Planning for Book Conventions

I’ve been talking recently about what worked and what didn’t when I released book 2 of the Relic Worlds series; and more importantly, what I learned.  In one weekend I released book 2, presented the Relic Worlds series at Wondercon, and gave away book 1 in a KDP Select free promotion.  The result was not a lot of immediate sales, but a lot of people who are now following the series.

As a result, I’ve begun to plan for more online promotions on Facebook and Twitter, I’m doing a newsletter campaign on Mail Chimp, and I’ll be doing another free book promotion in conjunction with the second book having a countdown deal.  These are all the online plans, and the other half of the equation is networking in person.  This is best accomplished by going to conventions, so I’ve made a list of the conventions I plan to go to.

I was told that Texans will buy anything.  In fact, I was told that Dallas has the best sales rate of any comic book/sci fi and fantasy convention in the country.  Denver is apparently a close second.  I’ve decided to make my trips to these conventions coincide with trips my girlfriend and I want to take, and since we want to see Austin, I’ve decided my next convention will be Alamo City, which takes place in San Antonio, (just an hour’s drive from Austin.)  San Antonio supposed to be a pretty fascinating city itself, so I’m looking forward to that one.

I plan to keep Wondercon as sort of my “home base” if you will, building a regular following there while I travel to other places just once each to build my following.  I also want to attend Emerald City, which is in Seattle, and Chicago’s C2E2 Pop Culture convention.  Unfortunately, both of those are right around Wondercon, and that might be too much intensity in too short a time, (not to mention the expense.)  So I might only do one of those two.  Finally, I want to do New York Comic Con, though that might be way too expensive.  However, it’s the largest Comic Book convention, even larger than San Diego Comic Con, so it might be worth it.  Or it might just swallow a small project like mine up whole.  Maybe I should do that one a little further down the line.

I’m also looking at Sac Con, which is in Sacramento, and Nerd Con in San Diego, since they’d be close.  I did Loscon, and they want me back, but SO FEW of the people at that convention go into the dealer’s room that it’s not really worth it.

I’ll be looking at more conventions, and I’ll be going to as many as I can afford.

Using Conventions to Sell Books

I went to Wondercon last weekend, and will be going to the LA Times Festival of Books this weekend.  I have a space at the Greater Los Angeles Writers Society booth where I sell books alongside two or three other authors.  Conventions are an important tool for the independent author/publisher, but it’s an often misunderstood one.  I certainly had difficulty with it for a while.

I was very discouraged at the first few conventions I went to.  I had almost no sales at any of them.  I gave away some flyers and bookmarks, but the sales themselves didn’t come anywhere close to the amount I spent just to get there, let alone pay for parking, the booth space, the copies of the books, etc.  I was, quite frankly, angry, and felt ripped off.  I was especially disgusted when I heard the people who sold the most number of books only sold about eight or ten.  When you consider the fact that you’re only making about $5 profit per sale, not even taking tax into account, you can see that you’re not even going to make back the $75 you spent to get the table space, let alone everything else.

But then I stopped and considered my gains.  I had given out tons of information about my books, and I saw the number of visitors to my websites grow.  People were willing to give my free stuff a chance after the convention was done.  I then did a little self-experiment.  I walked around the convention considering what books I would buy.  I found myself falling into the same pattern as everyone else.  I was willing to consider buying the big flashy things, or the books with brands with which I was already familiar, such as Dune.  Independent books made me nervous.  I had enough money to buy just one or two books, and I was afraid to take a chance with new products.

I realized what hypocrite I was being, but then came to accept that everyone is going to feel this way.  There was a time when even Dune was new, and people slowly took a chance on that.  But likely they saw a bit about it somewhere for free.  Most people don’t want to spend money on something with which they’re unfamiliar.  They need samples.  That’s perfectly reasonable.

And so I determined that the conventions have two uses.  First, for the brands that are already familiar to people to sell to them and give them a chance to see the authors and others involved in the projects they love.  Two, to introduce new products to the public for free so they’ll start getting into it.

