Matt: Welcome back to another episode of Publish & Prosper, where today we are discussing why Lauren still has a tab open on her laptop for B&H with tons of items in the cart for our studio that has not been purchased yet. 

Lauren: You know, weirdly enough, while I am very good at spending my own money, I'm not that good at spending other people's money. 

Matt: I'm the opposite. 

Lauren: I feel a lot of guilt about it. So. 

Matt: Maybe I should have you go talk to my kids. 

Lauren: Oh. 

Matt: Cause they got no issue spending my money. 

Lauren: Oh, I mean that doesn't apply to my dad. 

Matt: Oh, okay.

Lauren: I'll spend his money like water, but. 

Matt: Well then, let's move on to the real topic. 

Lauren: Another thing people can spend money on. 

Matt: Oh my goodness. Today we are talking about calendars. 

Lauren: Yes we are. 

Matt: And we did say calendars and we did mean physical paper calendars. Yes, they still exist. Yes a lot of people use them, and a lot of people create them. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: So we're going to talk about why it's a good idea for you to create one. 

Lauren: Yeah. Not to get ahead of ourselves, but there are a lot of really good reasons actually that creators of all kinds, content entrepreneurs, authors, business owners. I know we say this a lot in episodes, but I genuinely, even more so than a book product, challenge you to challenge us to come up with a calendar for your brand. Cause no matter what it is, like there are people that I think it would be a little bit difficult – we'd have to go outside the box a little bit to come up with a book for them that a calendar would work for. Like I think there's no type of creator out there that couldn't use a calendar for something. 

Matt: Yeah, I generally don't like it when you use the word us, but I'll take both of those challenges any day, book or calendar idea genesis for somebody's business or brand as I'm sure you would too. 

Lauren: I mean, I would because not only is it one of my favorite things in the world to do is to prove my point or prove myself correct, but also it's just really fun. 

Matt: Yeah. Again, normally I don't like when you use the term us, but I'll take it on that one. So yeah.

Lauren: Okay. 

Matt: But yes, we're talking today about physical calendars and we'll go through, obviously, some of the benefits of these. But at the start of this, we just want to kind of quickly justify why we're even going to put this topic in front of you. Calendars actually are one of the easiest and fastest ways to add a small passive stream of revenue to your business, brand, whatever it is you're doing. For some people, it's not even passive revenue. It's active revenue about four months out of the year. There's a seasonality there, obviously, for when calendars are purchased, nobody's purchasing a calendar in the middle of the year. That's pretty rare and odd. But we do a ton of calendar business at Lulu. Calendar creation season typically starts towards the end of August, beginning of September, so we're coming up on that. Some people start a little sooner, especially if they're using it for some sort of fundraising, but we're coming into the season where if you're going to create one, this is the time. Because calendar sales season starts in Q4. People love to give calendars for gifts. Again, they use them for fundraisers. There's all kinds of reasons why they might be doing them, but we assure you calendars are alive and well. And I think you're going to share some statistics about this? 

Lauren: I will, but I'm also going to push back a little bit on one thing that you said there. 

Matt: I would be surprised if you didn't. 

Lauren: Got to stay on brand sometimes. Because there is actually, I think people often overlook the academic year calendar. There are a lot of calendars that people sell that are August to July and not January to December, so that you can have a full academic year in one calendar, even though it crosses the 2025 to 2026 line. 

Matt: That's a fair point. We don't see a lot of that on Lulu.

Lauren: No.  

Matt: However, hey, somebody could come and start that trend. That'd be great. 

Lauren: Yeah. Because that is, that is functionality – 

Matt: Actually, you may have just identified a niche market for somebody who's watching this episode that says, oh, okay. There's a pretty big gap there – 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: – on Lulu for academic calendars. And you know, if your content is somewhat academic in nature, even remotely ancillary, there you go. 

Lauren: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think there's a lot of different types of creators that it would make sense for them to have their calendar run on an academic year and not a calendar year. And it could be really useful to have. And it's also something that you can do when you're creating a calendar with Lulu, whether you're using one of our templates or creating your own, you can customize when it starts. 

Matt: Very cool. 

Lauren: So yeah. But to kind of prove our point a little bit more and back it up with some data, in 2024, we had over 4,400 calendars created on Lulu. 

Matt: Calendar projects, yep.  

Lauren: By 2,600 different creators. So obviously that means some of them are creating more than one. Which, I mean, they're doing so for a reason, just saying. 

Matt: Yep.  

Lauren: And all in we sold over 56,000 calendars – 

Matt: We printed over 56,000 calendars. Yeah, because some of these would have gone through Shopify stores and things like that. 

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: But the point is over 56,000 calendars were sold – 

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: – and printed through Lulu. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: Yeah, that's a lot of paper calendars. And that's just for us. That doesn't count anywhere else where people might be buying or making calendars. 

Lauren: Yeah, because there are plenty of other places where you can print custom calendars. This is still a pretty popular, not still, this is – 

Matt: Just nowhere that'll do as good as Lulu. 

Lauren: Well, yeah, obviously. And nowhere where you can also then turn it into a product that you can use as a revenue tool, as a thank you or customer loyalty tool, as a gift, as some of the other various things that we're going to talk about in this episode. 

[6:06] Are Calendars Worth the Time Investment?

Matt: How does it actually bring a return to your investment? Calendars are a quick, easy way, like we said, to add some passive revenue, sometimes active revenue to what you're doing. Of all the things that you could create on Lulu, or other sites that involve printed materials like books and pamphlets and calendars and things. Calendars are probably the easiest thing to create. Most of everything is templated for you. So obviously the dates and you know, you can check the box, whether you want to add the standard US holidays or things like that. You can go in and create custom things on specific dates. 

Lauren: We'll get into how to do this – 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: – later in the episode. 

Matt: It's super easy. All you really need to do is show up with some of your favorite photos or things like that quotes, whatever you're going to use for the actual visual content. And we have the calendar tool that basically… fifteen, twenty minutes, maybe half an hour if you're real picky, and it's done and it's ready for sale. 

