The best advice I can give you is to sign up for the Tradeshow bootcamp sessions” they are run by a NSS alum and all the speakers are NSS alum or buyers or media. You will lern so much it is worth the investment

I have printed on all three weights from them I personally prefer the heavy, I like the thickness and how it takes the impression. I also think they tend to hold up longer.. If I’m doing a freebie or give-away I may use the light or medium. but for the ones that I sell in shops and online I go with the heavy

Allison I have only walked the show so I don’t have hands on advice, howeve you may want to check out the tradeshow bootcamp web series I’m listing in this year and they’ will have all kids of awesome advice for you

When I first started trying to sell my items wholesale, I put together a catalog and saved it as a PDF and uploaded it to my ipad so that I had the entire collection there. Since I don’t just sell cards, but coasters, notebooks, bookmarks and such.  Then I went to the container store and found a nice box that was about 9x6x2 and I would bring along 1 or 2 of each type of product that way they could see the quality and if they were interested or had time we could sit down and look through everything or I could email it to them.

If currently you have about 18 cards another option would be to get a large portfolio maybe 11×17 and attache all your cards onto that so that you can easily open it up and they can take a look at the body of your work in a few glances. 

Store owners are always in a hurry, but if your designs catch there eye they will spend plenty of time with you.

Hey Emily,

 

don’t know if your still looking for a roommate or not, but I would be interested in taking you up on this offer. I will be driving up from Atlanta. Let me know if you would like to talk more off line

 

Rajshel

http://www.Janehancockpapers.com

rajshel@jhpapers.com

I think the first thing you need to ask yourself is how do you plan on selling your items. will you have an online shop, sell at festivals are you trying to do wholesale.You also may want to consider the cost of letterpress dies, paper, envelopes and packaging supplies this may also help dictate how much you are going to print at once.If your only going to sell online, it can sometimes take awhile to start getting traffic to your site so you may not need to print as many up front. Also if you are just starting out you may want to start off with a couple of designs and test them out before investing to much in a style or color that may not be as popular as you thought.When I first started off I created a bunch of stuff and I just new folks were going to love it all. Since I have always sold primarily at festivals I was able to get feedback that you don’t always get online. While a lot of it was popular I picked up valuable info from the customers and was able to figure out cards and saying that people were looking for.I’m sure this does not really answer your question, but I hope it helps you figure out what you think will work for you

When I first heard about this I was just shook my head. I think this is more of a child toy than a real printing tool. I’m sure in the coming months you will see a ton of people selling there “letterpress goods”. Boxcar press even makes custom polymer plates for it. My feeling are that this is not a true letterpress machine no matter what anyone thinks.

what type of mylar do you use? I’m open to something different just want it to fit nicely on the press

Depending on what you plan on selling them for, I just ordered some round tin containers for my coasters. They are not to deep, but I think I can put 4-6 in there. They also had square ones as well depending on your coasters. http://www.specialtybottle.com/index.asp?PageAction=Custom&ID=25

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