Post Card & Greeting Card Business

[Tiger Lee]

Has anybody ventured into selling their images throught post card or greeting card? Did you sell the cards at shows, stores, or through a distributor? Any info concerning print run, price, etc would be welcomed. Thanks.
[img]images/icons/shocked.gif[/img]

[RobertCummings]

You might try 1 800 postcards.
Best deal I've found & they look great.
The hard part seems to be able to find someone to sell them for you.
Good Luck
Thngs are gettin' better. http://www.robertcummings.com

[dvielhaber]

Tiger...

Same idea occurred to me, after the parents asked me to do a Christmas Card for them.

I suspect that for most folks, it is going to be a price sensitive issue. And it would be difficult to compete with the big publishers selling to Wall Mart, et.al.

But there are those out there that would pay to have a customized card. How many cards have you gotten around the holidays, with a 4 x 6 stuck in it???....and that's what it looks like.

But maybe some folks who "have done well"...
in their life would like to spend a little something extra...and have it look nice.

Maybe the office staff, with a Christmas tree in the background, or a local landmark
of significance.

You can do this on a good quality photo printer. I am using an Epson 1280 at 1440 dpi for the cards.

Red River paper sells a nice heavy matte photo paper that is prescored for folding a half sheet 8.5 x 11. The link: http://www.redrivercatalog.com/Pages...cardgroup.html

Office Depot sells a nice cream colored envolope that does well here, takes the 8.5 x11 half folded card..

After playing around with various programs, including page maker, I went back to Photoshop (I find myself using Elements more than the full 6.0) to do the layout.

Create a transparent layer sized 7.5 x 10, insert photo, for front side. If you rotate your photo 180% and print it upside down, I find it works better. Also copyright info, and artist name on back of front.

Do another layout for the text on the inside.

This is important...when you print, select.
"center on page". I can't believe the hours I spent playing with a lot of "elegant" ways to do this, when the obvious turned out the best.

I did this for the folks Christmas Card, not as a venture for money. It is only after, that I thought there might be a market out there not being served for a niche product.

Other thoughts that crossed my mind were

---anyone looking for great art on a card, can to to the National Gallery site, the Smithsonian site, or wherever, and get nice cards with great art. Because they are printing millions of copies, it would be hard to compete with a litho process.

---most folks are going to go to Wall Mart or Hallmark...just the path of least resistance.

But there MIGHT be a market for cards with artwork of local interest. I know that there is a small market for customized cards.

But between doing the photo shoot, and the printing, the cards would be somewhat expensive.

I stopped short of actually inquiring what a 4 color printing job would cost, because to my mind, it just didn't make sense for small runs.

The biggest task here, as always, is selling your work.

In any event, that is as far as my thinking got me.

If there are any other experiences out there, I would love to hear them also...

Happy Photos...
dennis... [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[Norm_Cabana]

Dennis,

Interesting that you should have done all this work. Thanks! I started selling "Greeting" cards to add a few bucks to my income stream at the tracks. I charge $35 for 25 greeting cards with envelopes. I'll have to check out your suggestions regarding products.

However I found that the cost of doing a foldable greeting card was more than I expected. I bought Epson Glossy Photo Greeting Cards (20 cards) with envelopes and "free" software for $15 a pack. I had to buy two packs ($30) then I went through a brand new ink cartridge printing the cards ($23) All told, I spent $53+ to make $35. Can't do that very long! The guy who bought this stuff simply wanted the photo of his car on the outside and nothing else on the card. He uses them as short thank you notes or post cards to his friends. I think I'll try printing them the next time with my Canon 8200. It uses much less ink! I'll have to charge $50 for 20 cards to make it worthwhile or else sell the much smaller cards from ezprints.com.

Norm Cabana

[dvielhaber]

Norm...

I also tried the Epson kit. I was not impressed with results, especially the price points you mentioned. The particular Red River paper I used is a 58lb. matte, coated on both sides. It is $14.20 for a box of 50 sheets. Call it $.32 cents a sheet. I don't have the sales slip, but I recall about $3.95 for a box of 100 nice looking
envelopes at Office Depot. The item I am referring to is made by Columbian, and is labeled "Greeting Card Ivory #CO388"..

I know what you mean about sucking up ink, it does get expensive. You might want to check this one out. http://www.inkjetmall.com/store/index.html

These folks appear to be out on the edge of using printers for making large prints. One of the things that they offer is a CIS (continous ink supply system) for a number of
printers. The deal here, is that a fake cartridge has lines leading to 4 oz. jars of ink. And thereby lowers the cost of the ink dramatically.

I have not personally tried this system, but there is a yahoo group devoted to the concept, and from all reports, it seems to work well. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/piezography-color They are also out in front (or at least claim to be) on the Iris Giclee' process, and ICC profiling. It is a very serious read. My only real experience with them was filling out their survey, and asking some technical questions on profiling of their inks, (pigments) and papers.

I was impressed with their response, but some of their prices seem high. But if they can cut the cost of inks (pigments) by what they claim, I will most likely give it a try, as using Epson cartridges is expensive.

Inkjet mall also has their own brand of "darn good ink"...that is much cheaper than the manufacturers for a variety of printers. Red River also sells manufacturers cartridges at substantially off list. If I was looking to buy a photo printer again, I would pay very close attention to which alternatives were available for inks....

And since nobody asked, consider carefully the Epson printers that go to 2880 dpi...it ain't what it seems. And the cartridges have an embedded chip that makes alternative cartridges almost impossible.

More on that if anyone is interested....

Happy Photos....
dennis... [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[Mohit_Chadha]

Check out Photographer's Edge ( http://www.photographersedge.com ) - excellent stuff!

[Tiger Lee]

Thanks for all the good feedback. I was thinking more in terms of offset printing of cards.

If you sell to a retail store for 50% of list price of $2.50, and you use a distributor who you must give a 25% cut, then to make money you total cost of card and envelope must not be more than 30 cent.

The main issue is that you have to have a line of 16 or more card, before anyone will take on your line of card. This mean an investment of over $3000 to get started.

If anyone has any insight into this topic, I am still looking for more info. Thanks