A Utah couple has created a successful business using the mail to regale subscribers with a romance set during World War II.
Hannie and Michael Clark launched the Flower Letters in August 2020, telling the fictional story of Audrey Rose Drollinger and Cpl. Charlie Henderson Burke.
At first, there were 38 subscribers who followed the romance of the couple through letters and postcards against the backdrop of historical events. Today, the Flower Letters has 31,000 subscribers.
Since 2020, more than 1.8 million letters have been mailed.
The Clarks ran the business by themselves from their home in Pleasant Grove, a city near Provo, but now ship from a warehouse in Orem, UT, and have 24 employees who handle fulfillment, operations and marketing.
The Flower Letters has also expanded to four other series featuring characters from other eras and genres.
Hannie Clark writes, designs and illustrates the content, while Michael Clark runs the business and serves as a sounding board for new content.
“I love to research, and I love history, so a lot of the inspiration comes from really diving into the time period and seeing what historical events I want to center a story around — so it’s kind of limitless inspiration when you’re doing historical fiction,” Hannie Clark said.
Subscribers receive two letters a month, along with occasional surprises and interactive components in each mailing, such as journal entries, maps or advertisements from the era.
“We have several thousand people subscribed to more than one series at once. They’ll read a couple of stories at a time,” Michael Clark said.
The Flower Letters has a community of “super fans” on social media who are “scrapbooking the series and sharing how creatively they captured the letters,” Hannie Clark said.
The letters are part of a wave of similar subscription services, including companies that mail customers reproductions of historic letters from the likes of Benjamin Franklin and Mark Twain, as well as services that are geared toward children.
The Clarks credit USPS for helping their business to expand.
“The Postal Service has walked us through a lot of new growth changes through the years as well. We call it the miracle of mail,” Hannie Clark said.
