That about says it. Does Hallmark have a staff, maybe with different subdivisions for Birthdays, Holidays, Weddings, Get-Well, etc.? Are there free-lancers? Any “super stars” in the industry? Is it possible to make your living writing greeting cards? Do they ever recyle the text/material from years ago?
I’d go crazy having to do this for a living, or even a part-time, but presumably there are people who do this type of thing. Who are they?
The two biggest greeting card companies (Hallmark and American Greetings) produce everything in-house. Here’s some info on the writers for Hallmark, and an article about AG’s writers.
I was just thinking about this yesterday. Years ago, someone posted a Dope thread about how the card they wrote had been shown on T.V. (I want to say that it was a Christmas card given by one of the characters on Friends, but I wouldn’t swear to it.) The upshot was that after some coy references, it became apparent that a number of dopers worked for Hallmark, and some of them were card writers. I just spent a fruitless half hour searching for the thread and being mightily distracted by various old threads containing the words “friends”, “card” and “Christmas”, but I wasn’t able to locate it. Anyway, my point is that at least in the past you could find several greeting card writers here on the Dope.
For many years, cyberpunk SF author Pat Cadigan wrote for Hallmark. I once amused her by pointing out I saw her name on a poem the box of a Hallmark jigsaw puzzle.
She said their cubicles were often decorated with extremely whimsical and often outlandish things.
Some of the more ‘creative’ types were asked to work from home.
Mork’s downstairs neighbor, Mr. Bickley.
I just wanted to chime in that I remember that too, but it was several years ago. From what I recall, it was mostly freelance work.
American Greetings is headquartered near Cleveland, and they run employment ads so often I think there must be enormous turnover. I wonder if they are just hypercritical: You have to come up with a certain number of brilliant, profitable ideas every quarter or you’re out, or maybe they just don’t pay anything. It sounds like a fun job, but maybe it sucks.
I don’t know what it pays, but someone is making a lot of money. $4.95/ea. seems to be the going price and many cost even more than that. That seems like a steep price for what you get.
As the OP, first I’m impressed to get a question answered so perfectly and quickly.
Based on some of the responses here about turnover, it would be interesting to go back to the link in a couple months and see if the same staff is there.