I have had a day to digest a bit of what happened over the last 7 days in NYC. I’m not sure exactly how to categorize the whole of the week but I will go in parts.
First, my point of view as an exhibitor.
My hotel was much closer to the venue, that’s a big advantage, being able to walk to and from Javits is a big plus. Especially since I have to be there for 10 hours a day. I have trimmed my booth down to something I can travel with on the train and the first class car of the Acela is amazing, so I do that, get a nice meal, then walk to the hotel.
I had an exhibitor booth with plenty of space for people to set things (under my tables), making my booth a hub of sorts for people to come visit, which was awesome because working a booth for 6 hours a day needed some fresh faces to keep me company!
I have many issues with things I experienced during the convention, but I consider them all learning experiences:
I was in a block of 3 exhibitors, myself included. To my right was a guy selling a 50 dollar coffee table book about comic books. He was aggressive, shouting at people as they walked by, bullying them into listening to what he had to say, telling them everything we (the other exhibitors) were selling was literally “garbage”. Oddly enough he sold out of books, he’s been selling this same book for 15 years, so he had fans, and a few people believed what he had to say. I own his book, and it is good, but I didn’t appreciate the sentiment. He badmouthed the con, the people that run the con, the people that attend the con, but he keeps coming back because as he says “it’s the only game in town.” Well, as I said, he sold out of books so I guess people don’t really care and his money is as good as the next guy.
To my left was a family selling…everything… the kid had legos that he put together, they also had 1 or 2 original issues of a comic book, I think it sold maybe 2 copies during the show. Then they also sold 100 varieties of unlicensed comic book art, prints from Warner Bros, Disney, et al. It was unnerving to have my original stories, 54-page graphic novels with plots and beautiful artwork looked at, judged, then something sparkly catches their eye from the mountain of illegal goods and they smile HUGE and look to their friend “Hey look, he he, it’s Deadpool saying YOLO”. then they spent 20 minutes at the other booth, and spent 60 bucks on about 3 bucks worth of art supplies and illegally produced copies of unlicensed art. Before the show the family was unloading their mountain of stuff onto their tables and I said “oh, how is that going to go for you guys with all the crackdowns they’re doing on this unlicensed art and stuff”? They scoffed and said “yeah right, they say that every year but it will never happen, we’ve been doing this a LONG time”. Well, it didn’t. So, egg on my face for being naive. They were terribly nice, and made about 10 thousand bucks a day selling that stuff, so, I guess they’re doing something right.
I would like to be clear, I don’t have an aggressive style. I want people to be brought in by the art, then I try to intrigue them with the story. I want a fan, not a customer. Right now I might be too small to do what I’m doing and expecting a huge turnout. So, after my first couple of cons this year I stopped caring so much about selling books and tried simply to make sure people knew I was there. I meet people, I give away things, I share the love, and often times a little love comes back.
It’s a happy table. Dozens of books created by me, beautifully written and drawn by others, printed in the USA, wholly owned by Hashtag Comics. NYCC is a big con so I allow people to enter my booth so they don’t clog up the aisles. They can look at my books in peace without disrupting other booths or creating traffic flow problems. It’s hassle-free and easy. However. My neighbors were not as courteous. The mountain of stuff next door for sale kept people lined up at their booth for 10-15 minutes, sometimes reaching over my booth to look through bins or simply blocking all traffic from walking directly in front of my booth. Then, there was the neighbors across the aisle…
This. This is R2-D2, in case you’ve been living under a rock you know what that droid is and means to tens of millions of fans worldwide. They drove it into the aisles, causing a bubble of selfies and people taking pictures, pushing people ass-first into my booth. SO, imagine 4 people in the space above in the Hashtag booth, standing in front of me, phones out, facing away from my booth, for upwards of 5 minutes while they waited for a pic. This happened every minute, of every hour, of every day. So. I created a sign that I put on the floor in my booth, it said “Not Shopping? Stand here for $10”. When I was there, people stood clear, there was one brave soul that stood on the sheet of paper demanding his 10 dollars. He quickly left the booth when I turned over the piece of paper to reveal “don’t worry, I’m on the phone with convention security, they are coming to remove you from the show”. He ran away. (I wasn’t on the phone with them, I just put the phone to my ear). My other booth workers were apparently inundated with people disrespecting the space, the sign and generally being dicks. So they put it away during their time at the booth and let people run through the space.
I was 15 yards from the Marvel booth, so the foot traffic was incredible, however it was either focused on the shiny illegal prints, facing the stupid R2D2 or running away from the angry aggressive yelling man. All in all, the actual convention part of the convention couldn’t have gone worse. But as I said in the beginning, I don’t go to cons anymore to sell books. I had the most fun I’ve had at a con, ever, and it’s mostly because I wasn’t focused on the actual show or my booth. Counter-intuitive, but I left happy, and that’s all that matters. I gave away tons of books to friends, I did sell a few dozen books and I think we made a few fans. Every little bit counts, especially since our kids series looks like it’s about to explode into schools and libraries.
That’s all I have to say about that, I will start in with the fun stuff tomorrow.