Sustaining the Cause and/or Selling Out
Booth backdrop - a work in progress...
Lots of changes are afoot in the offices of Literati Press where we are retooling the way we do things in an effort to turn our small publishing company into a profit generator rather than a black, gaping maw gobbling up funds like a … black, gaping maw, I suppose.
In keeping with the current mood, I will be sharing some of our ideas, many of which we are unveiling this weekend at C2E2 in Chicago.
There are four major changes I'll be discussing in this blog:
1. Aggressively pushing prints.
2. Adding a backdrop to our booth.
3. Using MyWrite to encourage on-the-spot purchases of E-Books.
4. Creating more income outside of Literati.
I suppose none of these are Earth-shattering revelations, but when running a small press, minor changes can have major implications. Let's start from the top:
1. Prints.
Perhaps the most important change, the many talented artists have been creating dazzling art for years, so selling prints is an obvious decision that took us way to long to commit to. Over the years, we've seen barrels of cash rolling towards booths manned by artists creating "Fan Art" and original posters. In response, we will be carrying a large selection of our own prints to every show. Though all of our artists won't be at every show, we will always have some of their art and have instituted a profit sharing program to make sure that the artists are compensated for their work. The hope is that we can generate enough sales to pay for much, if not all of our expenses and to make Literati a legitimate income for our super creatives.
A downside, as our good friend David Doub warned, is "chasing those dollars" can turn our attention away from our comics and books as well as prints overshadowing everything else on the booth. This will be a possibility we will have to continually monitor as we see where this rabbithole leads.
Hopefully, as long as a good percentage of our prints are clever and engaging takes on our own characters, we will be able to create recognizable brands that will lead to increased sales of our original content.
2. Backdrop.
It's kind of sad that we are just now doing this, but better late than never. I completely ripped off Jerry Bennett's design for our backdrop, but I sooth my guilt by imagining he stole it from someone else. Basically it's a bunch of PVC pipes, joints, Velcro, and cloth as the backing.
Finished product with a four of our mounted prints. There is room for eight.
It was pretty simple to design and I actually bought more than I needed since I waaay over-thought it. It is lightweight, easy to put up and break down and creates height to our booth. As another attendee at Planet Comicon in Kansas pointed out, the eyeline of convention-goers is above the tables, so if you don't have a backdrop, you might as well be invisible. Ours is 6'7″ tall and a little over 5′ wide. Hopefully this will make our booth even more of an eyesore at your local convention!
Collapsible for the man-on-the-go!
3. MyWrite
This iPhone app could potentially be as valuable to authors as the Square credit card reader app. I downloaded a couple weeks back after meeting the owner at Staple. Basically it emails .epub files with an attached, personalized signature so any interested reader can buy an E-Book on the spot and have it in their email box in seconds. You sign the book using your iPhone, iPad, or whatever, giving the E-Book more value. I have no idea what the demand is for something like this, but E-Books have massive potential and this will hopefully give us a competitive advantage over the millions of other writers in the market. If nothing else, its a cool toy and was an affordable addition to our inventory.
4. Second Job.
After finally saying my goodbyes to journalism, I found it necessary to pick up a second job to generate enough income to ensure that Literati doesn't weigh down my own household. I started out as an overnight Walmart stocker, which quickly taught me two things:
A. 4-5 hours of sleep per day is bad for my brain.
B. The extra money is sooooo nice.
I am wrapping up that job and preparing to start another, which will not have me getting off work at 7 am just to start the next job at 10 am. Having that additional income allows me time to tweak Literati to find new ways to create sales and still be able to afford to promote our venture in Chicago, New York, Denver, and all other ports of call. Hopefully the second job will be temporary, but even if its not, the sacrifice in downtime will be worth it if it allows Literati to continue traveling as well as picking up new and exciting projects from the burgeoning art and literary scene in central Oklahoma!
I'll be writing a follow-up in the coming weeks in response to the success/failure of these changes to help other vendors working to translate their art from a hobby into a career.