This makes promoting Relic Worlds relatively easy because it’s a series, but other books, which are more difficult, rather hard.

I’m going to go into more detail about how I’m promoting Relic Worlds on my Relic Worlds blog as there is a LOT to tell about.  But here I’ll basically say I’m branching out into every part of the convention I can, including the game section, cosplay, flyers, a treasure hunt, even the panels.  As for the more tricky one-offs, here’s what I’m doing.

First, at the booth I have something relevant to the book I’m selling.  This year it will be Two Gun Hart and The Great Heist since they’re related to each other.  There were a lot of newspaper articles about these two stories, so I’ll have blown-up versions of them at the booth along with some photographs to attract people’s attention.  Also, to attract attention, I have one sheet that says “Al Capone’s brother was Prohibition Agent.”  I’m hoping that alone brings people over.

I will be giving away bookmarks with Two Gun on one side and a list of all my books on the other side along with the Bandwagon website.  I’ll also have flyers to give out which tells about Two Gun on one side, and The Great Heist on the other.  Each of these will have QR codes on them that lead the reader directly to their pages on the Bandwagon site.  I debated with myself on this one, considering whether to have the QR code go to Amazon, or to the site.  I finally chose the site because all the options of buying the book are there, along with more information than I can tell at the booth.

Even though my assumption is that these are what people will really be picking up, I’ll still have copies of all the books there to sell.  I may also have a sheet with the prologue written as well.  It’s always good to be able to give away a chapter to people.  This can either be done by printing it out, or by giving away a QR code which takes the person to a website with the chapter.  The print-outs are better, but can get very expensive.

I’ll try to report on how it goes, but I’ve not been very good at keeping promises on this blog.

Book Conventions – What are they really for?

This Saturday I’ll be going to Wondercon to promote my new book Relic Worlds: Lancaster James and the Search for the Promised World.  That makes this the perfect time to explain how I use conventions to promote.

When I first started going to book conventions to promote my work, I went in with the mentality that they are book sales where I would sell my work and try to make a profit.  I was VERY disappointed.  When I compared not only how much I paid to get space at the table, but also to get gas to get to the convention, food while there, parking, and sometimes even having to buy a ticket to the convention, I found that I had to sell a huge number of books just to break even.  Frankly, I didn’t even make enough to justify the time spent.  I didn’t even make enough to pay for the gas it took to drive to get my seller’s permit.

Did that make it a complete waste?  At first I thought it was.  However, when I started giving material away, people flocked to me.  They started following my work, and some have become long-term fans.  This has paid off in terms of people purchasing my material later.

The moral of the story?  Bring material to give away.  Also, try to get a table with others.  Getting one by yourself is not only costly, but doesn’t look as good unless you have a huge amount to fill the table.  Sometimes there are lone authors sitting at a table that no one wants to go near.  It actually looks a bit sad and can be a deterrent.  I go with the Greater Los Angeles Writers Society.  Sure, it’s their name on the banner, but I get a space at the table with my own materials, and often I get people who came over to look at other authors.

I prepare for the convention by making a small diorama of the subject of the book.  This weekend it will be Relic Worlds, so I have a diorama of some ruins in the desert with an adventurer exploring them, and a little battle happening around him.  I will also have bookmarks, and the first chapter of the book to be given away for free.  It’s an investment of around $150, but the series will be seen by a lot of people and will be taken more seriously because they saw it at a booth at a major convention.

It’s also a good idea to get into a convention where the trend of your audience is going.  I’m actually more excited about being at a booth at Wondercon than I would be at Comic Con this year because a lot of the die-had sci fi and fantasy fans are moving to Wondercon from Comic Con.  They have gotten tired of how overly commercialized Comic Con has gotten, and how it’s more about the big mainstream movies than they are about sci fi, fantasy, and comic books.  So, while there will be a lot more people at Comic Con, most of them are curious onlookers wanting to see what the new trend is rather than people who will become long-term fans.

It’s always about the niche in independent publishing.  You’re not going to get the mainstream audience; not at first.  Go for your niche.

http://www.comic-con.org/wca