Lauren: Yeah, I've created a calendar almost every year that I've worked at Lulu, just for personal calendars. I'm very much still somebody who uses a physical calendar and planner and all that. 

Matt: Can confirm. 

Lauren: He's seen plenty of them. I will say hands down the thing that takes the most time for me when creating these calendars is choosing which twelve to fourteen photos I want to use. Easily the longest part of the process. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: If I could streamline that, or if I knew if I went in knowing exactly what I wanted already, easily ten, fifteen minutes, you could bang one of these out. 

Matt: Yeah. And you know, at the end of the day, it's fun. You're getting an excuse to go through old photos –

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: – or new ones or a recent trip you took, or we'll get into some of the other reasons why people make calendars. But even as a business, using a calendar, there's some really cool things you can do there. The other thing that I think is really helpful to understand is that it's pretty much fairly a fixed price to print a calendar. It's on average going to be around $12 cost to you, right? The printing cost of the calendar, but you can sell a calendar for anywhere from $18 to $30, just depending on who you are, what you're doing with it. If it's like a nonprofit fundraiser or things like that. So, you know, at a bare minimum, you can profit roughly six, seven dollars per calendar upwards of ten, fifteen dollars per calendar somewhere along there. Depending again on what you're creating with the content is. So the barrier to entry is basically zero. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: It’s twenty, thirty minutes of your time. There's no money you're putting down up front to do this. The minute they start selling, you're profiting $6 or more per calendar and you never have to touch a thing. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: That's a pretty good ROI. 

Lauren: I mean, and also, I want to reiterate the numbers again. 2,600 people created calendars. 56,000 calendars printed. 

Matt: Almost 57, yeah. 

Lauren: Almost actually. Yeah. Way closer to 57 printed. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: That's a lot of revenue. 

Matt: Yeah. Some of the other things about calendars that I think make them a really good product to include in your portfolio and really help the ROI factor there is there's a level of repeatability. So unlike books and certain other things, calendars… If you've got a brand that people are really into or a storyline where characters are a thing that people are super into, like calendars are a repeat purchasable item. You know, every year, if you get somebody hooked on your calendars, or if they just like calendars in general, that's a yearly thing you can look forward to. So again, once somebody buys your book, it's rare they’re going to buy another copy. Unless they're nerds like Lauren and I, who just like to have multiple copies, even sometimes same cover and everything. But calendars –

Lauren: Yeah, one for me and one for lending. 

Matt: Right. Yeah, absolutely. Calendars are, you know, something that you can potentially count on year round. So that's pretty cool. 

Lauren: Yeah, it is. And it's also something that people tend to get attached to their specific calendar that they use every year.

Matt: Yeah, I think having some of your fans, customers, readers, however you refer to them, but having it become part of their yearly routine and having them becoming part of yours, I think is pretty cool. Whenever you can add that element of a personal touch, sometimes. Like, a lot of people who have favorite authors or whatever it might be. Anytime there's something that's of a more personal nature that's offered to that fan base, you usually see that sell out pretty quickly. People typically jump at the chance for that. 

Lauren: Yeah. We see it all the time with some of our calendar creators, which is also something that I think speaks to itself a little bit too. Since I think maybe… I think the first year that I started going through the bookstore looking for specific products to highlight was 2019. And there are a list of specifically calendar creators that I have on my desktop and in my head that I like…around September every year I start going, okay, when is this person's calendar coming out? When is this – I'm looking, I'm actively looking on the bookstore for their calendar. And I also know that I'm not the only one doing that because if I go on their social media, if I go on their Instagram or wherever you see comments around that time of year that start popping up that says, when's the calendar going to be available?

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: I'm waiting for my calendar. When, when can we buy the calendar? So it is really something that you create this little tradition within your loyal fans. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: That is really kind of just strengthening that relationship that you have with them. 

[11:08] Using Calendars to Thank Loyal Fans, Followers, Clients

Matt: Yeah. Another cool use for calendars that is sometimes less of a financial motivation, but more branding, thank you gifts, things like that. So we work with a marketing agency. They help us with a lot of our email stuff and the owner, the founder of that agency, his name is Robbie. Robbie's a lot of fun. 

Lauren: Yes he is. 

Matt: Robbie's very cool. 

Lauren: Rock and roll. 

Matt: And we have this thing where every year he sends us thank you gifts as one of his best clients or his best client, I should say. He better not disagree. 

Lauren: He would never. 

Matt: But so for Christmas of 2024, Robbie made calendars for his agency, obviously made them on Lulu again, we’re his favorite client, so he should have. And then he sent them out to us, and I'm assuming other clients of his. So there's King Robbie and some of his Robbie-isms. He's really known for some of the things he talks about and little quotes that he makes. But he was able to create these custom calendars for his agency and use pictures again of himself and put funny quotes and things in there. Sometimes not funny, sometimes just good ones. And then, you know, there are areas where he was able to potentially also put some really cool stuff on some of the dates. He does email. So he put a note in October, on the 20th, to make sure you share your Halloween content early. This was a great idea for a thank you gift with his agency's branding on it, and a chance to do something really fun, and get that in front of all of his clients. And that is a monthly, yearly reminder of Robbie and MKTG Rhythm, his agency, and all the cool things they do for us. So even though they're not making any money off of this calendar per se, at $12 a calendar, that was a really cool and clever way to make us, again, feel really good about our relationship with this agency. 

Lauren: It's a great reminder. It's a great physical reminder that MKTG Rhythm exists, that Robbie exists. Of the like, fun relationship that we have with them. Because not everybody could get away with doing something like this, but it's like, it makes you feel a little bit cool and special that you have this. And also it's not, I mean, we get all kinds of end of year gifts or, or in different industries, people get all kinds of end of year gifts that just kind of collect dust on your desk.

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: I stole this off of one of my coworkers desks, where he had it hanging up because he uses it as his calendar. This is actually a functional gift in addition to being a thank you for being a loyal customer, and here are some value props, and here's a reminder of my existence. Here's also something functional that you can use. 

