Dear <<First Name>> <<Last Name>>,

How are you? Relaxed festive season so far or has the annual pre-Christmas rush already taken over? We hope the former! And to that end, we’ve put together another (hopefully) inspiring Advent calendar this year, featuring work of our Calvendo authors: From 1st to 24th December, we’ll be opening one creative door each day on our blog and social media channels. Don’t miss and let us know how you like it!

And in other news, we’re picking up a few of the more frequently asked questions that you, our users, have, so read on if you 

• want to know about royalty payments or 

• wonder about the retail price and availability of Calvendo wall calendars.

Best wishes from
Your CALVENDO Team

              

Frequently asked question, No 1: When will I be paid?

“When and how will I be paid my royalties” is a question that often reaches us. Here we go then; payment processes summarised:

Payment projections

During each quarter, you can find your preliminary payment projection in your profile under “My Pay”. This is a momentary status based on orders received in the previous month. The information is not updated daily but monthly because retailers only send their figures once per month. These projections are therefore also not binding.

Royalty statements

After the end of each quarter, it takes a few more weeks before we can make your statement available for download. Why? Because we have to wait for the various retail data from different sources and this may take a good eight weeks. It might also be that individual payments owed will only be listed in the following quarter. However, no payment owed to you will ever get lost!

In a nutshell, the sum you can see on the statement you receive once the accounts for each quarter have been settled represents your royalties for all products that have actually been sold in any given quarter and for which Calvendo received payment from retailers.

We complete the statement for the first quarter no later than end of June, the statement for the second quarter no later than end of September, the statement for the third quarter no later than end of December and the statement for the fourth quarter no later than end of March. Your monies are then paid in euros via bank transfer (if you live in Europe including the UK) or PayPal (all other countries).

Please note that each quarter, payments are postponed to the following quarter if the amount is less than EUR 30 (net), i.e. as long as EUR 30 (net) have not been reached, no payments will be made. Also, it sometimes happens that royalties can’t be transferred because of missing or faulty account details. Therefore, please make sure that the bank details you provide in your Calvendo account are always correct!

              

Frequently asked question, No 2: Why are Calvendo calendars so expensive?

In comparison to the many “for £9,99 or less” wall calendars you can buy in the UK, Calvendo products are expensive, yes. However, there’s a reason for that: The entire Calvendo publishing platform is – and that’s crucial – based on digital print-on-demand technology. Calendars are produced on demand, i.e. upon order. Therefore, we can offer our service free of charge to users and enable them to publish their own creative work without having to cover any cost for minimum print-runs.
On-demand production also means that Calvendo is based on principles of sustainability and environmentally friendly manufacturing: We stay away from surplus production, i.e. our output is determined by demand which, ultimately, also reduces waste.

Naturally, this make-to-order production based on digital printing is more expensive (approximately ten times higher) than mass production in, for example, low-cost countries such as China. Hence, the retail prices for Calvendo wall calendars are higher as well. However, this cost situation is very likely to change within the next few years: Technology will advance even further and new printing technologies will bring unit prices down. Once that happens, Calvendo will modify its retail price structure accordingly which will make our products more competitive.

              

Frequently asked question, No 3: Basically, everything related to availability  

We know this is a bit of a complicated one and appreciate that some of our users are puzzled about availability of Calvendo products. In general, this is down to the innovative print-on-demand approach we take in combination with the fact that the publishing business is not as straightforward as many of you might think. So, here’s a reminder of what Calvendo – or any other publishing house - does and can do and what it doesn’t and can’t do.

Calvendo’s role as your publishing platform

Calvendo assigns ISBN to your calendar and lists them in all the relevant databases that are used by book retailers, such as Nielsen BookData which is the central database for bibliographical information in the UK and other English-speaking areas. It records information on publications such as books and calendars and makes this information available to retailers. An entry in this database means that merchandise management systems can find the product and handle orders for it. All of this (ISBNs, listing in Nielsen BookData) costs money and Calvendo takes over that cost for you. 

Your role as the author

What Calvendo can’t do is guarantee sales success: We know that many users think that once they’ve published a calendar, their work is done and that their product will automatically find buyers. In some cases, that’s true. However, more often than not, it doesn’t work that way. We know that authors actively promoting their work (take a look at our tips provided in the newsletter, on the blog and website!) generally achieve better sales.

              

The retailer side

Calvendo also cannot guarantee that each and every possible retailer in the segment we’re working in will list and sell every Calvendo product: As a rule, it’s at the discretion of each retailer, if and how they add new calendar titles to their range. At the same time, you can rest assured that all calendars published with Calvendo are available on a variety of international retail platforms, including in Germany, other German-speaking countries, France, Spain and the UK. How quickly things are being made available differs and is beyond our control. 

For example, in high season, such as now, some retailers aren’t updating their catalogues as often as during the year to reflect new products. We therefore recommend to start creating calendars as early as possible, i.e. try to get all your new calendars published in spring and summer. That way, there’s enough time for all the behind-the-scene processes that need to take place on retail platforms to integrate new data, plus the danger of being “stuck in a data queue” during busy times is decreased.

“Out of stock”

Retailers also decide how they list products. At the moment, some UK retailers list Calvendo as “out of stock” products because of the print-on-demand nature of the service (e.g. www.hive.co.uk, www.speedyhen.co.uk) while others, such as www.bookdepository.com, reflect this particular made-to-order production by stating the approximate delivery time. Which is, of course, a much better way of doing it – the words “out of stock” are not the most conducive for sales, in particular since Calvendo products are nevertheless available to order and buy on the platforms mentioned above. 

Based on experiences made in Calvendo’s home market Germany we know that it takes some time until retailers have understood the print-on-demand nature of our service and find appropriate ways of listing them. In the meantime, you can rest assured that we do all we can as your publishing platform to pave the way to your success, i.e. we supply all the data that is necessary for making your calendar available to order. 

                  


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