The Greeting Card Business: 101

Card Design Tips

Learn about the fundamentals of card design.

Greeting Card Sales Stats

Greeting Card Design Tips

Things to avoid in Card Design

Greeting Card Association Artist Guidelines

You know you are a greeting card designer when…

Starting a Card Business

Learn how to manufacture and sell your cards to retail stores.

How to Present Your Card Line

Test Marketing Your Card Line

Getting Your First Greeting Card Account

Getting Professional Feedback on Your Card Line

Pricing Your Cards

Pricing and Profits: The Tale of 2 Greeting Card Businesses

Good News for Indie Card Artists: New Sales Trends

Online Class: Design and Sell Your Own Cards

Starting a Card Line on Your Own

Backcopy:What to print on the back of your cards

List of Books on the Greeting Card Business

Book Review: How to Run a Greeting Card Business

Book Review: Pushing the Envelope

Setting up Card Ordering Codes

All About Envelopes

Greeting Card Quiz: How much do you know about the industry?

Ginger McCleskey, Greeting Card Rep, Talks about Trends

Greeting Card Buying Statistics 
 

Marketing Cards

Learn how to market cards.

12 Unusual Ways To Market Your Greeting Cards

List of Trade Shows for Greeting Card & Gift Designers

How to Sell Art Through Social Media

List of Trade Magazines for Card and Gift Industry

How to Use Email to Sell Art & Get Leads

How to Sell Designs Online: Jude Maceren

Venues for Selling Greeting Cards Online

How to Find Greeting Card Sales Reps

The Handmade Card Business
Learn how to run a thriving handmade card business.

How to make a living in the Handmade Card Business

How to Set Up a Handmade Card Factory

Making Cards: Questions to Ask

Simplify Card Making for a Profit

Paying People to Make Your Cards

3 Parts of a Greeting Card

8 Advantages of the Handmade Card Business

Interview with Former Greetings etc. Editor, Kathy Krassner

Handmade Greeting Card Business Directory

Card Writing
Learn How to Write Greeting Card Sentiments.

Meet the Master of Greeting Card Writing

Audio Interview: Getting into the Greeting Card Writing Market

How Poets Can Write Greeting Card Verse

Interview with Hallmark Card Writer

Artist & Writer Submission Guidelines for Card Companies

Breaking into the Greeting Card Writing Market

How to Write Greeting Card Verse (VIDEO)

7 Mistakes Card Writers Make

 Licensing Your Designs to Companies
Learn how to license your designs to publishers.

Submission Guidelines for Card Companies

How to Mail Promos of Your Designs to Card Companies

How to Organize Greeting Card Submissions

How to get Started in Art Licensing

How to Make a Good "Art Licensing Website."

How to Deal With Rejection: Tips for Card Designers

Resources on Greeting Cards and Licensing

Greeting Card Licensing Information from the UK 

List of Licensing Agents in the US

Support
Learn how artists manage their time and set goals.

How to Make Time for Art

How to Start a Buddy Meeting System

How to Start an Art Licensing Support Group

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Books - The Greeting Card Business

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Get Your Greeting Cards Into Stores: How to Find and Work With Sales Reps (Updated 2017 paperback) If you like to make greeting cards, this book explains how to get your cards into stores and sell them nationwide.  Learn about changing trends in the indie card market and niche opportunities available for artists. Book includes detailed guidelines on pricing cards for a profit, getting professional feedback on your designs, finding sales representatives, pitching your card line to them, approaching stores, and the industry standards you should follow. Information is also applicable to gift items, such as magnets, journals and calendars.

Start and Run a Greeting Card Business From a British author, whose country has a long history of greeting card design, she takes you step-by-step through the process of starting and running your business with lots of useful practical advice to help you, including: - Deciding what type of cards to produce - Finding your market - Dealing with printers - Copyright and licensing - Pricing and profit. Kate's note: Some specs are different (card sizes) since it is UK standards.