Matt: I just have to share the one for May, by the way, the Robbie-ism, because it's one of my favorite ones and I say it a lot too. And it's actually credited to Mike Tyson. 

Lauren: Okay. 

Matt: But it's ‘everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the teeth,’ and it's Robbie with a boxing glove. But the other one that I flipped open to is a true Robbie-ism and it says, ‘email marketing is like drinking in high school. Everyone is doing it, but very few know what they are doing.’ So Robbie is definitely the king at that. 

Lauren: For anybody listening, Robbie is going to be one of the speakers at CEX in August and I will be sat at a table in his session. Don't you worry. 

Matt: Here's Robbie holding a cartoon cockroach and it says ‘email marketing is the cockroach of marketing channels, it just won't die.’ Which is again, perfect and great. So calendars make a really cool, fun custom and different slash unique thank you gift. If you have a list of clients and you struggle each year to send them fun, unique things as a thank you or as a holiday gift or whatever it is that you might do. So maybe this year be different, do something cool like Robbie and many others, and create a custom calendar for your brand or your business. 

[14:41] Using Calendars to Encourage Community Engagement

Lauren: I also think it's a great opportunity again to work on that customer loyalty or that community feeling and strengthen those relationships with your fans. Cause there's a couple of different ways that you could involve your audience in the creation of a calendar. And by that, I mean, you could either do something where it is a calendar that is put together quite literally by the community, where you say to everybody… Anne Dittmeyer, who did the Override book, I interviewed her a while ago. And one of the things that she does as part of her brand, as she's a coach, as part of what she does, is she has people draw a map on a banana. It's part of her whole workshop thing. I’m not gonna get into the whole thing.

Matt: Draw a map on a banana. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: Okay. 

Lauren: The whole point is that it's supposed to be something that is both imperfect and like time sense-like it's, not going to last. 

Matt: Yeah. Cause bananas rot pretty quick. 

Lauren: Right. So you don't have to worry about making it perfect. 

Matt: Gotcha. 

Lauren: You're just supposed to like, think outside the box, do something like, quick and easy on here. 

Matt: I love it. 

Lauren: But one thing that she could do is say everybody that's done this workshop with me or done this exercise with me, take a picture of your banana map and we'll choose twelve of them to put in the calendar. 

Matt: Oh yeah. 

Lauren: You know, that could be really fun. And it's maybe it's, you know, submit that you submit them to her and she picks them or you do a community vote and you say, everybody, I'm putting up three different carousels on Instagram of the thirty photos that are in these carousels. We're going to narrow it down to twelve of them. You guys tell me which ones you like the best. It's going to be a community choice together. 

Matt: Yeah, I like it. That's cool.

Lauren: And then they're going to feel some investment in it. They're probably going to want to buy the calendar after that. 

Matt: Yeah. If you're somebody who has a pretty decent amount of fans or followers or community engagement, things like that, something similar as you can have them submit photos or things like that of…let's say it's Disney related, right? Let's say somebody's writing a book about drinking around EPCOT or eating around EPCOT, some sort of a passport, if you will. And if they had fans or followers or people who purchased their book, maybe it would be fun to solicit photos from them of their favorite places that they ate at EPCOT or other Walt Disney World locations. And maybe you put together a calendar of the fans of the Disney passport where they all submitted their own pictures. 

Lauren: That is actually one of the things in my passport, is a photo prompt in every country. 

Matt: Oh you’re writing a passport. 

Lauren: Oh right, what a weird – 

Matt: I was just throwing something out there, you know. 

Lauren: You know, what a weird thing. 

Matt: Just ideating. Spit balling, if you will. 

Lauren: You know. But there is a, there's a photo prompt in each country, because that's one of the things that my sister and I do every single time we go to EPCOT, is we challenge ourselves to take a different, like a photo that we've never taken before in each country. 

Matt: When is this thing going to be done? Because I'm going to EPCOT in a few weeks. 

Lauren: Oh, are you? 

Matt: Yes. 

Lauren: Wow. You really got motivated after that last episode didn’t you? 

Matt: I'll tell you what, for anybody that was in the last episode, I was not kidding around. I was angry. It's been too long. And then these fools, they go to Disney World like it's nothing. So I took that very personally. I went right back to my office after we recorded and I booked a vacation to Disney. 

Lauren: When are you going? 

Matt: August 14th. 

Lauren: That might be the same day that I'm in Disneyland. 

Matt: Do not spoil my, oh Disneyland, okay. 

Lauren: Yeah, no. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: No, I'll get back to you on that. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: All right, I'll see what I can do for you. 

Matt: And believe it or not, and I know I'm going to get shamed for this, my kids have never been to EPCOT. Yeah. So, um. 

Lauren: Never? 

Matt: Never. Well, because when they were younger and especially before Guardians of Galaxy ride or Ratatouille was there. They just weren't interested in it. You know what I mean? Like there was just nothing there that piqued their interest. And there was so much stuff between the other parks that really kept them interested that at that age, I wasn't going to drag them to EPCOT if they weren't really into it. Because as a parent, nothing's less fun than when your kid is pissed off, you know, at EPCOT. So.

Lauren: That’s fair. 

Matt: Now they're at an age though, where I think it'll be fun. They can appreciate the stuff. And quite frankly, I just don't care because that's where I want to go. So. 

Lauren: Fair enough. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Well, I'm excited for you for that. 

Matt: So if your book is done, that'd be great. But otherwise, maybe we'll snap a few photos for you.

Lauren: Maybe I'll just send you some research notes that I need to flesh out the snack details. 

Matt: Why don’t you send me an ARC copy? 

Lauren: Well, I haven't finished designing it yet. I can send you the doc. Okay, we’ll circle back to this. 

