This Friday AND Saturday, March 24 and 25th, it’s HerdCon Weekend in Huntington, WV!
I’m only going to be there for Saturday – but be sure to go for the Friday events, including a 1 pm live show of Sawbones, the podcast from Justin and Sydney McElroy, yo.
But yeah, I won’t be down in time for the Friday events, since I’m coming in from Toledo – which is a hike, to say the least. I WILL, however, be there all day on Saturday. Find me in the Artist and Vendor hall.
WHAT WILL I HAVE?
I’m bringing my usual setup of comics. I’m also bringing…
Extra copies of The Stars of Fantasyville, my latest sketchbook,
misprints of The Legend of Jamie Roberts, volume 1,
The last of my pins from my (now closed) Pin Club,
Free stickers,
Clearance prints,
Lots of grab bags,
And a LOT more!
Any and all profits will help towards my move to a new apartment in May.
Heads Up – if it sells out at HerdCon, I WILL NOT restock it for RathaCon the following weekend.
Another Heads Up – My Ko-fi shop will be temporarily closed during HerdCon weekend. To be specific, the Ko-fi Shop will be closed all day Friday, March 24, until Sunday morning, March 26. Thank you for your understanding.
That’s all for now. I’m so excited to be going back to HerdCon in person this year!
Thank you for your support. Hope to see you there!
So I went to GalaxyCon, but not by myself. This time I split a table – not in two, but five ways. Because this time, I was with the Columbus Cartoon Coalition.
I’ve been part of their executive board for a couple of months now, as the Convention and Festival Lead. It’s basically my job to watch out for conventions and say to the other exec members, “Hey! This looks interesting. Maybe we can get a table here?”
GalaxyCon popped up on my radar sometime in the middle of the year. Maybe even September? It’s been a while. But I reached out to the other CCC members to gauge if there was any interest. We got our stuff together, we coordinated, and we set up to show our work!
How Did It Go?
Well…mixed?
This was our first time at GalaxyCon Columbus. And…well, I hesitate to call these “red flags” but they certainly were signs that got us to worry. Here’s what we noticed before the show even started:
The website focused on celebrities. Exclusively. Kudos to the organizers for getting some big names on their tickets, but this show promoted the celebrities over just about everything else. Glad they got a Muppet puppeteer for Friday, though. That was neat.
The Artist Alley was shoved to the back of the floor. We were right by concessions, so we weren’t isolated. But when attendees first walked through the door, they saw Vendors right away, not Artists.
GalaxyCon’s set-up hours were unusually early. And strict. Usually, if a convention starts at 2 pm, organizers want artists to show up two hours ahead of schedule to get set up. GalaxyCon opened Friday at 2 pm – and their set-up hours ran from 8 am to 12 noon. After noon, the doors for the loading dock shut.
Whoever organized Artist Alley did not care who sat next to whom. For the most egregious example, I saw a cutesy crafter with overall skirts and adorable mascots next to someone who drew Lovecraft Tarot with exposed vulvas. It gave me Put-N-Play flashbacks.
At the show itself, we managed to make back the cost of the table. In hindsight, I’m REALLY glad I stayed with family in town. That saved me from spending money on hotels. And I did budget for food and gas – though parking fees were an issue. Thanks for chipping in towards the cause, Geo. You should check out his comics. He’s a member of the coalition and a great table buddy.
What Sold the Best?
FAN STUFF. 110%. Fan works sold the most at this show. Junior’s comics, especially Growing Up Gerudo, were the most popular thing at our table. Shout-out to Junior, as well, for being a great table buddy and for sharing a TON of great ideas. We also sold a lot of Bubblegum and Marceline prints that our cohort Jeremy drew for the table.
That said, we DID manage to get the word out about our coalition – attendees were super intrigued that a coalition of cartoonists even existed in central Ohio. We ran out of business cards by Saturday afternoon.
And people DID support the original stories we did. Geo sold some copies of Tukk & Rol, Junior sold some copies of The Divine Intervention, and I sold so many copies of The Legend of Jamie Roberts that I got down to 1 copy on hand at the show.