Greeting Card Design This volume features a vast array of fun, elegant, simple and imaginative greeting cards designed by internationally-known artists, illustrators and calligraphers. With over 300 full-color photographs of creative, popular, and inspiring greeting card designs, this invaluable sourcebook showcases the very best of what is happening in the industry today. Accompanying text explores the history of the greeting card industry and examines the major contributions from the leading innovative companies.

15 Top Design Skills in Highest Demand

This is an interesting graphic with a large sample of almost 29,000 job postings.  Photoshop wins by a large margin.  I thought for sure web site design would be the tops.

35 Free Photoshop Tutorials

Here are some interesting photoshop tutorials on dzineblog.
Check out the list at http://www.dzineblog360.com/2013/06/35-newly-released-free-photoshop-tutorials-of-2013/

Here are some examples:

Making Poster Mockups

Matte Paintings

Texturing Text

Where to submit your greeting card designs.

I have just updated my list of greeting card companies who seek out submissions from artists and writers.

These listings include companies that have guidelines on their website and I have provided a link to that page.

Check it out at http://kateharperblog.blogspot.com/2009/05/10-card-publishers-artist-and-writer.html

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How to Send Large Files Digitally

Here's an important article by Joan Beiriger on sending large art files:

Art Licensing: How to Transfer Multiple & Large Hi-Res Files

[article excerpt] "...If three or more images are requested, they usually cannot be sent in one e-mail because it will most likely be rejected by the e-mail carrier. And, if a large Hi-Res layered Adobe Photoshop image needs to be sent it may be at least 250MB in size that is impossible to transfer via e-mail... " continue reading.

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Independent App Maker Seeking Artists

Micah Russo wrote to me and is an independent developer who is planning to launch his first web app called "Toon Talks" and is looking for artists to participate in his project.  Here are the details from him:

"I am seeking a few artists who would like to have their work featured on Toon Talks in exchange for a byline and a link back to their website or portfolio.  

Users of Toon Talks:
1. Browse art from various artists, 
2. Select an image, and 
3. Craft a personal message to post on Facebook or share with friends via email.  

-The long-term vision for the project is to support independent artists through revenue sharing and mictro-transactions.

-Images should be submitted in a set of 4 so that I can dedicate a whole page to each artist.

-Art images may be modified and shared by users of the site.  

Try out the Facebook App at http://apps.facebook.com/toontalks

Artists should visit www.toontalks.com to look at the 'Goopymart Talks' page as an example.  

He can be contacted via the form at http://www.toontalks.com/contact.php for more details.

You can also visit his kickstarter page at:  http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1010833921/toon-talks-express-yourself-with-toons

The Dragon Project

A friend of mine, Marie Jensen submitted her art to "The Dragon Project" and I thought other artists might want to know about this. It is a project to  help children in Japan who were affected by the earthquake, the tsunami and the radioactive pollution in Fukushima, Toko Shiiki and Nino Trentinella.. The Dragon Project is an international, collaborative endeavor to showcase all the artwork created by the participants in fundraiser exhibitions around the world.

The project joins all the artwork submissions together to make a long dragon which are exhibited at a Fundraiser art exhibition in Paris and other cities around the world. Also, they make and sell books with all the submitted artwork.

ALL money raised through the fundraisers and the sale of books will be sent to the Fukushima Children’s Fund and Living Dreams and used to help buy food radiation detectors, provide material support such as clothing and footware, create monitoring stations and construct a rest home for the child victims. 

 

 The Show

 

  The Book

  

Marie's Art Submission (Also in the Book)

Have you filed your copyright?

Have you filed your copyrights for all the art you've created this year? For only $35 you can file your images digitally online at http://www.copyright.gov/eco/




Kate's tips:

• Have the Tutorial open on your screen while you go through the application process, otherwise it's easy to get sidetracked and go down the wrong road, especially when a lot of their examples are oriented towards musicians & video producers.

• There is a hour time limit for downloading, so it's best to have your art ready before you get on the site. Make copies of your art files, reduce their file sizes and put them all in one folder on the desktop. That way, they are ready to download and easy to find. I reduced each image down to 100-500K range.

Have any tips of your own? Leave them in the comments below or write to me directly and I'll add them on this post.

