Snarkface: a collaboration between Amelia Snarkface and yours truly

So in my last post, I was going on about how great Greeting Card Universe is. I'm still going to post a ton of cards on GCU (I've already had a bunch of sales -- thanks to the people out there who bought my cards!), but these will mostly be blank inside. The reason: getting some types of cards past their approval process is MUCH more of a pain than I expected.

I couldn't get my Witchy Spore Addict approved because they didn't want me to mention a company name, so I had to change "Spore" to "computer games." Then I tried to turn the following image into a Valentine's card and then rejected it, saying it didn't have anything to do with Valentine's:



Fair enough, I thought, maybe it's a tad cynical. So I submitted it as an Anti-Valentine instead (yes, there was such a category). It was rejected again! In order to be approved, they said, I had to actually WRITE something on the inside that made it clear that it was an Anti-Valentine.

Grmble. Anyway, I've decided just to submit most of my GCU cards as generic blank cards from now on so they get approved right away.



That put me in a snarkish mood, however, which got me thinking about how much fun I'd have doing snarky cards. Clearly I wouldn't be able to post them at GCU, however, so I'm posting them in my new Snarkface card shop at Zazzle instead. To help further differentiate my Snarky cards from my regular cards, I'm even using a pen name for my Zazzle profile: Amelia Snarkface. You can read my bio if you click on "About" on my Snarkface page.

Anyone looking closely at the copyright notice on the back of the card will see it's really me, but I'm betting that most people probably won't bother.

Anyway, I uploaded a bunch of snarky Christmas cards last night. It was very therapeutic. :-)

So if you're tired of my cute and happy greeting cards, feel free to check out Amelia Snarkface's contributions at Snarkface. At $2.95, their full-size single cards are slightly more expensive than GCU but still cheaper than Cafepress.



I'm having fun doing these cards. One example is the card above, inspired by those Christmas cards you get which have more than one signature but you -know- was signed by just one person. And yeah, sometimes I do the same thing with Jeff but I'm going to try VERY hard not to do so from now on.

The fact is that whenever I get a card supposedly signed by two people but actually just in one person's handwriting, I always wonder if the other person even knew that his signature is on the card...but I -do- know that he (or she, to be fair) couldn't be bothered to take the time to sign his own name.

Ahem, but I digress. As you can tell, I have plenty of snark lurking inside my otherwise sweet and cheery exterior, waiting for expression. :-)

And to you Canucks out there, have a great Thanksgiving!

Card launch plus online card service comparison

As anyone who frequents my sites already knows, I do a lot of cartoons and illustrations just for fun, as opposed to client work. With the current (and somewhat depressing) economic downturn, I'm starting to work harder at exploring different ways of making more money. One of my fantasy novels has been at the same publisher for over 8 months --the editor has already been nudged at least once-- so I've decided to send it elsewhere...sigh. I'm excited about my other writing projects, but meanwhile I need to ramp up short-term income.

And that brings me back to my doodles.

I haven't been as diligent as I would have liked to be in getting some of my cartoons and illustrations onto greeting cards. Main reason: laziness. Choosing, formatting, uploading, promoting and administering my greeting cards and shops takes time, and I've had other projects on the go meanwhile. I've resolved to devote some regular time each week from now on to gradually building up my online card shops. The more cards I have for sale online, the more I should make over time...I hope. :-)



A while back, I test out several online greeting card services: Zazzle, Greeting Card Universe and Cafepress. I submitted some greeting card art to each and ordered cards to check out the quality. All of them were fine. I realize that I could pay a lot more to get custom-made cards and even better quality, but then I'd have to charge considerably more as well.

Anyway, I've settled on Cafepress and Greeting Card Universe. Cafepress is a familiar name to most people, and I've already made sales from casual marketplace browsers. GCU isn't as well known, but the full-size cards are slightly cheaper ($2.79 as opposed to $3.49 at Cafepress) when purchased as single items. If you're buying in bulk or are after notecard size, however, you're probably better off with Cafepress ($1.59/card if you buy ten, $1.29/card for 20, $1.05/card for 20 notecards). GCU's discount doesn't start until you buy 25 or more. None of the quoted prices include shipping.

