How not to get started as a Greeting Card Publisher #1
How my mistakes shaped my business, here's the first one in this series
So you want to start your own greeting card publishing business? Here’s a list of things I wish I’d spent a little more time on when I started and my cautionary tale of what happened to me.
Really research and I mean deep dive, into how it will work for you
Find other publishers you admire and ask them for a chat, most will say yes
Don’t forget you can ask me anything
Ask yourself what will your ideal working day look like
Research your numbers, cost in trade shows, agent commissions and marketplace commissions, PR, Advertising and work out how many cards you need to sell to make a living , let me tell you you’ll need to be thinking in terms of palettes and fork-lift trucks
Have I put you off yet? 🤣
When I started I was going all in, I had attended seminars, I’d read information online and I’d even managed to listen to a couple of interviews (this was 2013 and I’m not sure podcasts were even a thing), but I felt I had enough information and I had a plan…
Luckily for me, early on, I was already realising this wasn’t going in the right direction for me
I was struggling to find time to create new collections
I felt the trade show ‘scene’ was more like a gambling den
I was spending 80% of my time doing sales and marketing
I needed staff, but wasn’t yet in a position to employ anyone
Wait a minute, staff? Who mentioned staff…
Then, I attended a seminar and listened to a talk by Paper Salad, they are a very successful independent greeting card publisher, this is what I wanted to be, or so I thought… they talked about getting their first warehouse (my stomach flipped) then they talked about brokerage and how risky it is when dealing with supermarket chains and even John Lewis, then there was having to manage the staff and how they had hired in an external HR team to deal with all the issues, my face was a picture!
I’d already left a corporate job where I’d managed staff and their issues, it’s not something I’d enjoyed, I don’t think I need to expand…
This one key element of running a card business had completely passed me by, instead of describing my dream job, they were reflecting back to me an image of hell!
So what happened? 10 years later I am still designing greeting cards, in fact I’ve sold several hundreds of thousands of them. Do I have a warehouse? You’ll have to come back for the next instalment to find out…
A great read! Very intriguing and refreshing to read such a candid insight. A case of be careful what you wish for?! I look forward to reading more of your tale.
Oooh- the suspense! This is such a great start to a series. I look forward to hearing more of the story.