[18:47] Using Calendars for Brand Awareness and Promotion

Matt: Well, another good thing that calendars can do for you, and we'll go back to Robbie's example real quick. It's a really fun, clever way for brand awareness and promotion. So again, this thing is potentially – not potentially, there are a couple of these in our office, one in my office as well. Where we all see this all the time. So it's a great, sort of, repetitive promotion and branding for what you do. Sometimes if your product or service is somewhat difficult to demonstrate or something like that, sometimes a photo album or a calendar could be really cool to help get through that process. 

Lauren: Yeah, we've talked about this in other episodes where we've talked about the idea of like… if you're a home improvement or landscape architect or something where you're doing something that you can't – or a tattoo artist, or something where it's like, I can't bring potential customers to somebody else's house. I can't drag Matt around me everywhere and say, look at this tattoo that I did on him. You can't do that if you're like a specific type of business owner or content creator. But any opportunity that you have to take photos of things and have them quickly accessible like this is a way to show that off. 

Matt: Yeah, actually that's a great one. Tattoo shop. I should go talk to my buddy down at the tattoo shop and tell him he needs to do this. 

Lauren: That would be so fun. 

Matt: And put my tattoos in there. 

Lauren: I mean. Honestly, that would be so fun. 

Matt: Yeah, that could be cool. 

[20:06] Using Calendars as Fundraising Tools

Matt: And then lastly, one of the other creative ways that we see a lot of people using calendars for. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: Like a lot. 

Lauren: A lot. 

Matt: Is fundraising. 

Lauren: Yeah. We've seen some, some really, really amazing fundraising projects from different creators. I'm actually interviewing one of them later today. 

Matt: Who? 

Lauren: Ruben the Bulldog. 

Matt: Oh yeah. 

Lauren: He is an Instagram pet influencer, his dog, Ruben the Bulldog is on Instagram and YouTube. Super cute. And Mike does an annual calendar from his content and all of the proceeds from it go to Bullies 2 the Rescue, I think? Which is a North Carolina rescue organization. He's donated an incredible amount of money through calendar proceeds. We've seen a lot of other people also do the same. Sophie Gamand and her Pitbull Flower Power calendars have been an ongoing project that are just really incredible. I would highly recommend – I'll link both of these in the show notes, people can check them out. But I've also just seen a lot of other places that are animal shelters or farms or even… there was one like, National Park Observatory. And I can't think of, I was trying to find it in the store and I can't think of who it is, but they do a calendar every year that they do just like landscape shots, that they do it as a fundraiser. And it's just, we're always trying to raise money for this organization or for our nonprofit or whatever it is. And if you purchase a calendar from us, a hundred percent of the proceeds will go to supporting this organization. And it's something that we see people do a lot. Calendars, more than any other project that we see in the bookstore, very often fundraisers. And we've seen people raise a lot of money that way. And it is actually something that's very easy to set up in your account if you want to. It's really easy to just set up a payee in your Lulu account. And then just any revenue from the sales just automatically goes to those organizations. 

Matt: Now somebody named their dog Monkey. I'm not sure I agree with that, but. 

Lauren: Why not? I think it's a good name for a dog. 

Matt: I don't know. 

Lauren: What are your dog's names? 

Matt: Lily and Chino. 

Lauren: Okay. 

Matt: They're normal names. 

Lauren: Yeah. Monkey isn't a normal name? 

Matt: It is for a monkey. Come here Monkey. 

Lauren: You can’t name a monkey a Monkey. 

Matt: Why would you name a dog a monkey? 

Lauren: Cause it's kind of funny. 

Matt: Jack is, I think, a much better name. 

Lauren: I do think –

Matt: For a dog. 

Lauren: – I actually, I actually have said for years that if I was ever to cave on getting a dog, which I wouldn't, but if I was ever going to get a dog, I would name it Jack. Cause then I'd have Jack and Rose. 

Matt: Well, you know, we forgot about Tika. So – 

Lauren: Oh I love Tika. 

Matt: – there's a dog named Tika the Iggy. This dog has one and a half million followers on Instagram. I just pulled up again because I completely forgot about it. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: At one point, I guess she was given a shout out by Lizzo. 

Lauren: She's met celebrities on red carpets. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: I think she might have been on the Drew Barrymore show. She's been on, on some kind of talk show. 

Matt: I don’t know. 

Lauren: She's a fashion icon. She's a diva. I love Tika.

Matt: Well, Tika's calendar’s run through Lulu every year. 

Lauren: Yes it is. 

Matt: You can get them from Tika. You can go to her Instagram page and find them. They're actually really cool. Yes, she's usually dressed up in some…whatever the most recent fashion or couture is. 

Lauren: Fashion icon. 

Matt: Yeah. Well, anyways, Tika's cool. Although let's get back to why would your animals be named as characters from the Titanic when you're such a Disney adult? 

Lauren: That's a good question.

Matt: Yeah, that’s why I asked it. 

Lauren: I mean, Rose's name comes from a lot of different places.

Matt: Nowhere Disney related. 

Lauren: Nowhere Disney related. 

Matt: Yeah. I'm a little disappointed. 

Lauren: I would have a hard time picking. 

Matt: Might have to pull that annual pass from you. 

Lauren: Absolutely not. 

Matt: You would need to make up for it. So if you got a dog, you couldn't name it Jack. You would need to name it something better than that. And by better, mean Disney related. 

Lauren: I mean, it's a moot point because I'll never get a dog. I'm not a dog person. 

Matt: Well, that's a problem too. 

Lauren: Well, yeah, but it's okay. 

Matt: Okay. 

Lauren: Don't worry about it. 

Matt: Let's move on. Anyways, fundraising is a huge category for calendars. 

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: It's a great way for nonprofits and other organizations to raise money for certain causes. You talked about some of the benefits there. And we do see a lot of that, not just from, you know, animal shelters and influencer things, but museums, churches, like all of these organizations use calendars in many cases to raise funds for certain things, certain initiatives. So it's a great one too. 

Lauren: Yeah. Yeah. And it's something that I think people feel kind of inclined already towards. Like, I think it's a common enough…connection that people have in their head about like, oh, this is a reasonable fundraiser gift that they will probably pay that little bit higher price point for a calendar to donate more money. 