In hindsight – I DO wish I brought my pins and keychains. Those were REALLY popular at other tables at GalaxyCon. I only brought my books that would fit in one suitcase. In fairness, we at the coalition agreed that everyone who could split the table would bring two items each for sale. We only expanded when we realized:
a) with the right displays, we could fit WAY more and still have room on the table, and
b) we needed more things out to draw and keep attention.
We DID make back the cost of the table overall. But would we come back to GalaxyCon next year?
Nah.
We decided that if we WERE to go back to shows like GalaxyCon, only members with fan works or experience at fan conventions should go. Otherwise, members would be better suited to anime conventions, local shows, and events dedicated to comics.
Would I go to this show solo? Probably not. The table fee was too high for me to go solo. That’s why I brought GalaxyCon to the coalition’s attention. And at the end of the show, the organizers proclaimed that if we signed up to return next year THAT DAY, our table would be “discounted” to $350.
Just…Nah.
If you’re new to showing your work at conventions, skip events like GalaxyCon Columbus. Unless you have a REALLY cool buddy to split the table with. Your wallet will only thank you.
This will be my return to the show proper since 2019. They did not run in 2020 for obvious reasons, and in 2021 they did small pop-up events to keep crowds more manageable.
Now, Genghis Con is back for 2022, at the Pivot Center for Arts, Dance, and Expression in Cleveland, OH! The show runs on November 27 from 12 pm to 5 pm EST.
Yes, that IS the Sunday after Thanksgiving. It’s been their date to organize since I first started attending the show years ago. Masks WILL be required at the venue.
What I’m Bringing
I’m bringing some sales items from Aistear Con 3 that did NOT sell out yet. And yes, I’m keeping the sales prices active on these things.
Here are the things I’m selling on CLEARANCE:
My remaining stickers are $1 each, or $5 for a sticker sheet
Greeting Cards are $1 each, with a free envelope. A bundle of 10 cards is $5 while supplies last.
Mr. Dino’s postcards are $1 each. Proceeds will benefit the Zebra Coalition in Florida to help LGBTQ youth in a hostile state.
Prints smaller than 11 x 17 inches are now $1 each
Misprints of The Forest Spirit, an 11 x 17-inch print, are $5 each.
Grab bags are 2 for $5. Each grab bag has at least 1 sticker, 1 mini-print, and an extra couple of goodies.
My LAST Mermaid art piece is priced on a sliding scale. A $10 minimum is needed to cover art supplies.
If you buy The Legend of Jamie Roberts, Volume 1 (or its misprinted version), you get the Artifacts sticker sheet FREE.
I’m also bringing with me bagged and boarded original sketches at $10 each. This INCLUDES sketches made during the production of Witches, Gods & Spirits, and Dragons: The Sketchbooks.
For folks interested, I’m also running pre-orders for my new book, The Stars of Fantasyville: A Sketchbook, for folks who missed the KickStarter campaign. This will be kept simple – just $11 for the pre-order (that covers the book plus shipping). No extra PDFs or miscellaneous things, because those things are already on the table.
Plus! I’m bringing the remaining pins and zines left over from fulfilling Zine Club and Pin Club orders. My hope is by selling the remaining stock, folks get interested in signing up for the clubs. That way they get more delivered to their mailbox each month.
Before I Forget…
Since I’m at a convention, there will be no stream on Sunday (at least from me. What the Gnomes Know will be running streams). There won’t be a stream the following weekend, either, because I’ll be at GalaxyCon with the Columbus Cartoon Coalition.
That said, keep an eye on Instagram. I’ve been doing live streams there Fridays around 12 noon.
That’s all for now. Hope to see you at Genghis Con on the 27th!
Aistear Con 3 happened October 21 through 23, 2022. And for me, I succeeded (in more ways than one!)
Where Was the Show?
It took place in the same place it had in previous years – at Aistear Brewery in Bowling Green, OH. Friday is usually the most relaxed day because that’s the day the vendors set up. The show is small, too – there were 7 or 8 vendors there, including myself. All of us were local and didn’t pay for a table spot. We were, however, invited by the folks at Aistear – so it wasn’t just “show up and set up.” You had to know the peeps running the joint.
