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hello all, i just want to inform you about my little experiment, i have printed 100 fine art calendars
for the year 2012, tim hodkinson has created a nice review of it:

http://orbittrap.ca/?p=3572


it will be all hand-send-out by me, myself and i .... the earlier you order, the sooner you get yours ;) .... 85 are in free sale, with the possibility
to order some more, but try to grab one out of the first 100s:

http://www.amazon.de/Fractalforums-com-Calendar-2012-Christian-Kleinhuis/dp/3000364064/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1322733921&sr=8-1

it is looking amazing! :angel1:

Congratulations Christian, it looks spectacular, and thank you so much for making my image January as New Years is my birthday and also the day I am getting married....will order soon.

Louis

spread the word people, it is really lookin fantastic ... to the birthday thing, yes i managed to catch 2 birthdays, yours and dainbramages ;)

im walking right now to the post office to send out the first 4 orders ...

I was afraid the 100 would be gone by the time I click on "buy". :)

let me tell you: you cought a third one by luck - mine!  :beer:

i'm currently writing my promotion mail for my friends and family. i do my best to make you sweat!

Well well well no one seems to be interested. . . :( should have printed just ten. :/

I'm interested, just Broke    :headbatting:

I don't have a credit card, and Amazon does not take paypal - so even if I had money in my paypal account I couldn't use it to buy a calendar this year.

Unfortunately all my money has been going into living expenses and insulin for Lissa. 

Don't worry though - they'll make GREAT Contest Prizes if they don't sell!

Maybe have a New Year's Contest with them as prizes, just to drum up interest (and give me a chance to get one!).

May I suggest that you put up some banners in the forum advertising your fine calendars.

EDIT: stupid me, I just saw the banner.

Hmmmm - "Fractalforums.com Calendar 2012" not found on the UK Amazon or the US Amazon - any chance you can add it to those too as I already have accounts on both and don't really want to tempt fate by adding my *debit* details all over the place (I don't have a credit card on principle) - being a programmer I trust internet security as far as I do a Republican neo-Nazi con-man or a banker or a lawyer or an estate agent or insurance salesman or second-hand car dealer or......
Alternatively sell them on E-bay too - that way folks wanting to use existing PayPal accounts can do so I think.

distributing via amazon is surely not the way i expected, and it is true that it is only showing up on ebay, i
will try making up an ebay store now ... so that people can pay via paypal ...

darn ....

Beware of ebay's huge fees!  They have gotten worse over the years 

Don't know how they compare to amazon's fees though.

You could always sell direct from here.  There's no need for a third party site when this site exists.  You'd just have to watch out for any taxes and such yourself - that's the only rel advantage to selling via ebay / amazon.  They handle much of the international red tape...

learning learning learning, i need to optimize my way of packaging, to achieve an exact width of 30 cm for the sendings, next week a change in package system
will occur, beside of that i created an additional ebay account:


http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150712822462

it is taken additionally as auction, starting from 19,99€

can you non-german-livers and non-europe-livers ( i mean LIVE, not liver :D )  confirm that you can view and order the product via ebay ?
 :hmh:

My liver sees it.  And it's in the US!

Thanks for the effort.  I will buy one if I can find a way...

Great work Christian!  :beer:
And that cover looks really amazing! ;)
I will buy at least 5 copies, a great gift for family and friends!!!

Would have loved to order several, but my test order proved that with shipping and exchange rate to the US left me a bill of around $63 for a calandar, and while I'd love to give one to several, that makes it kind of prohibitive
But...as I said, it looks spectacular and can't wait to get it.
Louis

Yep, I live in US and thought it would be around $60. Unfortunately I haven't worked since January and have to pass for now. Hopefully I'll be able to grab one first quarter next year or in the spring if they're still available...

To be honest in the quantities concerned worrying about the various international tax regulations is pretty pointless - to put it here somewhere all that's required is a verified PayPal account to receive the money and the appropriate bit of code. Then anyone can pay in any currency from their PayPal account or even without (i.e. one-off payment by card via PayPal) - of course the more obscure the money conversion then the more PayPal charge for it ;)

Hmmm - just tried to find it on Ebay.co.uk - it's not there either and it appears that logging in to my UK account does not count on the German site :(

My copy of the calendar just arrived. I ordered it from Germany through amazon.de, so no problems were expected and no problems occurred.

