Searching For The Right Greeting Card Publishers
Many dont realize it, but there are some companies that accept freelance greeting card submissions. Some use their in-house writers exclusively, but most companies use a good mix of the two. Though writing greeting cards may not be what you want to do with your writing career, it can be a great way to pay the bills when you are waiting for other opportunities to work out. If you have the knack for doing these right, you can earn enough to pay some of your bills each month. Thats not bad for writing a few lines. You do have to choose the right greeting card publishers in this case, however, or you wont get anywhere.
Your first consideration when choosing greeting card publishers is choosing which ones take what you can write. If you are into mushy prose, there are many companies that print greeting cards that will be interested. Some specialize in this type of card only. There are others that might prefer funny card submissions, and if you can write these, that is where you submit. You should know this before you send anything to any greeting card publishers. If you send the wrong stuff to a company, its going to go into the rejection pile very quickly.
Some greeting card publishers pay more than others. Some give a mere twenty five dollars for each card, and other companies can pay a few hundred. Each is different and has their own reasons for their prices. If you dont think twenty five dollars per card is worth your time, find publishers of greeting cards that pay more than that. For a complete listing of these greeting card publishers, you can look to the book Writers Market that comes out each year. There you can see who pays what, who to submit to, and even how to format your submissions.
After you have written your cards out, and have chosen your greeting card publishers for submission, there is one more thing you should do. Find a way to keep track of what you send, when you send it, and to whom you mailed your creations. This will help you when rejections and acceptance letters start rolling back at you. You dont want to forget about any submissions, or worse, miss something important. Though most publishers are good at what they do, they too can make mistakes. You dont want to miss out on any payments, so having a good system pays off in the end.
