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I'd be willing to help also, but if Martin wants to do it thats alright :)
Here's probably the best way to do it:
1) Get people to submit to YOU.
This is pretty important. You can raise the quality of the calendar by not driving yourself crazy going all over the bored trying to find old posts etc and then people saying: "You put my worst pict in there." Have them EMAIL YOU hi resolution (1700*1300 min is a good standard, but even 1200*whatever prints out great). State that you will NOT count or accept picts posted in the thread (otherwise no one can read the thread cus it's loading 2 MB pictures the entire time). Do not accept picts sent through hotmail (lowers image quality on sendout).
2) Notify people about the submission
6gc has a nice "hi resolution image" feature, where members can post hi resolution images of their rides. I had the site head (Coomer, great guy) write up a short script that gave me the username of every person who had hi res images (and could apply to be in the calendar). I then emailed all of them. 90 people all told, took me an hour, but it was where I got the most submissions from- not from people reading the threads I had posted on various websites.
3) After the deadline to submit passes, you have two choices. You can hold a public vote, or you can pick the 13 images yourself.
At 3si.org (3000GT Stealth Internation) They posted the pictures submitted in the thread (one from every person who submitted and met the minimum posting requirements) and just had people reply with feedback. Not very effective.. but it gives you plenty of freedom to pick your own while also getting public feedback.
At 6gc Coomer wrote a short script that allowed me to post the finalists who qualify, and then people could vote using radio buttons like a quiz. Over 200 people voted. In the end, I only used this as a suggestion- and some of the top 12 who were voted in didn't make it into the calendar- which pissed some people off (apparently the entire country of Italy- but as it's only a minor former axis power I wasn't overly concerned), but I reserved my right to pick the choices I felt best. Make sure you do that too- or you might have a car voted in with a bad non scenic photo with naked chicks on it- and you'd have to print it.
4) Photoshop. Photoshop. Photoshop. Plates have to be removed (we replaced ours with 6gc.net logo), colors have be print safe (use Gamut check in photoshop, and desaturate until it all checks out), bleed marks have to be made, names have to be on it, etc. It's tough. Let me know when you get to this stage and I'll provide more tips
5) Set it up with a printer or cafepress
6) get a test print made to check for the pinhole, spelling, color, etc
7) Sell.
Hope thats been helpful.
and thanks for all the positive comments :)
--Sean
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