I want to praise the quality of the prints here, in case other prospective buyers might have doubts about that (I am not an expert on modern printing technologies, but I know a bit or two about image processing). The technical quality of the prints is really good. You won't spot pixels there, apparently every image has been re-rendered in high resolution for printing. Colour contrast and brightness contrast are high in all images (within the limits of the respective image content, of course). I would guess that whoever did the printing has carefully tuned parameters for each individual picture, to maintain as much detail as possible, but without any tricks like oversharpening or oversaturation. This is very solid craftsmanship there.

In short, the prints are really doing those fractals justice. I might even put one or two of those behind glass ...


P.S.: The calendar seems to have been pulled from amazon.de in the meantime, perhaps in favour of the new selling options? I was going to order a second one, despite the higher price, because I avoid Paypal like the plague.

so do i.
i also think that it's not so clever, to withdraw it completely from amazon. does it cost to have it there? all announcements so far pointed at amazon. so it's sold out now...

Why avoid PayPal ? All other online payment systems are far more limited in scope and thus more prone to lack of redress after any unscrupulous behaviour on the part of staff - some are in fact plain spoofs. And *all* represent exactly the same risk otherwise.

Not because of the 99.999% of transactions that they carry out promptly and nicely. But in the rare case that something does go wrong, they have a history of holding on to their clients' money forever, on no legal grounds. Over the years, German computer magazine c't published around two dozen "regrettable unique cases" that all followed this same pattern.

It seems to me that Paypal is yet another example of the classical computing risk of automating everything, but not taking possible failures into account. Entrusting my money to the hands of potential banksters is bad enough, but entrusting it to a stupid machine is worse. The only way to get the money back out of this black hole is either a court order or a public stink - because something like that finally prompts humans to look at those cases. Ordinary complaints through customer service do not trigger human investigation.

I am somewhat paranoid with regards to relying on infallible machinery. That was historically never a good idea. So I am trying to vote with my wallet, and not be part of Paypal's inevitable success.

exactly my point. paypal is only a useless additional source of errors, without providing any security.

Just received the calendar and wanted to say that the quality is outstanding, great work Christian!
Sharpness can't be better, for all images - and i will definitely put all on the wall  :D

@jesse nice, that you received it in one piece, if you have the original be sure to post some images, so that the need of other will rise, still 50+ laying around here!
but ordering is now only working via direct mail!!!! ( click banner for ordering !)

yours are reserved!

I don't want to disintegrate it by now, so all are up on the wall.. but behind each other for now.  :)

If this charge will be limited at 100 pieces, this first ff calendar might become an expensive cult object in several years, that is for sure!
 :beer:

ok, i'm not jesse but here's my appetizer:

(http://images2.bilder-speicher.de/kalender-projekt/calendarmixs/appetizer-11120721929198.jpg)

you don't really want to miss that?  O0

i can confirm - both artistic and print quality is fantastic through all 13 pages! :beer:

That is very kind of you! I'll make every effort to order as soon as possible. :)

I finally received my calendars. They look absolutely fantastic! It took about 10 days to have them delivered but it was really worth the waiting time, and as fractalists, we are used to wait for images to come ;)

My mom also ordered 5 pieces and she received them too. She's going to make xmas presents, because of course she's so proud to have her son featured 3 times in it :D

Thanks a lot Christian, that's a wonderful work, very profesionnal, a real cult object! I wonder if I'm going to frame each individual picture once each month is over, because the print quality is really amazing!

To all members: get your own before it's too late, and take more than 1, that's a great xmas present :)

for xmas it seems to be too late, but public demand for the calendars is none to zero, i try to send out a newsletter again this weekend, to get rid of my calendars here, i dunno if i should invest in some google adwords to direct some people to it, it is art, it is high quality, it is modern, i dunno why no one wants those highliy precious piece of art, and especially through the very low print margins, it actually IS A RELICT ... argh!

nice that everything with shipping went ok!

SPREAD THE WORD!

Maybe a bunch of here in the USA put off by shipping costs could get together and order a bunch all at once, have them shipped to one of us here, then shipped to each person involved from whomever receives the lot.  This way we'd have a sort of centralized shipping location to cut the costs dramatically.  Only one big international bill split several ways, and one small domestic bill per person for shipping.

Just a thought.

I know shipping here is more than the cost of the calendar, and this may help defray that if enough people show interest   O0

yes, i would need distributors on each continent ;)

Perhaps not a professional distributor, but one American (or Canadian?) fractalist who is wealthy enough to accept the small remaining risk inherent in such a transaction. You have this forum here, and can coordinate how many could possibly be shipped overseas.

