Best Business Cards?

[indiriverflow]

Part of our plan involves physical promotion of the website, and for this purpose we'd like to have a few hundred high-quality color business cards printed up. We'll be wanting double-sided, with each side representing the respective face of the book. Of course, we don't want any printer ad at all.

Any of you have a printer to recommend, with some idea of what it cost? Price, quality, shipping speed are all considerations. Who do you use?

EDIT: In the US, and looking for the best online source domestically.

[Becky Black]

It would help if you specify where you are. No use someone telling you all about this really great printer in Canada if you're in Australia. ;)

City/Town too not just country might be good. Someone might just happen to know a really great little place right around the corner from you.

[brimfire]

A website I follow, MomComm.com (http://absolutewrite.com/forums/www.momcomm.com), is talking about business cards (http://www.momcomm.com/tag/bloggy-b-card-week/)this week. The site is geared to bloggers in general, not to authors, but I think there's a lot of good info here to think about when designing your cards. I'm not entirely sure, but I think they might post links on Friday to on-line printers they recommend.

Hope this helps!

Sandy

[girlyswot]

Moo.com

Great quality. You can have as many different images as you like (I have my general info on one side and then my different book covers on the other side). Full colour and reasonable prices.

[SamBeasley]

Another site to consider if you haven't gotten the cards already is www.overnightprints.com. They're having a sale right now, and I got 400 double-sided business cards, good quality, for $69.75 (including $11.95 shipping). Not too bad, I'd say.

[Ultimate Cheapskate]

Okay, admittedly my situation is unique (but isn't everyone's?), since I write books as "The Ultimate Cheapskate" about ways to live a happier life on less. So, my "business cards" are actually a self-inking stamp containing my contact info that I carry with me to meetings, etc. Whenever I have a business meeting and it comes time to exchange cards, I'll ask for two of your cards, then stamp my info on the back and hand it back to you. As a backup (in case there's info already printed on both sides or the other party doesn't have a card to exchange), I used the stamp to print my info on the back on cards I cut myself out of brown paper bags from the grocery store.

Yeah, sure, it's a promotional gimmick (and a "cheap" one at that). But it definitely leaves a lasting impression, and what more can you ask of a business card? I realize that an off-beat approach like this may not be possible or appropriate for every writer, but I think doing something totally different is worth thinking about whenever you consider collateral materials to promote yourself and your work. (BTW, the jackets for my "press kits" are made from cut up 5 liter wine boxes, duct taped together.)

[AlishaS]

I seem to remember reading somewhere that another author took the "off beat approach" and that they gave out coasters since their book title (series) were named after drinks.
Damn I can't remember where I read that, or who the author is. But that is a good way to get people to remember you, IMO

I'd much rather go with the fun approach myself.