Steven M. Nedeau's Blog: What's an Author To Do?, page 2

Granite State Comicon was a blast

I know. I know. I was supposed to write this a month ago. But, I've been busy.

Busy selling books?

Well, yeah, but selling books isn't my only gig. Even today, a Sunday, I'm at my regular job waiting for the completion of a verification run. I won't bore you with the details.

I also had another event that I was lucky enough to get into and has almost no time to prepare. I attended the NEA NH Conference in Bow NH. I hobnobbed with a lot of teachers and chilled out with a couple of ladies, Lori Molica of USBORNE Books, and Mary Kuechenmeister, founder of the Story Preservation Initiative. Mary was kind enough to gift me a copy of her book Sam and the Silver Stones , which I enjoyed very much with a cup of coffee last Friday night.

Back to Comicon...Name Dropping Time...

This was a two day event in Manchester, NH. I can only try to tell you how much fun I had.
I sat in between two amazing artists, Don Higgins www.DonHigginsIllustration.com and Michelle LaBranche www.chellestudios.com, and only one table away from the author Garon Whited www.GaronWhited.com. Two other wonderful people were across the aisle from me, Lenny (aka Lenwood Brown) www.jakescomic.com, and Kimberly Leach www.KimberlysCreatures.weebly.com. These wonderful people made my first Comicon experience everything I had hoped for.
I'm trying to figure out how I can afford to put Don Higgins' character illustrations into my book at the beginning of each chapter and I'm hoping my booth is next to Kimberly Leach at the NH Renaissance Festival next year!

While I was setting up the day before GSC I met an artist, Jason Casey https://www.etsy.com/shop/JasonCaseyArt. He's another cool guy. My daughter has become a fan. Check out his work.

All I can really say right now is a big thank you to everyone who visited my table and a virtual hug to all of the artists that made me feel at home.

Prepping for comicon

I have to say that a lot of my time lately isn't spent writing. It's sad. I've been putting a lot of energy into getting ready for Granite State Comicon.
Selling books and writing book are two completely different activities.

Promotion

Ok, promotion tactics...

Hi, I'm Steven. I published a book in April. Even before I published I was planning promotion. My state has a comicon event in September.

I had to prepare:

I bought a mailing list subscription (no one is on it).
I hired a web designer for the site that no-one goes to.
I bought web addresses.
Fifteen hundred business cards sit in boxes on my bureau.
The cost of five-thousand bookmarks landed on my credit card.
Three banners will hang on the seven-foot banner stand I made.
I learned how to screen print t-shirts on a machine I made at home.
For my screen printing endeavor, I bought ink and 100 shirts.
I ordered bags printed with my logo.
Somewhere in all of that I edited and published my book at Amazon.
There will be 100 books sitting at my table, ready for the curious reader.

My reviews are good. I'm hoping that getting out and meeting potential readers with a bit of swag will generate a little interest.

I'll let everyone know how it works out.