Matt: Yeah. No, that's a fair point too. 

[24:42] Ideas for Different Calendars Creators Can Make

Matt: Before we talk about how to create one, let's talk real quick just about some of the creative you would use and who some of the categories of creators might be that could especially benefit from using calendars. So we've showed you a couple here already. There's a few more that we didn't show yet. This one's really cool. It's food oriented, every month is an image of a different dish. Very well photographed. I just ate, but it's making me hungry again, so –

Lauren: I know the pizza on the cover. 

Matt: Yeah. But again, food creators. So I don't think it's a restaurant, nonetheless. This one is really cool. Las Palmas Garden, which sounds very tropical maybe, but I don't, I don't know where Las Palmas Garden is, but it's a beautifully done calendar. There are gardens somewhere, but every month they have a really cool picture of some sort of plant species or whatever that's in their garden, I guess. I like this one a lot. 

Lauren: San Antonio.

Matt: Oh, okay. And what they've done, which I think is really clever, is down in the bottom of each month there's a little space down there where they've been able to include a quote. Which really customizes it to a degree that makes it more fitting of their brand apparently. So that's really cool too. And then this one I thought was interesting. I think this person is a pilot or a hot air balloon pilot, but they're all images taken from up in the sky. Some of these seem terrifying, by the way, especially – 

Lauren: Not your thing? 

Matt: Well, hot air balloons definitely not my thing. No, not at all. If I'm going to crash from 20,000 feet above the earth, I don't know. For some reason, I just want to be in a plane. 

Lauren: So is skydiving a yes or a no? 

Matt: Oh, it's an absolute no. 

Lauren: Okay.

Matt: There's no reason to jump out of a plane unless it’s on fire and you have a parachute. In my opinion, I don't – 

Lauren: Well – 

Matt: I don't need to prove – 

Lauren: – you're not skydiving without a parachute. What do you mean? 

Matt: Yeah, but I also have a reason to jump out of a plane if it's not on fire. 

Lauren: Yeah, it's called for fun. 

Matt: No. That's not fun. Anyways, a lot of different types of creators and content going into these things. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: But the most obvious is if you have content that is photo heavy or very bright graphic images.

Lauren: Yes. And I do actually before we before we get started with this, I do want to add the disclaimer at the top that no matter what kind of content we're talking about right now, whether we're talking about photos or some of the other ideas that we're going to get into, you have to make sure that you are using content that you own. 

Matt: So I can't make a calendar shipping Kirk and Spock? Using images of Kirk and Spock lovingly embracing that are not mine? 

Lauren: Not if they're not yours. 

Matt: Okay. 

Lauren: You… if you want to hand draw twelve pages of fan art of Kirk and Spock, then you can do that. 

Matt: I'd probably sell more calendars if I did that. You should see my drawing. It's atrocious. 

Lauren: I bet it's great. 

Matt: Oh my goodness. 

Lauren: That would be really funny, honestly. But, yes. 

Matt: Okay. So no fanfiction in calendars. I'm kidding. 

Lauren: No.

Matt: No IP infringement, please. 

Lauren: No IP infringement. 

Matt: Do not use images that are not yours. 

Lauren: Yeah. You can't go…we see people do this all the time. You can't go on Google right now and search The Eras Tour and pick your favorite twelve photos of Taylor from The Eras Tour and publish that into a calendar, because you don't own those photos. 

Matt: You’re right. And honestly, we have had to remove – 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: – several calendars from the Lulu site because of IP infringement, copyright, trademarks, things like that. Where people were taking photos and images that were not theirs. And in fact owned by some pretty heavy hitters like Getty Images or places like that. 

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: So yeah, thank you for the disclaimer there. 

Lauren: Right. And now you can, if you went to The Eras Tour and you want to choose your twelve favorite photos that you took – 

Matt: Yes. 

Lauren: – and you want to put them in a calendar. And maybe you even want to do your favorite lyric from whatever song she was singing at that time and put, and edit that onto the image… I think as long as you cite it correctly, that should still be okay. 

Matt: Okay. 

Lauren: But just… well, cause you can, you can use quotes – 

Matt: You can. 

Lauren: – in the calendar content. You just have to – 

Matt: I think you’re right. 

Lauren: – source it correctly.

Matt: As long as you source it, each one – 

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: – to Taylor or whoever wrote it. I'm assuming Taylor. 

Lauren: Always. 

Matt: Yeah? Yeah. Okay. 

Lauren: Yeah. So just be careful. 

Matt: You can use your photos. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: If you took it with your phone as a general rule of thumb, you can use it. If you took it with your camera, you can use it. 

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: If your mom took it on her flip phone, it's probably not a good photo to use, but you could still use it and not have to worry about ownership issues. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: Good. All right. So again, creators who have photo heavy content, artists, photographers, travel creators, hot air balloon operators, pet influencers, dogs, cats, and the like. These are all great categories that typically have content at the ready because you've been doing it all year. You've been creating this content. But there are lots of others that have content. And we talked about this at the very beginning where sometimes they might not realize they have some good content, but they do. What would be some more examples of creators in genres where there's content that could make for a good calendar? 

Lauren: Before we go too far away from that, I also want to point out one of the things that you said in there with the photo heavy creators, people that are used to taking photos for their content. I also want to encourage people to think outside the box a little bit with their content. Because it doesn't always just have to be… you’re a travel creator and you're going to take photos of every place that you've been to and put that in a calendar. Obviously you can do that. Potentially that's a great idea for some content for you. But what about something a little bit outside the box where you say, okay, I'm going to put…I'm going to take a photo of my fully unpacked suitcase with all the stuff that I'm packing in it for a weekend getaway in February. And this is all the like, winter gear that I would need for a mountain trip in February. And then here is my beach bag packing guide for a July trip or whatever. Or if you're a fashion influencer and you want to say, I'm gonna do…every month is gonna be seven outfit recommendations for this time of year, this season, whatever, that are timeless. You know, they're not going to say these are going to be the trends for next year, but here's a cool photo that I took that is just a bunch of different capsule pieces that you could work together to make different outfits. And I challenge you to make three outfits this month. Or something like that. You know, you could get fun and creative and clever, I think, with that. 