What Was the Show?
Aistear Con 3 was small, local, and indie. I mean, it’s run by an indie brewing company, and the vendors are all set up in the back of the house. The crowd we got was small – but everyone who showed up spent money on local indie creators.
How Was It?
By the end of all three days, I was VERY CLOSE to having a $500 sales weekend. For some that may not sound really high (like, when I worked drawing caricatures at Cedar Point, I could make that kind of money in one day). But considering how relaxed the show was, the sales I got pleased me.
It also helped that I sold out of
five sticker designs,
ALL of my pins,
The remainder I had of Kay the Valkyrie prints,
The last of my dragon Baby paintings,
and 2 out of 3 original white-on-black ink drawings
My goal for the show had been to sell out all of my stickers, paintings, white-on-black drawings, and prints. So it made me happy to accomplish a lot of what I set out to do.
Also! My buddy Sean made an appearance on Saturday, which helped us sell more copies of his book!
For folks who don’t know – my buddy Sean and I worked together last year to get his book, Danse Macabre and Other Works, to print. He wrote it, I did the cover art and some editing, and my writer/editor friend Melanie Doan edited the stuff I didn’t. It took us a while to find a distributor we liked (that was NOT Amazon). Eventually, we chose Draft2Digital because it had the most reach compared to other indie book printers.
At Aistear Con 3, we had some copies of his book available to sell and sign. Sean is a regular at Aistear, so the other regulars had been absolutely surprised that Sean wrote a book. By the end of the day we sold 5 copies and he got some good tips out of it.
What Did I Take Away From This Show?
I mean, I’ll give some quick shout-outs to other vendors I got things from at the show. Dragon’s Book Hoard has delightful soy candles, and Peace, Love, Pride made my FAVORITE necklace and bracelet so far. I did not get things from the other vendors, but I’ll mention here that The Crafty Carpenter, Ignition Studios, Rich Bloom, the 3D RPG-mini printer, and the tarot card reader were delightful neighbors. 10/10, would join them again in an artist alley.
That said, what did I take away from this show as a person who sells art?
Well, this show confirmed a trend I have noticed in my sales this year. That trend is: of my best-selling categories, original art takes a larger slot of sales than I anticipated.
For context, I use Square to run my register and track sales. I have my stock split into these categories: Books, Stickers, Art, Prints (for anything 8.5×11 inches or larger), Mini-Prints (any prints smaller than 8.5×11 inches), and Misc.
(A little off-topic, but I’m overdue to reorganize this stuff. Misc encompasses pins, keychains, greeting cards, grab bags, and a lot of other things. The pins and keychains need to spin off into their own category.)
Last year, I took a look at my sales and realized two things.
Books were my top-selling category by a WIDE margin. This was wild because, at the time, books had the slimmest profit margins. This year I raised prices to fix that, as well as cover increased printing costs.
Last year, I carried Zines and minicomics. But they didn’t even appear in my top 5 best-selling categories.
Because of point 2, I took all of my remaining zine stock to Free Comic Book Day and gave them away for free. That actually did WONDERS for sales, because that day I made $500 in one afternoon.
This year, books are still my top-selling category. The margin is even WIDER this time. But the second best-selling category? Stickers.
Even more surprising for me – original art may move around in its position in the Top 5, but it’s still consistently in the Top 5 best-selling stuff. So clearly, I gotta make more original art for sale.
I’m surprised by this. In the convention circuit, artists make a BIG DEAL out of selling prints. (For good reason – profit margins on prints are HUGE). But in my experience, people don’t buy prints because they just don’t have the wall space to hang new work.
I took a lot of other insights from this show. But I don’t want this post to get super long, so we’ll talk about that in another post.
In Short…
Aistear Con 3 was a relaxed but successful show this year! I took a lot of good insights from how the show went, and I can’t wait to implement the stuff I’ve learned.
Also! The guy who runs Ignition Studios (Alexander) inspired me to revisit how I run commission offerings. So keep an eye out for new changes on that front! I hope that once I’m done, it’ll be more enjoyable to buy commissions from me.
