Writing Inspirational Greeting Cards
Writing an inspirational greeting card is one of a number of money-making opportunities for freelance writers.
A good inspirational greeting card finds a new way to phrase a common sentiment, because greeting card companies want to market to the widest possible customer base.
When writing an inspirational greeting card, ask yourself if this is a phrase which would touch your heart or inspire you, if you were to receive it yourself. Keeping that general idea in mind, here are specific advice for how to write an inspirational greeting card.
1. Research the Kind of Greeting Cards Companies Market
Most inspirational greeting cards fall into one of a number of categories: common categories are encouragement, sympathy & condolences, recovery, thank you’s, support, spiritual, quotes, health & wellness and coping with stress. Select which inspirational niche you’re going to target and focus on ideas for that specific subject.
Once you finish writing one type of inspirational greeting card, you might work on another sort of inspiration. In fact, you might select a different category for each day of the week.
2. Use Quotes, Proverbs and Biblical Passages as Inspiration
While you don’t usually want to lift quotes directly, reading through inspirational quotations from past writers is a perfectly legitimate inspiration for writing your own greetings.
Literary scholars have found the original inspiration for hundreds of Shakespeare’s quotes in the particular version of the Bible he read.
For instance, the title of Shakespeare’s play “Measure For Measure”, which deals with themes of mercy and justice, was inspired by Luke 6:38: “For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.”
As you can see, you can take an oft-quoted passage from literature or holy text and turn it to your own usage, making it something recognizable, but an idea that’s your own.
3. Write Different Versions of Your Quote
Tailor different versions of the same greeting for different occasions, such as each major holiday for which greeting cards are sold. This not only gives the greeting card the opportunity to use the same greeting several times a year, but also gives you multiple chances to have someone at the company select your quotes for just the right occasion.
4. Give a Second Look to Common Phrases
Go through common phrases in a phrase book. Look at phrases on signs around town, on businesses and churches. See what the bumper stickers say on your drives. Listen for well-coined phrases when you watch tv, listen to music or see a movie. Jot down these ideas and rephrase these words for your use in a greeting card.
5. Use Spiritual Quotations for Secular Sentiments
Greeting card companies will use religious quotations to market greeting cards, but they prefer to sell to both a secular and religious market, as well as different types of spiritual doctrines. So when you frame a sentiment taken from a religious source, paraphrase into something that will appeal to a wider audience.
This allows you to spread the wisdom of your faith to the widest possible audience, but appealing to the marketing sensibilities of the greeting card company you want to sell your card to.
6. Write Greeting Cards in Multiple Languages If You’re Bilingual
Look at the greeting card section the next time you’re in a store. Notice that the Spanish-language greeting card section is growing. There is a burgeoning market for Spanish language greeting cards, so if you can speak and write in Spanish fluently, there’s a bigger second market for your inspirational greeting card skills.