Bloggers to review greeting cards

Dateline: Tuesday, October 1st, 2013

Website: Pelican Cards

URL: http://www.pelicancards.com

Proposal Q and A

Q: What type of product are you asking bloggers to review?

A: Greeting cards

Q: What qualifies a blogger to review your products?

A: Someone who writes on subjects that fit well with the greeting cards - so subjects like gifts, crafts, photography art, inspiration quotations, culture, literature, travel, animals, humour, the environment, flowers... it's probably easier to take a look at the site and see the cards.

One thing is that for sales to individuals we currently only ship to addresses in the UK.

We are looking at ways to sell abroad but at the present time for retail sales, it is UK customers only.

So if you are a blogger with an audience that is mostly outside the UK, then your readership may be disappointed if they can't actually get the product.

But if you think your audience would react well to hearing about these cards, then as a blogger... don't be put off if you are outside the UK.

Actually, for us that's possibly a good way to see whether there could be a strong market for the cards outside the UK.

Q: Why don't you sell outside the UK?

A: The cost to post to addresses abroad. We could get the cards printed in the country where there is a big enough market... and we are thinking strongly about the USA.

We'd have to be sure we can do proper quality control and we'd need to employ someone locally to actually send out the cards.

We have looked into it, but it takes a lot of setting up and it's not something to enter into lightly if you want to do it right.

Q: Anything else about the blogger?

A: It would be good if the blogger has a reasonably engaged readership, but it's not the main thing. The main thing is a review with a bit of spark to it; written by someone who wants to write about the cards because they like them and has something to say about them.

The bottom line is that every review is valuable feedback for us.

Q: What's in it for the blogger?

A: Content. Bloggers always want content. Of course, it has to be the right content. Hopefully, the cards are eclectic and different enough that they would appeal.

By the way, if a blogger but doesn't think a review would be 'their thing'... but thinks that maybe other bloggers they know would want to review the cards, then spread the word.

Q: What about getting a sample of the cards?

A: If someone wants to review the cards (and the website as well) and it looks like they and we are a good fit, we'll send a card or two. Holding a card is part of what it's all about.

We may say how thick the card is how the writing surface takes pen without smudging, but actually holding a card is transformative.

Q: Any final points?

A: Just that when someone writes a review, it is your review addressed to your readership, so it's only right that you have complete control and can say what you like about the cards, and what you don't like (hopefully, not much that you don't like..).

Q: How should bloggers contact you?

A: Go to the website at Pelican Cards and contact us via the Contact page. There's a contact form and an email address and a phone number there.

White rhino munching grass

White rhino munching grass. 

I think it's pretty amazing that anything can get that bulky from eating grass.

It's not white and it's not supposed to be white. 

The word 'white' is a corruption of 'wide' because he has a wide mouth unlike the black rhino.

The black rhino has a pointed upper lip that it uses almost like a little finger that it hooks around branches to manoeuvre them into its mouth.

I photographed the this rhino in the UK on an animal reserve.

World Animal Day Post Edited and Cross-posted From Light Reading

The Weekly Photo Challenge on Wordpress.com is 'from lines to patterns'. So take a look at the pattern on the face of this Roan antelope. Scrunch your eyes up so that the face is a blur. Now you can see the way the shape of the face is broken up and everything follows a vertical theme... like perhaps small saplings and vegetation.

OK... on with the show!

It's World Animal Day On October 4th And You Can Get Involved

Here's how:Hold an event for World Animal Day.

Look at the World Animal Day website for ideas.

Check out some of the events lined up for this year and take a look at those from previous years.

Decide on your event; submit it and do it.

World Animal Day has a Wikipedia World Animal Day page devoted to it.

World Animal Day was started in 1931 at a convention of ecologists in Florence as a way of highlighting the plight of endangered species. October 4 was chosen as World Animal Day as it is the Feast Day of St Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals.

Since then, World Animal Day has become a day for remembering and paying tribute to all animals and the people who love and respect them. It's celebrated in different ways in every country, with no regard to nationality, religion, faith or political ideology.

We've Submitted Our Event

We've submitted our event.

It's to send a World Animal Day card to political influencers in the UK - and invite them to visit World Animal Day site and to pledge themselves to help animals.

Chances are you are probably 'pro' animal. That means different things to different people, but here are a few common touch points.

You are in favour of animals being allowed to continue without going extinct.

That means cutting back on habitat destruction.

It means stopping poaching.

It means a more careful use of pesticides that work their way up the food chain.

It means a more considered approach to pollution and industrial practices that endanger climatic and ecological equilibrium.

The list goes on, and I will have missed a few that you are thinking of right now.

It also means treating domestic animals humanely.

Huge numbers of people worldwide eat animals or fish or some form of living creature - so it's not meaningful to say we should all be vegetarians.

But treating animals humanely during their lives is something everyone can sign up to today.

Got An Idea Of Who We Should Send A Card To?

You can help us by suggesting who we should send a card to. We are thinking of people who have a track record of being 'pro animal' as well as those who don't seem to care a rat's ...

Just off the top of my head I am thinking of the UK's opposition to a ban across the European Union on neonicotinoid pesticides.

And right now in the UK there is the badger cull.

It is being carried out on extraordinarily poor grounds not supported by any scientific study.

It is a stab at eliminating bovine tuberculosis without convincing evidence that badgers are even the cause of it.

And if we look across the world, there are reports and films and articles gathering momentum about the illegal ivory trade, the killing of endangered species, the cry for help to stop the increasingly rapid extinction of species.

It makes me sick. It makes me physically nauseated.

It makes me angry.

So there are a few people I can think of for the event - to send a card to.

Drop me a line on the Contact page or leave a comment here with your suggestions of who we should send a card to.

The Cards We'll Be Sending

We'll be sending two cards. One of them features this image of an antelope... with text over it. The other features a white rhino with some different text.

And there is a plea for action inside the cards. To drive more interest I'll put an image of the cards up in day or two in a separate post together with the message in the cards.

Yes, I took both photos... in England in reserves where the animals will live a safe life. Don't we all wish these could live in the wild and be safe from poachers and safe from the markets that make poaching an international killing game?

It Is Entirely Possible To Embed More Than One Google+ Post Into A Blogger Blog Post

These are a couple of my public posts from Google+ of photos I took on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.