My experince at a convention and why you should do them.

[Eric]

Hello everyone! I hope everyone is having a good day for a Monday. I am still recovering from the weekend I had. I took time off from work to be part of Rock and Shock this weekend, and feel like I need a vacation from my vacation.

Awhile back I posted on these forums to get feedback on promoting and selling books at a convention. I promised that I would share my experience after it was all said and done. Now depending on your outlook and where you are as an author you may consider my experience a failure. I consider it a great success based on where I am at right now.

The convention was a three day Horror con filled with vendors, Artists and other Authors like myself. There were also many celebrity guests. I came with very low expectations realizing I may not sell one book. I was perfectly fine with that knowing full well that I am getting my name out there. I managed to sell books all three days of the con. in total I sold 15 books which to me is a great success.

I met a lot of great people and authors, I made some good connections as well. I was surprised at the amount of positive feedback I got from people. This kid probably no older than 14 came up to me and said how inspired he was to see someone put themselves out there like that. One guy even asked me to get a picture with him.

Conventions are a great way for authors to really connect with an audience. Not only does it give you the chance to promote yourself but it also gives you the opportunity to promote future books. For example, I made a poster out of the book cover for my next book and gave it out to people with my facebook page and other social media accounts on it.

I will gladly elaborate on more of what happened at the con if anyone is interested. Right now I'm about ready to pass out. I just wanted to give an update on how things went.

I apologize if this post just seems like one big ramble. haha

[J.D.]

This past weekend, I attended my first ever comic book convention: Hampton Comicon in Hampton, Va. I had a table, roughly 20 copies of all three of my novels, and a slew of business cards, flyers, and bookmarks -- both for my work and the work of some other self-published authors I enjoyed. From 9 a.m. until roughly 6 p.m., I sold far more books than I expected. I sold out of my allotment of BOUNTY (the first book), and I damn near sold out of BEHIND THE BADGE (the third book), too.

In all, I more than tripled what I paid for the table space.

But as great as the short-term gain was, what excites me most is the long-term potential. Just about everyone, whether they bought a book or not, took a business card and a flyer (which had my website, email address, Amazon link, and Facebook and Twitter pages on them). A lot of them perked up when they found out my books were on Kindle, and just about all of them loved the premise of the series.

So it'll be interesting to see what my online sales, website hits, and social media follows look like in the coming days and weeks. But I also made connections, meeting several other writers, discovering potential new works to check out, and maybe an artist with whom to work if I decide to dip my toe back into the comic book world.

One man approached my table saying he was looking for novels he could pitch to movie studios. He took a business card. Another man approached about potential TV series ideas. He also left my table with a business card. Will those go anywhere? I have no idea, but just having the conversation was cool enough.

These were conversations I wouldn't have had staying home.

So all in all, I had fun and clearly I've got a potential audience in the comic book and genre fiction crowd (which I kinda already knew). I have a library event later this month, and in May I'll be at Tidewater Comicon. I can't wait for both of those, and I love that I've sold so many books in-person that I now have to order another box or two of author copies.

So anyone who has events like this around them and never considered them before... maybe give them a chance. I grant my experience likely isn't typical, but it was eye-opening the way people seemed excited about my stuff.

[Eric]

J.D. wrote: "This past weekend, I attended my first ever comic book convention: Hampton Comicon in Hampton, Va. I had a table, roughly 20 copies of all three of my novels, and a slew of business cards, flyers, ..."

I am glad to see you had a good experience as well. I had a similar experience in regards to people taking several flyers, business cards from me. selling 20 books is awesome! I am very happy for you, Glad to see you are going to be doing more of them. I am going to be looking into doing the Vermont comic con and possibly one in Texas

[Marie Silk]

Hi Eric,

Thanks for following up about your con event! 15 paperbacks sounds like a success to me! Awesome :). Also awesome that you networked with everyone. I am looking forward to having a booth of some sort someday, but I'm not sure where or when. Your post is an inspiration!

[Nik]

Eric, J.D., well done, guys and thanks for sharing experiences! On top of plain sales, I understand, it was fun, connections and exposure, which all are of value

[Nihar]

Eric and JD,

I'm glad to see you both had a positive experience with these conventions! I've often seen conventions for authors before to market books and just never thought they would be worth it because there was always such a high entry fee, etc...but it seems like you thought the conventions were worthwhile, so maybe I'll try going to a few in the future too! Let us know if your sales or website traffic see a spike now that the events are over :)

-Nihar
www.niharsuthar.com

[Nik]

What about London book fair, has anyone tried?