Bush Babies 2024: A Journey into Wildlife Conservation Through Calendars

Imaging sitting with lion cubs for a whole morning, or watching young elephants splashing around the waterhole trying to use their trnks and charging all the wading birds that dare walk near them? This years calendar was based around photos of adorable youngsters of the bush, and I wanted to transport the viewer to scenes like this through my imagery. 

Having produced four calenders now, with the last two have generated money for conservation, my aim was to go bigger this year and raise more money. I also decided this year that 100% of the profits will be donated this year vs 20% of previous years. A project that I feel is very important to the future of African wildlife is Botswana Predator Conservation Trust's "Bio Boundary" project - this project uses artificially produced territory chemicals of large predators to repel and disaude new predators from crossing into human and livestock habitated areas. Read more by clicking on the picture below:

.

.

This project (headed by Dr.Peter Apps), is in its pilot stages after ten years of research and the initial results after testing are very positive! Created initially to stop wild dogs killing livestock, this project has the potential to protect other large predators from retaliation killings, not only in Africa but the science could be used anywhere in the world!

.

Having had a busy safari season my harddrive was full of images and I had some of the best encounters with young animals in 2023 that I have ever experienced. Narrowing down the selection of different species was the first challenge - only have space for 13 pictures makes it a tough choice! People dont alwys resonate with all species either so part of the selection process was to select the cutest and most recogniseable youngsters for the calendar. It was impoortant that the selected images all showed ianimals that would interact with the viewer through either their displayed behaviour or direct eye contact.

.

.

You will notice on all my calendars, wild dogs are featured in June as this is my eldest daughter, Leilas's birthday month (she helps me with the narrowing down process!)

Once the specific species are narrowed down the images need to be edited and cross checked for printable quality and imperfections removed. Sometimes its too hard to decide between two or three similar images and thats where support from instagram followers was really appreciated - I created polls using the different images and asked for advice from my audience - thank you if you voted on these!

.

Capturing the images and selecting the final edits to publish was the easy part of producing the calendar. Other decisions that had to be to made were:

• What size to print it - I found A3 to be a good display size for viewers to connect to the subject, however I had feedback thaat some people would prefer A4.
• What format to use - should it be full page or half page with writing space? Borders or no borders? I decided on full sized pictures with a small description at the bottom of the page. 
• Which printer to use - researching this took me ages as there are so many printers available each with their pros and cons. I chose a printer that I have ised in the past that offers good rates for bulk printing. 
• Whether to dropship or sell pre ordered stock: some printers offer drop shipping but generally their prices are much higher reulting in less sales (but also less hassle) I chose to do a pre-order sheet on my website to assess demand and then estimated the amount to order. Being based in Germany I had to produce a German vrsion and English version for international orders - this complicated the process a lot more as it resulted in two inventories and two different advertising strategies.
• How much to spend on marketing: being an absolute novice at marketing I had no ide what I was getting myself into here, nor did I have any idea of the cost. I advertised on google, Facebook and Instagram with the most success coing from Facebook. Each of these platforms has unique strategies for successful advertising and all have a learning period - tim eI didnt have to waste! Having a narrow target audience didnt help either and my lack of marketing experience bit me back here...I did receive some free marketing which attributed to some sales in December by approaching the local newspaper, who wrote a small article about me, the calendars and the Bio Boundary project.
• Where to sell it: I already run a shopify store so that was the obvious online place to sell it. Other sales came in from a local art market where I set up a stand (here I also sold other merchandise such as magnets and postcards made from the calendars pictures). I always get a few sales from friends and neighbours in our little village in Germany.

• Using the Pre-Order form on the website gave me an idea of how many calendars to order however it was still a bit of a thumb-suck in the end as I didn't know how may sales the marketing would bring in. In previous years I ordered in bulk and have failed to sell all copies leaving a lot of printed calendars getting donated for school art projects!
• Of the 70 calenders ordered from the printer, I managed to sell 58 (@ €20 - €25 each) and the remaining 12 were given away as gifts to my family and friends and I used several as marketing for next year.
• The sales totalled €1230, printing costs €657, packing €55, shipping €95 and a tatol of €200 was spent on marketing.
• Net profit after all this was only €226 - total donation made €300
• I havn't included the costs of maintaining a Shopify store as part of my costs here.

.

.

• Now that I have had a dip into marketing, I will spending a lot more time on it through the year growing my brand and hopefully my organic audience is a lot larger when it comes time to launch next year.
• I will be trying the dropshipping version next year as taking orders, packing and sending them takes a considerable amount of time. This means a lower profit margin however with more time to focus on sales it will pay off.
• I will be offering different sizes and formats to suit different interiors and tastes.
• This year I was only ready to release by mid-November which was too late. This year I will be starting marketing from the begining of October with a well thought out strategy.

Although there was only €220 profit at the end of this project I decided to donate €300 to the Bio Boundary project as I really believe it is an important project. It is my hope that next year with some serious fine tuning I am able to 10x the donation amount to really make a difference!

I really appreciate everyone that has supported me through this period. Those that brought the calendars and others that gave me moral support throughout the journey! Most of all I want to thank the conservation efforts of all those working tirelessly and selflessly to protect Africa's wildlife and her habitats for the rest of us to enjoy.

.

.

Please have a read about the Bio Boundary project and consider either making a donation to their research department or simply spreading the news to your network - every little helps!

.

  Hi!thanks for the taking the time to read this blog. If you would like to connect please do through my website, or on social media: Instagram or Facebook