So, I thought I’d have enough books.
This was my second time doing SPX. Tables are gotten via lottery and I got one back in 2012. I met some great people, but my book/art sales were not enough to cover my expenses. Ten years later, with new material in hand, I thought I’d give SPX another try. And luckily, I got a table.
Now that we’ve done a few shows, I’m starting to estimate how many of each book we should bring to minimize how many books we’ll end up bring back home. Utopian Musings has been outselling my other books at the conventions we’ve done this year. I thought I’d have enough for both days of SPX, based on our past sales, but then they sold out on the first day of a two-day convention.
And what we brought to SPX was all the stock we had left. Over a month ago, we ordered a second printing of Utopian Musings, which I’ve just found out has been shipped. In the meantime, I took down the links for people to buy the book online. Later this week, I should be able to put them back up.
Tanima and I have been talking about how we can be more organized with the business. We’ll probably use Trello to manage the various tasks involved with making, publishing , promoting and selling my books.
On the second day of SPX, we focused on selling Sketches and Streams, original panel art from the comics collected in the book and collages made from the panel art. I’ve been experimenting with how to price the artwork, and I think I settled upon an agreeable price, as for the first time this year, I sold a few pieces. Folks also responded well to the book, but I got the feeling that I might have made more sales if they could buy the individual comics separately. Something to think about…