Matt: I could use some help with my outfits. So I liked that last one. 

Lauren: Yeah? 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: I mean, even the challenge idea in general, which is some of these other creators that I have listed out here, I think the idea of creating either a monthly or an annual challenge lends itself really well to different types of creators. So if you're somebody who is… like a writing coach or an editor or you're somebody who's trying to help other people write and create content. Or not, you're somebody who's – you're a social media person and you do social media marketing and you're trying to encourage your fans and followers to create more content. Set up some kind of challenge that is a… Every month we're going to do a 30 day challenge, 31 day challenge, whatever, or a weekly challenge where for the month of August, I'm going to challenge you to create one piece of content every week, or I'm going to challenge you to write this many words every week. And we're going to put that all on the calendar.

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: And that's what this calendar is going to do. 

Matt: I like the writing coach one, the ability to, you know, each month you can have an image that's… but it's got text overlaid onto it. So these are the things you should be working on for the month as it pertains to getting your writing done, but then editing, and then making sure that along the way you're not missing those pre-launch marketing opportunities –

Lauren: Yep. 

Matt: – that everybody forgets to do. So that's a cool one, yeah. Health and wellness, fitness, mental health. These are great areas and great genres that lend themselves well to calendars. Obviously again, things you need to do weekly and monthly, things you want to keep up with. Fitness is a great one. You can put different exercises or activities for each week and then again having an image that you could use to showcase a particular type of exercise or strength training workout, things like that. So I think there's some really good things you can do there. We did highlight, you know, a food one here, but again, you know, chefs, nutritionists, just foodies in general, people who write about food, restaurant critics, things like that, like… Again really well done images of food and some copy to go along with it, I think is a great idea for a calendar. 

Lauren: I mean, it can be also, again, a sample of your content. So maybe you're a nutritionist and your end goal is to get people to sign up for one-on-one…I don't know if it's called coaching, if you're a nutritionist, but you're trying to get people to become a client of yours. But that might be a lot more expensive than a $20 calendar is. But if you give them a $20 calendar option that every page in the calendar has one recipe and a photo of the recipe. Maybe that's something that they'll buy into and say, or they get it as a gift or they got it as a lead magnet from you. And they go, oh, actually, I really like all these things. And I've challenged myself to make them and they were all pretty good. And maybe I will actually commit to the larger purchase of signing up for this person's coaching or whatever. 

Matt: Yeah. Or, you know, even in the case of nutrition, food and wellness. Again, the idea of a thank you gift or a sign up gift where they've signed up for your program, but then you also send them this calendar that has all these extra things in there – 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: – to help them along. Inspirational quotes, recipes, things like that. Yeah. So, you know, again, not always a source of revenue per se. It could be used for other reasons, but nonetheless, that content lends itself well to something like a calendar and organizer. 

Lauren: There is a creator who does a calendar with us every year. It's the Dumb Runner Calendar.

Matt: I don't think I've seen that one. 

Lauren: Oh, it's great. It's Mark Remy, I think, is the guy's name. And it's just those demotivational quotes style things. So like, I just opened up the preview on his and one of them is ‘run like this monkey is waiting for you at the finish line or is chasing you depending on how you feel about monkeys.’

Matt: Now, does he mean a monkey or does he mean the dog named Monkey? 

Lauren: Well, there is a monkey in the photo, but maybe he could collaborate with… Whose calendar was this? 
Matt: I think the dog would run faster –

Lauren: Greg Murray’s? 

Matt: – than a monkey. So maybe. 

Lauren: Probably. 

Matt: Maybe you'd want to use a dog named Monkey as the, I don't know. 

Lauren: Well, people will be motivated by different things. So you never know. 

Matt: Fair enough. 

Lauren: But yeah, there's a lot of different things I think that, that people can create in here. Content entrepreneurs. I think obviously there's a whole different world of different types of creators within that. But like I was saying earlier, whether it's educational content, motivational content, issuing some kind of challenge, issuing some kind of like, I'm gonna help you grow your Instagram by X amount in one year. So we're gonna do 52 weeks of different, like one thing a week and we're gonna track it in this calendar. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: And yeah, you could create a planner to do all of this, but this is a lower lift than a planner. 

Matt: It is. 

Lauren: You don't have to do all the work to design all the individual elements of it. 

Matt: You know, another one that we haven't talked about yet that – so there's a lot of people that their thing is creating financial content. Having a calendar and I'm sure your dad would appreciate this, where every month there's a cool or fun image and it's some other piece of advice around managing money, savings, investment, things like that. So, you know, one thing to focus on for that month from a financial standpoint, I think that's a really cool thing as well. Doesn't matter what genre you kind of play in, like we can find a way we could think of something that you could do to create a calendar with. Like I just don't think there's any, I don't think there's any genre or area or vertical out there where we couldn't find helpful content that they could use for a calendar. 

Lauren: Yeah, no, I think so too. Cause you're right. That is a really cool idea. And I think that is something that's like, you know, if you're looking for a way to create a connection with potential customers or your existing fans or clients or whatever, and what you're trying to do is create that long-term…like, I'm somebody that you want to invest in long-term. I'm gonna help you over the course of the year…reform. Yeah? Reform. 

Matt: I mean, unless you’re a priest…

Lauren: I don't know. 

Matt: No. 

Lauren: I'm gonna help you. 

Matt: Which, priests can make calendars. 

Lauren: Sure they can. 

Matt: That's fine. They're gonna help you reform, of course. 

Lauren: Oh, the Jewish men calendar gets me every year too. I love that one. 

Matt: I don't think I've seen that one.

Lauren: It's not safe for work, so we can't. 

Matt: Yeah, we used to have a firefighter one too. It used to make its way around the office every year. 

