The Business Card Book: What Your Business Card Reveals About You … and How to Fix It

Reviewer's Bookwatch, August, 2004 by Betty Winslow

The Business Card Book: What Your Business Card Reveals About You ... and How to Fix It

Dr. Lynella Grant

Off the Page Press

P.O. Box 1269, Scottsdale, AZ, 85252

www.quick-and-painless.com

ISBN# 1888739509 $17.95 500 pp.

A typical business card is 2" X 3 1/2". Small, right? So, who would've thought that anyone could think of enough to say about them to fill a 500 page book? Dr. Lynella Grant did, and even she says, right in the book's beginning, "Clearly, this book contains more than you ever thought you wanted to know about business cards," while the back of the book proclaims, "The only book on business cards you'll ever need!" Well, yeah. And when I first laid eyes on it, I groaned. 500 pages about a subject that only slightly interested me? What had I done to deserve this? It surprised me, though--it was actually pretty interesting! Business cards. There's a lot to say about them. Who knew?

This book covers everything you'd expect it to, from the visible and invisible messages a business card gives off (its "body language"), to graphics and font types that make a card stand out, to how to make your card into a successful silent ambassador for your business (because, as Grant says several times, "Your business card is the handshake you leave behind!")

However, that doesn't fill 500 pages. There's more. Lots more, including stuff you probably didn't realize you needed to know: How to work successfully with designers and printers. How to use your card in networking, sales, and trade shows, and organize and follow up on the cards you receive. How to use your cards internationally, while avoiding blunders and pitfalls caused by cultural differences.

Grant even goes into the history of business cards and introduces the reader to both the Business Card Museum (yes, really), in Erdenheim, Pennsylvania, and the Business Card Archives, home of a collection of 50,000,000 business cards, located in Fairfield, Iowa. (Yes, you read that correctly--a 5, followed by 7 zeros. Seven!!)

An interesting side note: Many of the cards in the aforementioned archives came from the overwhelming response to a famous urban legend, the Craig Shergold story (you know, the little English boy who has cancer and is collecting greeting cards? Or postcards? Or business cards?) Some of the business cards that were sent to Craig by well-meaning victims of this story via the Children's Wish and Make-a-Wish Foundations (both involved against their will in the ever-spreading legend) eventually got sent to Iowa, to the archives. They got two shipments--once--and there are so many boxes of cards there now that they can't find time to catalogue them all! It's over now. Really. But still, cards continue to pour into the post office near where Craig is from and into both foundations, even today.

So, listen up, people--for the sake of both foundations, the U.S. and English postal services, and world resources in general, please help put a stop to this story. Craig Shergold is grown up now. He's fine, honest. And he doesn't want anyone to send him anything else. If you absolutely must send something anyway to either foundation because of him, send money. Money, they can use. Cards, gifts, and so on, not so much. Stop!!

Now, back to business--err, business cards. As we (finally) reach the end of this book, we find that even the back-of-the-book stuff is interesting. Want to know where you can have an offbeat card made up? Holographic? Outsized? Made out of metal? Talking? Printed in Braille? There are companies listed that can help you out. Want to have Dr. Grant look your card over and diagnose the problem areas? There's an address for that, too.

There's also a Quick Reference Guide, to help you find exactly what you're looking for, an appendix that explains the difference between an employee and an independent contractor, and one that shows you a sample standard form of agreement for graphic design services. There are end notes. A glossary. An index. Trust me, people, if you've gotten this far and you still have a question about business cards that this book doesn't answer, you don't need to know. Either that, or the answer doesn't exist.