The constant interest in growing the market for my images lead me to try Greeting Card Universe about six months ago.

For those who are not familiar with GCU, its a greeting card store that promises cards for ANY occasion.  If your wounded veteran brother is having a sex change and getting married on Halloween - they have a card for that.

I started out enthusiastic.  The promise of 50 cents a card and ease of converting my images into greeting cards made me optimistic in experimenting with this new market.  Why not right?  It doesn't compete with microstock really, more like competing with POD sites.  Any they let you put a little branding on the back of the cards.

Then came the reality.  Review times that lasted months and then pain in the butt revisions from the reviewers.  Then a recent commission cut that only rewarded the very top volume contributors (who must have spent years getting there).

The latest insult was a Groupon offer they sent out.  In a 500 card order from a customer in Turkey, I had one card in the batch and it sold for $1.49.  My commission?  An amazing 7 cents!

GCU is crashing and burning.  When the geniuses in marketing come up with the brilliant plan to just give the product away, you know the end is near.

I used to work with magazine salespeople and the worst ones always gave away the pages at deep discounts because they sucked at sales.  Anyone can give things away.  There is no strategy in giving things away for free except for desperation.

For those who are not familiar with GCU, its a greeting card store that promises cards for ANY occasion.  If your wounded veteran brother is having a sex change and getting married on Halloween - they have a card for that.

That's too bad.  I would of liked to support such a site.  I happen to need a card for my wounded veteran brother (now sister) who had a sex change and is getting married this Halloween.