I’m the asshole without contact info on my business cards

I recently ordered a fresh batch of business cards, and when I handed one to a friend/colleague, he quipped, “Oh, you’re one of THOSE assholes — you don’t have any contact information on your card!”

He’s right, of course. My card has my name, title, and publication names … and that’s it. No email. No phone. Not even the URLs of the websites I run. Here’s why:

Some hats are fun, some hats are not

As a small business owner, I’m used to wearing a lot of hats — publisher, editor, client management, community management, web developer, tech support, etc. These last couple weeks, however? I’ve stepping way WAY outside of my comfort zone and tried on these hats: event coordinator, event hostess, master of ceremonies, photoshoot art director, Russian model handler, photo shoot producer, shoot location manager, NYC meet-up host, and just for good measure, Neo-Victorian model. Whew, that’s a lot of hats.

Vendor tips: how to get blacklisted from Offbeat Bride’s comments

I interact with dozens and dozens of amazing wedding vendors every day, and for the most part, it’s an amazing industry filled with inspired, independent, creative, and whip-smart people. Unfortunately, however, there are always a few small business owners who are still playing catch-up when it comes to blog commenting etiquette.

Disclaimer for sponsored posts and other monetized content

My strategy for much of the advertising on the Empire has always been that it doesn’t FEEL like advertising. I do this not because I’m trying to trick anyone, but because I find disruptive advertising annoying and bothersome… so therefore, rather than have sponsored posts written by some random advertising client, all our sponsored posts are written by us, in the same voice that the rest of the posts are written in.

I’ve invested significant design and developer time/money into trying to be as transparent as possible about my monetized content, but there’s still confusion sometimes.