Print Shop is a Writer's Best Friend

The scanner and photocopying portion of my all-in-one printer suddenly stopped working, which annoyed me because I was about to do a booksigning and had just run out of business cards (which for me are color copies of my latest novel with my website printed on the back.) I run the page through my printer to get my website on the back of the cards, but the cover has to be photocopied in business-card size. Which meant I had no cards.

Then I remembered Print Shop, which I use mostly for postcards to send to people on my mailing list without e-mail addresses. It took about five minutes to design a card with the cover art of both my new releases and other vital info. The day was saved!

I took a closer look at this software and thought of it the week before Mother's Day, when I was shopping for greeting cards and was put off by prices as high as $6 for one card (I bought two, for my mother and my husband's mother . . . everyone else received our best wishes). I bought a package of 25 print-ready blank greeting cards for 11 bucks, just in time to send greetings to four nieces, all with birthdays between May 13th and 19th), my godmother's 90th birthday, and a friend's daughter who's graduating high school (the software includes dozens of designs for all occasions).

I realize I might sound like one, but no, this is not a paid advertisement. I'm just so tickled that I can do all this promo and personal stuff myself and save a ton of money, which is always a good thing. This software, which has been around for years, is the best thing to come along since the Post-It note.

Now, if I can only keep from running out of ink . . . .