Click here to see the first part of the story

With the new year and the festive holidays behind her, at last Amy could get started on her new venture.

She set off to the high street in search of other hand made cards that she could learn from or get inspiration.

In truth she had no idea how to get started or what to buy, in fact she knew nothing what so ever about the greeting card industry or how it worked. Still this didn't worry her, she would learn as she went along.

She decided to try a local town well known for its parade of upmarket shops, she made a good choice as nearly every other shop had handmade cards for sale, she was blown away by the amount of different cards of all shapes and sizes and the range of designs took her breath away.

At lunchtime she sat in a funny mood milling over all the samples she had bought, many of them she knew she could copy outright, she thought that would be a good starting point.
With this is mind she headed off for her local craft shop to have a look for what she needed to buy.

Several hours later and a hefty credit card bill Amy went home, over the next few weeks were blissful, she played around with all her craft products making this and designing that, the fact that she was so severely influenced by the samples of other companies didn't enter her mind. She ploughed on using up all her materials quite literally reproducing other peoples work!

When she was finally happy with what she had produced some 50 samples all very different using techniques she had copied, she invited her husband to have a look. He did so very quietly and finally he concluded
"yes they are all very nice."

This rattled her somewhat as he was normally much more enthusiastic when she presented him with her work.
" Is that all you have to say " she asked

" Well yes " he replied "they are very nice, anyway its no good asking me, what do I know about cards
why not take them to some of your customers and ask them what they think.?"

" Well yes that's a good idea " She replied happier.

During the next few days Amy visited some of her customers with samples in tow to see what they thought.
Most were very polite and said how nice they were but not really their style of things and why not try this or that shop elsewhere.

So she did what they suggested and visited five other retail outlets all in the same area where she had done her original research, every single shop refused them on the basis that they had something almost exactly the same or similar and did she not have SOMETHING DIFFERENT!

She spent all day visiting customers and did not get one sale, Amy went home feeling so foolish and stupid and promptly threw all the samples in the dustbin.
When her husband came home, Amy was downing a bottle of wine completely upset with the whole idea of making cards, she told him what had happened and he gave her a cuddle.

Later he gently explained to her that he had thought that she should adapt her own work using her own ideas, and put these onto greeting cards, this he said would be original to her and just be an expansion of her art.

" Well why did you not say so before I went out and made a fool of myself " she demanded to know.

" Well sometimes you have to learn the hard way and I didn't want to hurt your feelings, besides you have spent weeks doing all the samples, I didn't know how to find the words."

Amy forgave him and admitted that he was right, she would have been completely incensed if he had said this to her beforehand. She also admitted to herself that it is not right to rip off other peoples designs, she'd learnt a valuable lesson, this time she would do it properly no matter how long it takes.

If you'd like to start in the greeting card business or find out more about selling your products visit An Artist in Business