Before using the service, read

eCO Acceptable File Types,

eCO Tips,

eCO FAQs, or eCO Tutorial (PowerPoint) eCO Tutorial (PDF).

For recently added features, see eCO Updates

Articles on Copyrights

Fear of Getting Your Art Stolen? Look at the Numbers

How to Register You Copyrights Digitally

Artist Protects Copyright Through Twitter

The 10 Key Points That Must Be In Every Licensing Agreement

Protecting Your Designs with Watermark Tools

Photoshop Tip: How to create a customized signature brush

Protecting Your Art: Interview with Alyson B. Stanfield

How to protect your assets in a licensing agreement

Free Booklets from the Copyright Office

PDF Copyright BasicsPDF Registering a Copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office
PDF Make Sure Your Application Will Be Acceptable
PDF Cartoons and Comic Strips
PDF Have a Question About Copyright Registration?
PDF Make Sure Your Application Will Be Acceptable
PDF Publications on Copyright
PDF Copyright Notice

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Copyright Books for Artists

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The Copyright Zone: A Legal Guide For Photographers and Artists In The Digital Age If you license or publish images, this guide is as indispensable as your camera. It provides specific information on the legal rights of photographers, illustrators, artists, covering intellectual property, copyright, and business concerns in an easy-to-read, accessible manner. The Copyright Zone, Second Edition covers: what is and isn’t copyrightable, copyright registration, fair use, model releases, contracts and invoices, pricing and negotiation, and much more. 






Legal Guide for the Visual Artist This book provides legal guidance for any visual artist involved with creative work. Topics covered: developments in copyright, artists in artist-gallery relationships, First Amendment protections for graffiti art and the sale of art in public spaces, cases dealing with art and privacy, model contract for Web site design. The book also covers copyrights, moral rights, contracts, licensing, sales, special risks and protections for art and artists, book publishing, video and multimedia works, leases, taxation, estate planning, museums, collecting, grants, and how to find the best professional advisers and attorneys. In addition, the book teaches strategies for negotiation, gives information to help with further action, contains many sample legal forms and contracts, and shows how to locate artists' groups and Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts organizations. 

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How Customize Keyboard Shortcuts in Photoshop

Check out this great article that explains how to make personalized keyboard shortcuts in Photoshop.  It's a great step-by-step explanation with graphics.

Go to:  http://designmodo.com/customize-keyboard-shortcuts-photoshop/ on the designmodo website.

(sample visual)

How to Resize Multiple Images via Batch Processing

Another great how-to article by Joan Beiriger's Blog on Art Licensing.  Check it out.  Here's an excerpt:

There are times an artist needs to change the file size, file format, add a signature, logo or watermark on multiple images for the following purposes:
• e-mail attachments to manufacturers for licensing consideration
• a manufacturer request for presentation to their client(s)
• low resolution standard size images for websites
• a marketing slide show for youtube.com
• iPhoto library that will be transferred to iPad
• photo/image-sharing websites like drop box
• sent to printing services
• sent to a publication for a press release or an advertisement
• auction/sale websites such as eBay and Etsy

Doing these tasks one file at a time is boring and time consuming. However, using batch processing software that allows multiple steps to be applied to many files at once is fast and easy.

Adobe Photoshop allows a person to do custom batch processing by using the Action and Batch commands to program exactly what is needed. Turnkey software (pre-built software for immediate use) performs certain tasks such as resizing images and reformatting files.  Article continued...

25 Amazing Photoshop Tutorials

Here's a good article on Umagazine.  Check it out: http://urdu-mag.com/blog/2012/11/25-amazing-photoshop-photo-manipulation-tutorials/

Here are 2 of the 25:

How To Design Freestyle Human Portrait Manipulation in Photoshop with Brush Painting and Layer Masking




 How To Design Vintage Artwork with Old Newspaper and Watercolor Brush in Photoshop

 

Startup Card Publisher Seeking Artists

Mike Press is launching a new ecard web site later this year and is seeking a portfolio of online cards to offer. New to the card market, Mike has a long background in high-tech marketing and is pursuing a novel business model which targets well above average prices, while providing a unique value proposition.