This calendar ROCKS!!! Top quality images and top quality print!!

Got my calendars yesterday, and I must say it is far beyond my expectations.
(and I am not only talking about the cover and the August image... ;) )

Thank you Christian for pulling this project all the way, and congratulations to all artists included, and to all the lucky buyers!  O0
 :toast:

:D great it finally received you, us shippings take a lot longer than the average europe shippings. . Photos pleeeeezeeeee

Delivery in Germany worked fine with DHL in around 2 days - thanks to activities from our dear Mr.Trifox at last :dink:

Danke Christian :-)))

An excellent calendar around Fractal Work will always remind me now and again for the next 12 month not to forget FF, whenever there is not so much time anymore for new and really innovative work.

But, whenever there is a problem with time around, I will always try to have an objective view for a lot.

Jesse you have a really great program - all my compliments :-)

*****

For all who celebrate Christmas, I wish still a wonderful time now.

And, I wish all a great and very creative Happy New Year 2012 - try to be on your site here a bit like always in the past and nearly from the beginning here :)

Margit

Just added photos to the ff fb photo albums:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150584178187494.444387.399188972493 (http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150584178187494.444387.399188972493)

I'm in California and can re-ship. Who's in?

up to 4 calendars can ship with same shippig costs!

OK...this is a bit overdue, but been away and just getting back to catching up with email. My calendars arrived a few days before New Years and as everyone has said, they are amazing. Beautiful color and quality of print. My wife and I have both hung them in work and they have gotten several very posative comments and a few inquiries as to purchase....beautiful job Christian

Louis

nice, shipping to us really takes 4 weeks !
some are left here! lets see how all this little publicly placed calendars make for adverts ;)
i need to start this tv show, to get "normal" people into buying those precious pieces .... next year....
if you guys keep on supporting my little business ... i really want to make a living out of it .....
so, 25 are still available for selling!
thanks for telling!

I hope you don't intend to sell these calenders on some crappy home shopping TV station. ;)

"Buy this beautiful calendar now and receive an apple peeler for free! Order now, we only have 25 left."

Hey - just an idea, since the selling of the calendar is slow and I have seen some folks are complaining about the prizes for printing & shipping, why not use one of the websites as a carrier for this 'calendar' product next year. What I'm talking about is, simply get Jeremie (bib) or Johan (mandelwerk), or both of them, to submit the designed pages thru lets say deviantart.
If you an artist, who submits the calendar & then buys it the price for it is low - for me to get a calendar of my works is $19.94 CAN (+ 10% discount for premium membership) I get artists' discount, which I think is a great deal, it delivers within 5-10business days as well.
Of course there is the shipping in US & Canada that is $5 - you do the math, it's cheaper.
I just run a test on one of my calendars and the total for printing & shipping is $25.95CAN - plus I already have some prints ordered from devart before and the quality of printing is amazing !!

This is just the thought for next year, something to ponder about  O0

Ooooops - what I forgot to add is - the 'posting/ calendar' submitting artist, can send that work as a 'gift' to anybody they wish and this is what gives you that awesome price, as well ;)
Also - we could have few people with different versions of the calendar and that be a bonus as well :) different images and design concept.
Just thinking out loud here ... do tell me what you think.

^thank you for your brainstorming, the price will settle at 19,99€ or 24,99€ and i rather think it is going to be 19,99€
and for distributing it around the world i try to ship a large bunch of calendars to a proxy in the states, i calculated through
it, and production cost for one calendar is at ~8€ when the marges go higher the production cost will go down a lot more
dont forget that the plan is to create revenue from it, and that deviantart has limits, e.g. if you order 100 calendars for 20euro
there, or dollars, you need to sell them at a slightly higher price to make any revenue from it, for promoting the calendar the
tvshow is planned, right now i am still not producing anything, but it is going to come, at least for announcing this years compo, and results ....
some calendars are sold at the exhibition in sweden later this year

deviantart had made me severe problems when i tried to print the winning cups for a ff compo, they said it was not my art that i was trying to
print, so, it is hard to get them printing ... other stuff ... additionally i wasnt satisfied with the calendar templates they offered....

so lxh and madman, from where are you then ? ;)

Austria  ^-^

ehrm, wrong thread!