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Everything You Need to Know to Start a Santa Letter Writing Business:       Write Santa and Other Holiday Letters Year-round

by

Donna L. Turello

(Revised edition, 2008)

(This is the revised--updated and expanded--edition of the 2004 book of the same title.)

Chapter 1

Intro

     What is your fondest memory of Christmas?

     Was it the time Santa ate the cookies you left for him?        

     Was it the stockings hanging on the mantel filled to the brim with candy?

     Or was it the letter, written by the Jolly One himself, that proved Santa knew everything you did during the year--the good, the bad, and the ugly--and that he was leaving you presents anyway?

     Everyone loves Santa, especially personalized Letters from Santa. Just ask one of the 85,500 listings (as of January 29, 2008) on Google.com listed under “Letters from Santa.”  That’s a lot of letters! How does Santa write all those letters in addition to delivering toys all over the world? Santa has many elves, writing personalized letters, to help him.

     Prices range from $10 a letter down to free, and you get what you pay for. The free ones are email letters with only the child’s name. The paid ones offer varying degrees of personalization; some offer little surprises like stickers or ornaments. Some offer just a folded letter personalized only with the child’s name. But the magical ones are hand-tailored, and thus kissed with the spirit of Santa.

   And Santa could always use more helpers.

      How about you? Wanna be an elf and work for the Jolly One?

     Everyone loves Santa, because Santa is big business. However, he’s also perfect for home-based businesses.

     Ten years ago, after years of dreaming about owning my own small business, I started with gift baskets. Everyone buys gift baskets, right? Well, they didn’t buy mine.

     I started reading every free email newsletter pertaining to small business that I could squeeze into my free email box. Buried in one of them was a jewel of an article by a woman who was writing fully personalized Letters from Santa.

     Since I’m a starving writer at heart, she piqued my interest.

     She mentioned an organization called the “Professional Association of Santa’s Elves, Inc.”  I was skeptical, but the membership was only $10, so I joined. (It’s currently $20). I figured I had nothing to lose; I’d already lost what little money I had on the basket business. The article suggested that the letters worked well as a marketing tool to promote a person’s “main” business.  

     I offered Letters from Santa to promote my gift baskets. The baskets still didn’t sell, but the letters did. I realized I enjoyed writing the letters more than I liked making the gift baskets. A new little business was born.

     Now, I earned my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in English Literature, not business, and I didn’t have a clue how to start, or market, a business. I was desperate. I had nothing to lose, and everything to gain. Plus, the prospect of writing for a living perked me up. Writing had always been my real dream.

     You don’t have to be an English major to start a home-based Santa letter writing business. I am grateful to all the elves at the Professional Association of Santa’s Elves, Incorporated for getting me started, but boy I sure could have used a big sister to show me precisely how to do it, step by step. Not just how to write the letters, but how to start, and grow, the business. There’s a lot more to it than writing letters from Santa. You need to know where to find supplies, you need generator ideas, marketing advice, organizing how-to’s, customer service tips, you name it. All the components of a real business. Things that no one seems to be either able, or willing, to teach you. Until now. So let’s begin the magical journey of hatching a home-based Santa letter writing business.

     By the way, it’s not just letters from Santa. Think back to all those mystical creatures of your childhood:  Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy--not to mention Mrs. Claus, Rudolph, Frosty, Cupid, the little St. Patrick’s Day leprechaun . . . You get the idea. The possibilities are limitless. You can even make up your own characters.

     They are all similar in production, marketing, and organizing--and “surprises.” It seems sometimes I spend more time on the surprises than I do writing the letters! For me they are an integral part of the letters, but you might decide to dispense with them. Many do. They jack up the cost of production, but they enhance the product. The choice is yours.

     So, let’s start with the letters, shall we? Begin at the beginning, right? Because it all starts with the letter.

     And a little bit of magic fairy dust thrown in . . .