Kansas City, MO (KSDK) - On Tuesday, 144 million love cards are expected to be exchanged all around the world. For the romantic at heart, writing love cards for a living may sound like a dream job.
For all the Valentine's Day cards expected to be exchanged tomorrow, there are very few people writing them. Thirty-five card writers live and work in Kansas City where Hallmark is located. You don't know their names, but chances are you've seen (and read) their work.
In Cat Skorupski's seven-year writing career at Hallmark, she's said 'I love you' in dozens of different ways to thousands of people she doesn't know. She's a love card writer and if that sounds like an easy job to you, it's not. In her competitive field, she writes a lot more cards than are actually printed. Writers submit cards to an editorial director, who either accepts, rejects or tweaks them.
It's not uncommon to spend three days writing one Valentine's Day card. And that doesn't include the illustration, which is another's job. As a card writer, you're always putting yourself in someone else's shoes to say 'I love you.'
To get the job in the first place, she had to apply online and take writing exercises. Skorupski has a background in music and felt her songwriting skills would make her the perfect card writer.
"I was in a band for a while, lead singer in a band, and I wrote a lot of lyrics. And that led me to believe that Hallmark might be a really good fit for me because I like that emotional subject matter," said Cat Skorupski, senior writer at Hallmark.
Hallmark has 1,400 Valentine's Day cards on the market.
KSDK