To compete with e-mail greetings, funny cards put focus on the topical

"How can a working mom get 8 hours sleep?" is the question on the cover of a greeting card newly on the store racks.

No need to open the card to find out. "Divide it into two nights" is the punch line, delivered right beneath the cover drawing of a half-awake mother besieged by three disheveled toddlers and a dog eager to be walked.

The card is part of an overhaul of its humor line that American Greetings introduced in June to highlight funny, everyday situations. That included enlisting Ellen DeGeneres for its new line of Ellen humor cards. In July, Hallmark Cards also unveiled a batch of reality-based humor cards.

The two companies, which dominate the $7.5 billion industry, are appealing to women who, according to their research, like humorous takes on their everyday travails. They also purchase 80 percent of all paper greeting cards.

"Women told us that everyday life had funnier situations than anything that is made up," said Beth Murdoch, director of funny cards for American Greetings.

The card companies hope to promote the idea that greeting cards can be sent anytime, not just on holidays and special occasions. Given how accustomed people have become to sending funny e-mail messages for no particular reason, they may start to view traditional cards in the same light.

While the paper card market is declining, it is still five times as large as the e-card market, according to the Greeting Card Association, a trade group. Ninety percent of US households still buy paper greeting cards, and the average household buys 30 a year.

Although it is also unclear how quickly the greeting card market is shifting online, newer forms of communication -- not just e-mail, but also social networks and chat boards -- do seem to threaten its relevance.

"Greeting cards are really a 20th century model of communication," said Pamela N. Danziger, president of Unity Marketing. "There is so much more opportunity now to personalize and individualize and get a unique greeting by other means."

While Hallmark has no firm plans to have a presence on social networking sites, American Greetings has introduced kiwee.com, which offers free social expressions, including postcards and emoticons, that can be posted to MySpace and MSN accounts.

In the offline world, American Greetings had a 10.6 percent dip last year over 2005 for sales of what it calls its everyday cards, which are mostly birthday cards and which make up 38 percent of total card sales. To shore up the category, American Greetings started making some strategic changes last year, like reducing the time it takes to get new cards to stores and revamping its displays.

The company, which is the second-largest card seller and had $1.7 billion in sales in 2006, also undertook its first research in a decade to find out what women find funny.

One outcome was that two-thirds of the American Greetings cards introduced last month were about amusing real-life experiences, up from less than 30 percent, Murdoch said.

American Greetings found that men still gravitated to the jabs or gag-type humor in cards.