Designs aimed at the major holidays in classic, classy style are especially desired.

The web site is on track to launch in September/October this year. If you have designs available for license, please contact Mike at mikepress@mail.com describing your offerings and desired terms.

Free Photoshop Brushes for Designers

Check out 15 different sets of cool Photoshop Brushes on the blog graphic design Junction.



See all 15 sets here.




See all 15 sets here.





See all 15 sets here.



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Photoshop CS6: The best just got better

Check out this article on Artbees blog on the new Photoshop version.
Read entire article here...

New Text Tool

Adobe paid more attention towards text editing, for instance, CS6 comes with text and paragraph formatting capabilities. Also, it added a new (Type) menu choice and typography workspace option. What’s more, CS6 offers the capability to blend alphabets in the same document, for example English with Japanese or Hebrew, maybe Russian or even Arabic!

Layers

The JDI-“Just Do It” feature is responsible for all the small features that does not require a massive amount of development time or effort but does make a significant effect on the images you are working on. The CS6 comes packed with no fewer than layer involved 65 JDIs. Some of the JDIs include a new menu option which allows you to delete a layer effect rather than disabling it, dither options to Layer Styles for Gradient Overlay and Gradient Stroke, and bicubic sharper & bicubic smoother options when free transforming layers.

Drawing

Artists, illustrators, and typographers, also get their share of new a la mode tools. The first change that artists will love is the most-requested feature, the dotted and dashed lines. CS6 offers these lines with lots of control; they can be simply added from the Stroke Option box with any object selected. Everything now could be customized when using this feature. For instance, you can change the length, thickness and color of both the dashes and even fill the dashes or the dots using the gradient.
Shapes now offer more flexibility as Photoshop lets you copy shape attributes, such as the fill pattern, and paste them to multiple objects. Additionally, you can now add new shapes without the need of creating more layers. More control over the vector is now offered along with raster shape manipulation, such as alignment.

Content Aware Move

One of the most fabulous new tools the Adobe has introduced with the all new Photoshop CS6 is the Content-Aware Move. What’s magnificent about this tool is the fact that while preserving the background, this tool allows you to select an object and move it in. Additionally, it lets you place multiple instances of an object onto a background. Worth mentioning, that this tool works best with consistent background textures like grass, sand, or sky.

Read entire article here...continued... →


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Most Embarrassing Trade show Moments

Lynn Felter said...

At the end of the last day of the 2010 NSS, I was exhausted. Lots of booths were already tearing down so I decided to "let my hair down". I took off my shoes, sat down on the floor and started devouring a tuna fish sandwich.

Soon a man wandered by and looked in my booth. He said, "I'm from The New York Times." I replied (with a mouthful of tuna), "Yea, sure you are dude."

Um, turns out he actually was a reporter from The New York Times. He liked my story - army wife/soccer mom who writes dirty cards - so he ended up writing an article about me.

What I learned? Don't take your high heels off too early ... great things can happen even at the very end of tradeshows!

Sheila Meehan said..
Working a trade show in the 80's, I had spent a day chatting with people and my energy was high. There was a long lull between customers and I decided to look down the aisles for incoming possibilities. Lo and behold, a man was walking towards me and I thought "I KNOW him but am not sure WHO he is." He wore no badge. So, I mustered up my courage and when he walked by my booth, I stuck out my hand and announced "Hi, I'm Sheila Meehan". He laughed, shook my hand and said "Hi, I'm Chubby Checker!" I could no longer speak. He smiled and kept walking.

Don Nelson said...

My most embarrassing trade show moment so far: by Don Nelson:

I was in New York at the Javitz Convention Center and it was my first big-time professional card show. I registered and because I was so loaded down with my well worn briefcase with all my samples and my portfolio, I had somehow put my name-tag badge on, upside-down. And because I had to get up early to get to the show, (I was staying at a more affordable hotel across the river in New Jersey) it was dark when I got dressed and so I had put on my best shirt, inside-out. (Remember, my wife isn't with me to catch these little fashion details).