Lauren: I mean, I love that. Good for them. But no, it's I think it's like I want to say it's Naughty Jewish Men or something like that, but it's like, it's like cheesy. It's like a bunch of nerds and it's, it's a joke. 

Matt: Well the firefighter one was legit. Like, it was for an actual firehouse, I forgot where, and all the funds went to the firehouse and some sort of charity associated with it. 

Lauren: Hey, firefighters hit us up.

Matt: Hit Lauren up. Don't hit me up. 

Lauren: Your girl’s watched a little bit too much 911 in the last two years, so. 

Matt: Yeah okay, let’s move on from that – 

Lauren: Okay. 

Matt: – before this goes sideways, so. 

Lauren: But yeah, I think you're right that the point is that there's not really anything that I can think of that you could – again, challenge. We challenge it. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Like challenge us right now and say, hey, this is what I am. Historians, if you want to share historical content, photos in your calendar. Another thing that we haven't talked about because we haven't gotten to the part about how to actually create your calendars yet, even though we're rapidly running out of time. Is that you can create custom events within the calendar. Even if you choose to use the templates that we provide instead of designing the interior yourself, you can still add custom holidays and events to those dates on the pages. And if you wanted to do, you know, if you are doing a fundraiser for a historical landmark. And in addition to the photos on the monthly pages being photos of the landmark, you also wanted to do milestone events within the dates of the month. So you say, you know, this is the date that this event happened here, or this event happened here. This is the date that it was declared a national landmark. This is our anniversary. This is our big fundraiser that we host every year, whatever. You can put all that content in your calendar.

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: And there's plenty of other things you could do that for that. It would be relevant and cool to have that in your calendar. 

[38:53] How to Create Your Calendar

Matt: All right. I'm bored of that. Let's move on. 

Lauren: Okay. 

Matt: So actually creating the calendar. 

Lauren: Yep. 

Matt: You're going to need to choose thirteen to fourteen images at a minimum. Now let's be clear. You can make anywhere from a twelve to a twenty-four month calendar on Lulu. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: So we're saying thirteen, fourteen images if you're making a twelve month calendar, but you can make a two year calendar, or up to a two year calendar. But nonetheless. So you're going to want to choose photos. Obviously you're going to want them to be large in stature and size. Lauren was going through this earlier before we started recording. You're always going to want to make sure that your photos are at least, well, you have 3300 x 2600 pixels, but image size 11.25 by 8.75. You want them to be at least the size of the calendar itself. 

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: You really want to be able to make sure you don't get grainy pixelated images, you want everything to look nice, crisp, clean and clear. And that's what you're going to need to do for that. And all of this is on the site, by the way. So it's not like you need to write this down or be listening. 

Lauren: No, I will definitely, as always have linked in the show notes a variety of different resources that we have to help you with all of this. Like I said, it is pretty straightforward in terms of like, once you actually get into the publisher, you'll see exactly what you need to do. But we have, there's a blog post, a couple of different Lulu U videos, a downloadable PDF guide that talks you step-by-step through everything and templates that you can download, whether you choose to use our pre-designed templates or you want a template just to size it correctly for you to create your own design. We have all that available for you. So that'll all be linked in the show notes. 

Matt: Yeah.Like we said it, it's probably the easiest thing you'll make. Now you're gonna want to choose a cover photo, right? So that is the photo that appears on the front of the calendar. You can reuse the photo if you want, it can be a photo that you're gonna use again somewhere. So that's why we say thirteen to fourteen photos, and then you need the twelve photos for the twelve months, and I believe you can actually do a different photo on the back if you want to. You can. So that's why we say up to fourteen photos for a twelve month calendar. Front and back, you can do separate photos. So I think that's really cool. And it just gives you that extra touch of customizing. 

Lauren: You can, and I'm always going to recommend, I'm always surprised that more people don't do this because this is the standard. When you look at the calendars that you see in stores versus something like this, it's a very common practice for people to design the back cover of their calendar like this, where the back cover is a thumbnail grid of all of the photos that are included in the calendar. Because calendars, unlike most products that we sell and that people create and sell online, are something that people are not going to want if they don't like the content inside of it. 

Matt: Yep.

Lauren: And you don't want somebody to spend money on a calendar that you've created and then they don't like it and they get annoyed about it and they try to return it or they, they want their money back or whatever. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: So you're better off upfront letting them know what is in the calendar. So I always recommend doing the thumbnail grid on the back cover. And also turning on, if you are going to sell your book or sell your calendar through the Lulu Bookstore, turning on the preview, the interior preview option, which will allow people to see those photos that are inside of it. 

Matt: Yeah. And Lauren said this earlier and we've alluded to it even earlier in the episode, but there are plenty of templates and things to use and they're very easy. The template, once you choose it, you're going to upload your photos. You'll be given the opportunity to customize any dates or holidays that you want to. So like we talked about, if there are certain dates where, you know, again, if you're doing historical content, maybe certain things happen on these certain days. Haunted Mansion opened up October 1st, 1971, Disney World. October 1st in my calendar, I would be putting the first public opening of Haunted Mansion. So things like that, you have that opportunity. Choose your theme, and then you're just gonna do a review of it and you'll be able to go ahead and publish it. Publish is always a bit misleading. People are like, oh my God, does this mean it's available out in the world? Not necessarily, no. It's gonna depend on the options you chose for that calendar. Obviously you can make it available in the Lulu Bookstore and other ways, but that just means you've completed it and you can now purchase it if you want to put in the Lulu Bookstore, do other things with it, whatever you want to do. 

Lauren: I also want to point out that the calendars that you're using a template for, if you're choosing to use one of the Lulu templates for your calendar, it's, I think the only product on the bookstore that you are not going to upload an interior PDF that is everything all together. You are going to upload those individual photos. 

Matt: Yep.

