I am now in possession of business cards that identify me as a writer and editor. Yikes, that sounds a little strange. More about the process of actually getting the cards in a second. I realized when they were delivered Sunday (Sunday delivery, very nice!) that this was kind of a big deal. I had business cards back when I worked the The Big C Corp. However, those were a bit of a let down. When I first started there, our department did not have an admin, so it was like six months before I realized I was supposed to get them automatically. When I received them it wasn’t that big of a deal because I was no longer a fresh-faced, new-hire. Just to spite the company, I ordered a new box every year even though I did nothing with them. Tree killer! When I switched jobs into a client-facing role, I got some of the super-sexy cards the company was throwing around at the time. I always felt a little embarrassed handing them out, as I thought they were a bit busy, but they fit the image of the company: flashy, cutting-edge, and over-priced. But these new cards, they’re all mine, and rather than just being a traditional item to hand to a client these are going to be tools to help me generate work. In theory.
As for the process, it was interesting. I’d been looking at some on-line sites for several weeks. There is a company called Vista Print that has all kinds of crazy deals for either free or cheap cards. I spent hours looking through it and other similar sites, but everything seemed too generic or cheap. Finally, I randomly found a very sweet site with all kinds of amazing cards. We probably spent two hours on this site on night last week. I picked out a couple I liked, saved them, and then tried to figure out how to contact these people. There is no phone number or address listed on the site. An e-mail I fired off for info wasn’t answered for 48 hours. That seemed a little sketchy, and I grew reluctant to send them my credit card info. Oh, and they were pricey as hell, too, unless you bought insane quantities like 1000. So, with some help from a friend (who is free to identify herself), I got connected with a friend of hers who does printing out of her home. We worked on about eight designs until we got one I liked. I ordered them Friday, she printed them right away, and dropped them off at the house Sunday morning while she was running errands. Pretty cool.
So, other than just a long-winded explanation of how I now have business cards, this is also a friendly reminder to all of you that I’m now in business. If you know people who need stuff written for their businesses, I could be their guy. Or people with websites who need content. Or any other writing/editing gigs out there, don’t be afraid to let me know about them. I haven’t got the whole rate thing figured out yet, so I’ll use the standard disclaimer that my prices are “competitive.”