I still hadn't really focused on GCU up to now, however, because I wasn't crazy about the user interface. HOWEVER, I'm going to force myself to overcome my esthetic snobbishness and start using this service more regularly. For one thing, cards have to go through an approval process. This helps somewhat filtering out the dreck. I still make about the same amount of profit per card (around 50 cents/card for single card orders).

Anyway, the Monstrous Nerd image above is one of my newest addition to both stores. At GCU, the inside text reads "Happy birthday to my favorite nerd" but you can change it to anything you'd like when you're ordering. The witch card is available at Cafepress, and should be available at GCU as soon as it's been approved.

I'll be gradually adding more to my greeting card shops. If you'd like to be kept informed when I add new card designs, please let me know. I promise you won't get more than one e-mail a week, you can unsubscribe anytime, and I won't use the list for any other purpose.

Meanwhile, feel free to browse my two card shops at Cafepress and Greeting Card Universe. I welcome suggestions on how to better organize my Cafepress shop to make it easier to find cards or to make it more attractive to card buyers -- unfortunately I can't change much about the GCU shop.

And feel free to suggest cards you'd like to see! If I think there would be enough demand for that type of card, I'll add it to my shops.

Singing For The Cure

Photo by Phil Mills.

Urban Tapestry's performance at the 2008 CIBC Run For The Cure went well; we had great fun and my voice held out (though I had to crash and slept for several hours after getting home). Below: links to reports and photos, plus download our new "Running For The Cure" song!



Photo by Phil Mills.

Allison has a great report and photos up on her blog; rather than duplicate, I'm just pointing everyone to her LJ for an overview of the event. :-)

Many thanks to Phil Mills and Cathy Rutland for coming out to support us. My friend Cathy (the same Cathy I used to visit in Calgary but who now lives in Toronto, yay) drove all the way out from Brampton! She said she had never heard us perform live before. It meant a great deal to me that she was there.



You can see Phil's photos from the event in his Flickr set. I especially like this one of Allison during our concert set:


Photo by Phil Mills.

Here's a photo of Phil and Allison. My friend Cathy is also lurking in background; I didn't notice this until I downloaded the few photos I took on my point-and-shoot -- You can see her behind the older woman at Allison's shoulder; Cathy's has a sweater draped over her arm. We chatted after the performance, and I enjoyed introducing her to Allison, Jodi and Phil.



Phil also recorded our new song, "Running For The Cure," which was written specifically for this event. You can download and listen to Running For The Cure at the FilkArchive.



Above: I wrote "For Beckett Gladney" on the Wall of Hope; our friend Beckett's a breast cancer survivor and I was thinking of her a great deal today.



I also wrote one for my Aunt Agnes, who died from breast cancer.



I think we all took turns getting teary-eyed as we wandered the grounds after our performance. I'm always moved by the "I'm running for" signs on the backs of participants. One that especially got me: a photo and a tribute to a young woman who apparently died from breast cancer a week ago. :-(

If you missed this year's event, you can still contribute. And/or consider participating next year! You can find out more about the CIBC Run For The Cure at their website.

Thanks so much to Becky Wedgewood and Kathy Tran for inviting us to be part of this event!

Sunday morning

Getting ready to leave for Nathan Phillips Square and the CIBC Run For The Cure. I'm taking some cough suppressant and crossing my fingers I won't cough during our performance.

It turns out that Allison's husband isn't going to be able to make it, so we've lost our videographer/photographer. If anyone out there is going to be taking pics, we would VERY much appreciate getting a copy afterward.

Hope to see some of you there! For some inspirational stories about the run and breast cancer survivors, do visit the Finding Hope Blog.