use our platform to produce and sell their work. In order to get the complete picture, we also surveyed users who have registered with Calvendo but not published anything yet. The main reasons here are that they have either not found the time yet or that their projects submitted so far have been rejected by the jury. Nevertheless, their overall verdict about Calvendo and the service it provides is still largely positive.

Are you a photographer, painter, or illustrator wanting to publish your work? Do you enjoy good design and feel like sharing your creativity while at the same time not wanting to take any financial risks nor taking care of production and sales?

We’ve got something for you then: CALVENDO enables you to “share creativity“ and turn your original ideas into printed calendars and poster books (we call the latter “Flipart“). We are the first publishing house for self-publishers providing creative talents with the opportunity to not only publish their calendars and poster books using their own photos, graphic art and writing but also to sell them nationally and internationally. We have set up an interface with the book retail sector, meaning your products will be sold online and in book shops.

And here comes the good bit: Using the CALVENDO platform to create your calendars doesn’t cost you anything, however, you’ll receive a share of the sales starting at 10% or 15%, depending on the calendar size you choose. This share can go up to 30%. Calendars are ordered by high street bookstores and online sellers such as Amazon but also by other national and international sales partners. And if you like, you can also order your calenders or poster books yourself.

The CALVENDO community, which was set up in Germany in 2012, creates the largest and most diverse range of calendars worldwide. The creative imagination of our self-publishers determines our publishing programme – and you can be part of it.

Here’s how it works:

Register free of charge on www.betatest.calvendo.com, upload your photos, graphic art or writing using our online editor and create your calenders or poster books. Based on a minimum price, the sales price is set by you. All rights, such as copyright to your photos or other content, remain with you. To ensure the quality of the products we sell under our CALVENDO brand, all calendars created have to be submitted to a jury who checks that everything is fit for print. Once your calendar is approved for publication, it is assigned an ISBN and, within days, available to be ordered on Amazon and other online platforms as well as at your local book shop. As soon as orders are received, calendars and poster books are produced via print-on-demand and shipped.

In a nutshell: You take care of creating something nice with your photos and other content, we organise production and printing, assign ISBNs, handle distribution and make sure that you get paid and receive the share of your sales. All at no cost for you.

Join us and benefit from our experience – we look forward to welcoming you to our CALVENDO community!

About CALVENDO

CALVENDO is a company of the Cornelsen publishing group which is one of the leading publishers in German-speaking countries, generating yearly sales of EUR 450 million. More than 3,000 employees develop, design and sell content offers that focus on education and learning. Cornelsen’s publishing programme includes 23,000 titles, and the company is also one of the major calendar publishers in Germany, selling them under the Heye, Weingarten and Harenberg brands.