Writing For the Greeting Card Market

One often overlooked freelance writing market for the beginner is the social expression industry, i.e., greeting cards. For the humorist with a particularly quirky sense of humor, you might find this a very lucrative venue for your creativity. Those who have a penchant for penning heartfelt messages and poetry may also find a home for their musings. My experience is primarily with humor, myself, since I just don't have the talent for the latter. I've been writing and selling humorous cards for over 20 years and still thoroughly enjoy it.

The first order of business should you decide you may have a knack for this market is to acquire a list of companies who actively seek submission from freelancers. A hard copy of "Writer's Market" is a good choice, but even better is to sign up at www.writersmarket.com. A one year subscription is around 23 dollars a year; or you can get a monthly subscription for $3.99 per month. This way you keep up with the latest listings.

Once you've compiled a list of companies seeking editorial, you need to contact them for a copy of their guidelines for submission. In most cases, you can acquire this by sending a SASE (self addressed stamped envelope) to the proper department. Often you can also request a catalog of products published by the company so you can get a good feel of the type of material they market. Never send your writings to a publisher if you don't have a very clear idea of what they're looking for. These days, you'll find a great percentage of greeting card companies have websites, so you can peruse their offerings online. You will even find some sites with a link to writer's and artist guidlines. You can pull up a number of companies with a quick visit to Google. Typing in "Greeting card writer's guidelines" works well.

The traditional way of submitting copy is typing your ideas on individual 3x5 index cards with your personal information on the back. Developing a coding idea for your ideas is also a very good idea, so you can keep track of which companies have seen which ideas. And never, ever submit the same ideas simultaneously to different companies unless their policy expressly states that it's ok.

Of course in this modern age on cyberspace, more and more publishers are accepting submissions by email. That certainly cuts down on the bother of typing or printing your ideas on paper, and postage, of course. I wish everyone accepted e-submissions. But alas, there are still quite a number of companies who only accept submissions the old fashioned way.

Probably one of the hardest part of writing for the greeting card market is keeping a steady flow of original, salable ideas coming into your noggin. The best advice I could give anyone is just to look everywhere, from daily conversations, newspapers, magazines, T.V., etc. Always be on the lookout for situations that might inspire a funny take an greeting card subjects. Scour the internet for inspiration for inspiration. Hey, I've come up with a lot of great ideas just reading the absurdity that takes place on your average message board. There is no shortage of interesting characters from which to draw inspiration in cyberspace.

These are just a few suggestions to get you started. Like any type of writing, it takes time to hone your craft. If you apply yourself, don't give up, and learn the ropes of the industry, you can someday experience the joy of that first check for your social expression writing efforts.

Join Xomba!