So I walk up to one of the biggest booth at the show, and I simply said to the well dressed lady, "Hi, my name is Don Nelson and I write humorous greeting card verses."

. . . and she starts laughing. It is not exactly what I am expecting for my first trade show but I took her moment of levity to put my briefcase on the counter in order to show her my samples when oops! --- both locks popped open on my briefcase -- and everything inside falls on the floor at her feet.

And . . . then to my amazement, she says, "We'll buy what ever your selling. You had me the moment you walked up and your shirt was inside out and your name tag was on upside-down."

It was my first sale of the day; all because of a "wardrobe malfunction".

Merry Lynch said...

My husband and I were importing stationery and cards from Europe and were showing at Javits for the stationery show. Being in the business for quite some time I was able to get a great space first time out and was very excited. At the time we were living in Maine so we packed up everything in a U-Haul truck (truck being the important word) and began our travels south to the. Big Apple.

To save money or penny pinch not sure which one really. We were staying in New Jersey, a hotel that had a FREE parking lot for the truck. On the way down we traveled vis the Garden State Parkway, whcih by the way, does not accept trucks but my husband says ..I am not driving a truck iy's not that big. So I continue in the car driving ahead of him in the "truck."
I go through the toll booth and travel on and happen to look in the rear view mirror. No site of him anywhere. I decided to pull over and wait. Some time past and I finally see him travlling along but something is not right but I just don't know what. We get to Javits and begin to unload and he tells me that the toll booth was not wide enough for the "truck" and he got stuck, held up traffic, had to pay a fine, scratched up the rental "truck" and lost a rear view mirror, and still was able to blame it all on the transit authority.

We make it through set up without killing each other and drive to the hotel, part the vehicles and hit the hay. The next morning we get up for our first day at the show and the management asks us to move the truck to a different side. Of the lot, the side for "trucks." My husband gets in, starts the engine and backs up to begin moving to the correct area. Not realizing he is in a "truck" he backs up enough to rip the whole canopy of the front entrance to the hotel off, further damaging the truck, and literally destroying the entrance.

I make it through the rubble to find the manager and attempt to begin begging for forgiveness when we are pushed out of the way by 20 tourists carrying cameras and speaking a mile a minutes in their foreign language. They all huddle outside and begin taking pictures, we all burst out laughing as I passed over our insurance information to begin the payback process.

Thankfully the show was a success although extremely expensive and my husband and I are still married. There is hope for everyone that wants to pursue this crazy lifestyle but the key to remember is laugh out loud, joyously meet new people, and don't ever take yourself too seriously.

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Create a Retro Page in Photoshop

Check out this interesting tutorial on tutsfriend web design blog. I like the colors a lot!

Article continued...

Photoshop text "effects"

Here's a good article at Ddesigner blog on how to create 10 different interesting text effects in photoshop:

See all 10 effects...Article continued...

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Big Growth: Chinese New Years Cards

Check out the article today in the San Francisco Chronicle. Here is an excerpt:

Greeting Card Universe, the world's largest greeting card store, announces robust and growing sales of 66% year over year of Chinese New Year cards for 2012 to herald in the most auspicious of the Chinese zodiac, the year of the Dragon, celebrated this year on January 23rd. Boasting over 520,000 original card designs, Greeting Card Universe has quickly become the online destination for shoppers seeking the perfect card for both traditional and uncommon holidays and events.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2012/01/18/prweb9116562.DTL#ixzz1jvqHotbi

Article continued...

3d Printers get cheaper and easier to use.

Heard a podcast today on "Buzz Out Loud" talking about how etsy fans would love these new inexpensive, east to use 3D printers. To me, they are really 3D manufacturing machines, rather than printers. This one is $1,299, made by Cubify and will be on the market sometime in the next few months. Sounds like a great way to start a business or make prototypes.

Photoshop Tutorial: Using Patterns and Stamp to Create Backgrounds

Check out this new Article on Joan's blog: http://joanbeiriger.blogspot.com/2011/12/photoshop-tutorial-using-pattern.html

If you like patterns and textures, you'll like this-Kate