Lauren: So just be prepared for that. If you're going to use our pre-designed templates, you need to have whatever number of photos you're using. You have to have those saved as separate photos and upload them one at a time and designate them for which month you want them to be assigned to. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: And then your other option is to design the calendar yourself. And that means that in addition to designing whatever the images are in there, you're also going to design the actual like, month pages. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Which we saw in some of these examples like this one that, this is something that they designed themselves. But if that's, if you want to give it any kind of custom touch, you can do that. Again, you can download the templates from Lulu's website and it'll have all the sizes and information that you need and you can just design that page layout in any design tool. 

Matt: Yeah, yeah. 

Lauren: And then that you do upload as a single PDF.

Matt: Yeah, if you're making it outside of the Lulu tool, that's when you upload as a PDF. But otherwise, if you're doing everything inside Lulu, then you don't have to worry about that. 

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: That's how most of the calendars are created that come through. For a lot of the people that calendars is their business, they create all their calendars outside of the Lulu tool. They do them in like Adobe InDesign or things like that, more complicated programs, but they do give you more flexibility and freedom as to what you're creating. So we can see why some of them do it. After you've created your calendar, you can sell your calendar. You can sell it in the Lulu Bookstore. You can sell them, if you have already a Shopify store where you're using Lulu Direct, or something like that. You can absolutely do it that way. You can self-purchase and then maybe you sell at local events or things like that, but you cannot put it into global distribution. 

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: So unlike books, there is not an option to put it into global distribution. 

Lauren: Yep. 

Matt: Yeah. But otherwise that's pretty much calendars in a nutshell. It really is that easy to create one, especially if you're using our tool. Again, if you're doing a twelve month, you just need thirteen, fourteen photos. Pro tip from Lauren, back cover photos should be thumbnails of all the images. I don't disagree with that. 

Lauren: And your front cover photo, especially if you're planning on selling it online, like if you're selling it on the bookstore or on direct, that cover photo is your cover. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: If you choose a bad photo, if you choose, if you kind of phone it in on the cover, I don't care how good the content inside the calendar is, people aren't going to look at it. 

Matt: Yep. Yeah. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

[45:46] Wrap Up

Matt: So that's calendars. They're pretty cool. 

Lauren: Yeah, I think they're great. 

Matt: I like them. 

Lauren: I consistently buy at least one every year. 

Matt: I typically will mill around the returns pile here at Lulu and just look for if any were returned for any reason, like bad address or something and see if there's any cool ones. So I usually end up with a couple in my office every year that either I grabbed it because it's very bizarre or because there's some really cool photography in there, but I like them. I especially liked Robbie's for this year. So that's been a fun one to have. But I am actually going to be making calendars for my family as fun gifts for the holidays this year. 

Lauren: Yeah, they are great gifts. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: I do definitely recommend that. We've just, we've seen so many – calendars are one of my favorite things to go through the bookstore and look for. That's just one of my, like we've seen some really fun, really creative calendars that people have made over the years. Cooking With Dinosaurs was one that I really liked. Then there was one that was…frog in a garden or a squirrel in a garden. Like it was a photographer who had…

Matt: I think it was a frog. 

Lauren: There might've been more than one where, you know, people just come up with these really cute, fun. There's a creator who does post offices. 

Matt: Yes. 

Lauren: And he does different photos of post offices around the US classic cars. People that do like classic cars, houses, all kinds of things. There's so many cool, fun projects that we see. Illustrators that do either like web comics or illustrations. Also ones that you can color in. I have seen people do ones that are just the black and white outline and you can color them in, 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Which I did buy one of those one year. 

Matt: That’s a good idea. 

Lauren: They're great. They're a lot of fun. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: There's so many different fun, creative ways that people have created calendars and sold them on Lulu. 

Matt: There are. That's why I'm going to cut you off now. 

Lauren: Go ahead. We – I could keep going forever. 

Matt: I know. 

Lauren: So someone's got to stop me. What would you create if you were going to create a calendar, try to sell it on the Lulu Bookstore. What would the theme be? 

Matt: If I was gonna create one for sale? 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: I would probably do something fun around Disney. 

Lauren: Okay. 

Matt: And so I would probably do something similar to like, Cooking With Dinosaurs. I would find some inanimate object that had some comedic value and I would strategically place it somewhere at all my favorite rides and take a picture of it. 

Lauren: I like it. 

Matt: Yeah, don't steal it. 

Lauren: I won't. 

Matt: Okay. What would you do? 

Lauren: Well, that's the million dollar question right now. 

Matt: You should do one of bracelets. What do they say today?

Lauren: I should do one of bracelets. That's kind of a fun idea. Today I have Me and My Ghosts, All This and Heaven, and Idiots in Love. 

Matt: Yeah I'm not touching any of those. 

Lauren: That’s okay. 

Matt: But you could do a calendar of bracelets. 

Lauren: That could be really fun. I like that. 

Matt: That'd be cool. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: All right. Do all the things. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Leave us a review. Subscribe. Tell your friends about us. Tell your family about us. Don't tell your mom about us. Probably not. But tell other people about us. 

Lauren: Yeah, why not? Let us know what kind of calendar you're going to create. Or challenge us to tell you what kind of calendar we think you could create to support your brand or business. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Also, let us know if you have any other questions about anything unrelated to calendars. 

Matt: Maybe we should do a 2026 calendar for our podcast based on the listeners. So have listeners send us their favorite photo that they would want in the calendar. I don't think there has to be any guidelines other than –  

Lauren: No, you're going to have to put some guidelines on that. 

Matt: Well, the normal Lulu terms of service, right? So everybody knows you can't be sending us any fanfiction, lewd photos, anything like that. Who knows, if we get ten, twelve, thirteen, fourteen of them, we'll do a calendar for our podcast. 

Lauren: Could be fun. 

Matt: We'll see. 

Lauren: Otherwise I'm just going to take a bunch of screenshots of Matt looking increasingly more unimpressed by me. And that's going to be the calendar. 

Matt: All right. 

Lauren: Thanks for listening everyone. And hopefully we'll see you back here next week for another new episode. 

Matt: Later.