According to the U.S. Greeting Card Association, we love sending special messages to our nearest and dearest. About 1.6 billion Christmas cards will be purchased this year to send our best wishes to friends, loved ones, neighbors, and coworkers. These very healthy numbers mean there are many opportunities for freelance writers who can master a turn of a phrase to capture a person’s interest and make a greeting card feel as though it were written to express the thoughts or emotions of the person who wishes to send it.
This kind of writing is very precise. You have a very limited space in which to work, and you will need to choose every word with care. Either your card is going to grab a person’s attention and fit exactly what he or she wants to say on a particular occasion, or it will be left on the shelf, so to speak.
Study the Market Before You Submit
This market is like any other, so you will need to do your homework before you submit any verses to a greeting card company. Go online and do some research. Find out what types of cards different companies offer and click on the most popular ones.
Get a feel for each company’s particular style before you start trying to compose anything. Look at the length of the verses, the type of wording used, and the subjects that the cards deal with. If you excel at writing humorous greeting cards, your contribution may not be the best fit for a very traditional publisher.
Follow Submission Guidelines Carefully
When you are ready to submit your work to a particular greeting card market for freelancers, make sure that you follow the instructions to the letter. Some of them still want to receive submissions by regular mail, while others are open to hearing from writers by e-mail. If you are asked to send in your idea for a card on a cardboard card in a particular size, then that is the size that the publisher wants to see. Don’t send in your submission on plain paper.
Do tell the editor exactly to whom your card is directed. If you are writing a greeting card for a father, mother, sister, brother, grandmother, grandfather, friend, husband, wife, or sweetheart, you will want to set this up by sharing some directions with the reader before starting the verse.
If your concept involves a specific image, share this as well. You will need to set the visual scene so that your idea will be implanted in the editor’s mind before he or she starts to read your idea. Simply sharing a verse without this extra information may not be enough to clearly convince the person reviewing your work that it will be enough to get your point across.
Submit Several Poems for Submission at Once
To make it worth your while to submit your work to a greeting card company, do submit several poems at once. Since this type of submission is relatively short, it makes sense to wait until you have a number of poems to share. Some freelance writers send in a batch of 10 or 20 at a time to an editor to review and have the chance of getting a larger pay if they have multiple submissions accepted at once.
11 Greeting Card Markets for Freelance Writers
If you feel that you have the chops to break into this highly-structured type of writing, here is a list of greeting card markets that accept outside submissions.1.
1. Amber Lotus Publishing E-mail pdf with sample of your work.
2. Artists to Watch Submissions are reviewed quarterly, so you will need to be patient if waiting for a response.
3. Avanti Press Fill out form to be considered for future writing opportunities.
4. Designer Greetings Accepts submissions from writers by mail; no electronic submissions for greeting cards accepted.
5. NobleWorks Submit online form to request copy submission guidelines.
6. Moonpig Review online guidelines before submitting by regular mail or electronically.
7. Comstock Adult humor greeting card company. Download submission guidelines from website.
8. Freedom Greeting Card Company African-American greeting card company. Send e-mail query for creative submissions.
9. Warner Press Christian greeting card company. Read submission guidelines online.
10. Calypso Cards See submission guidelines on website.
11. DaySpring Cards Christian greeting cards. See submission procedures online.
Consider Submitting Art to Greeting Card Companies Too
If you are a talented artist or photographer as well as a writer, greeting card companies are also looking for people who can provide images for their cards. Check the submission guidelines to see whether the greeting card company you are interested in will accept both types when you are looking for this type of freelance writing gig.
photo credit: Cranky Pressman via photopin cc
photo credit: TexasEagle via photopin cc
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