MY SALESMAN’S APPROACH AT SAN DIEGO CON 2004
It’s a strange thing, sitting behind a table, trying to sell yourself, in the form of your comic. In the case of San Diego, I knew I couldn’t hope to make back my table costs, because the table cost us six hundred bucks here. Jesus! and I only had one piddly four dollar book to try and make my money back. And then there was the hotel on top of that.
We could have gotten a less expensive, smaller table, in the “Small press” area. But we decided, If we ACT like we’re not small time, people will have to TREAT us like we’re not small time. Well, it was a pompous, impressive-sounding theory, anyways.
So what do you do, sitting at an expensive table, knowing you probably will just lose a ton of money? On the one hand, you don’t want to bother people, or harass them. On the other hand, it’s really expensive to be there, and it sure would be nice if someone would buy your book. You keep hoping, you know, since you worked really hard, and your story means a lot to you. You think, well maybe I could sell enough to make the table back. If people would just take the time, they would realize how good your book is, and want to buy it, and then they’d tell all their friends how good it is, and then they’d all go to your website and buy it, and next thing you know you’ll be so popular. But it just doesn’t work that way.
First of all (and this is negative, but look at the sales numbers), most people just aren’t interested in buying a black-and-white book. Hell, I’m not. I want to see my comics in color. Second, the reason indie books aren’t as popular is that, honestly, by and large, they just really aren’t usually as good. Or at the least, they don’t appeal to a large enough market. They’re done by people like me who couldn’t get a publisher to publish them! Many of us are still learning, like me, how to become better artists. As we do more work and get better, companies will eventually (we hope) see our improvement and dedication, and hire us. So why waste your time going through the indie alley, when eventually, the cream will rise to the top. Lastly, even if people are interested in indie books, there’s such a wide range of subject matter. Just because I think my stories are good, that doesn’t mean everyone has to be interested in the same topics I’m interested in. So if people walk by and aren’t interested, there can be a lot of reasons. They might not even be interested in comics at all. They might just be at the con to buy toys, but they happened to be passing by to get to the bathroom. So you spend a lot of time watching completely uninterested people walk by. You spend a lot of time watching people trying not to make eye contact with you. Some of them glance down at something on your table, at something that caught their eye, but they realize they’ve put themselves in jeopardy, and quickly look away and move on. You spend a lot of time smiling at anyone who makes eye contact, and wondering if they will come over and look at your stuff. And some of them do, and you try and make your pitch, and after that some of them thank you and walk off, some of them just walk off without saying anything, some of them actually buy your book out of pressure or guilt, and if you’re lucky, a few of them really were interested and actually read it when they got home. And if you’re really lucky, they enjoyed it, and want to buy the next issue, and will actually tell their store, or look for you at the next con. But you’ll never know. You’ll never know if someone finds your book and reads it. You never know if they enjoyed it. You never know if they tell someone else.
It took me awhile at this con to get into salesman mode. To find a technique to be a salesman that I didn’t despise myself, but that generated some interest in my book. What seemed to work best was to let people approach on their own, or try and say something nice to people who walked by. But only if they looked like “the kind of people” who would enjoy my book. Oh, I really like your shirt. I love that band or movie. Isn’t that a great hat. Something sincere — I don’t just tell every moron who goes by how much I love their stupid shirt. I pick out people with a Martin Scorsese film on their shirt or something, where I can get talking with them about it. I’ll ask them if they read many comics, and try to find out what books they enjoy. Usually, if they’re into comics, I have a pin-up of at least one artist they like. I try to immediately name-drop all the pin-ups in my book, and use that as an excuse to show them all the other pin-ups. It’s shameless, I know, but I’m a nobody, and any little bit of incentive I can get for them to buy my shit is priceless, for someone like me, who isn’t a good salesman. And besides, I spent a shitload of money on all those pin-ups. I paid for the right to do shameless name-dropping.
The cover price on my book is $3.95. One kid reached into his pocket and pulled out a fistful of pennies, nickels and dimes, and actually paid me $3.95 in goddamn change. I should have said, “Look, I’m not charging tax, but I am charging $4.00, not $3.95.” Or maybe it would have been better to thank him and scoop up all his change, and then throw it at his stupid face, as hard as I could. For the record, though, I’m selling my books for $4.00 from now on. No more five cent discounts.
My “business manager,” Wayne Jones was kind enough to come down to the con for a couple days. He was amazing, and at times embarrassing, to watch in action. He would unabashedly harass anyone who walked by. “Giant monsters over here! Hey, you! Yeah, you! Would you come over here for a moment? You look like you would enjoy giant monsters! Pardon, me, do you have a moment? Come take a look at this book! It’s got people dressed as robots! Robots dressed as people! Giant monsters!” He was like a circus doorman. He should have had a straw hat, red-and-white striped suit, cane to wave, and megaphone. Step right up! Step right up!
He sold as many books in a couple hours as I sold in a couple days. It was amazing! But I kind of thought to myself, as effective as he was, I didn’t personally want to make sales that way. I didn’t want to intimidate people into buying my book. I’ll be doomed to make less sales, but I can’t be that way, and I don’t want to be.
NEIGHBORS IN THE INDIE ALLEY AT SAN DIEGO 2004
We sat across from the really fun, cool Caveman Robot gang. What a great comics idea. A robot who is also a caveman.
We also sat across from these guys who had a fantasy sci-fi comic, and a laptop blaring a movie-like exciting theme song, showing flashes of exciting animated clips of elves with swords and flying spaceships. Within a couple hours, we were ready to walk over, grab the laptop, throw it on the ground as hard as we could, and smash it with a baseball bat.
We had one neighbor who was a nice enough guy, but he seemed to get kind of impatient with some of the people walking by. I caught him snapping at people, if they asked stupid questions, like if the books were free. At one point I must have made a face, like, Wow, you’re pretty goddamn rude. He kind of justified himself, “That kid isn’t my marketing demographic; he would never buy a book anyways.” Just the same, it made me realize, in this stressful, crazy, ultra-stimulated bizarre environment, you’ve got to watch yourself and keep a calm head.
On the second or third day, these young kids came in and took the table next to us. They didn’t have a comic, but they had a flier for a comic that they said would be coming out next year. One young kid was “in charge,” and he just kind of strutted around with his sunglasses and GQ hairstyle and collar shirt buttoned down low, and girls were stopping by periodically to fawn over him. He had a stable of maybe three or four artists, who just sat at the table and made sketches of their characters, and people would go by and watch these artists as if they were superstars, and ask them questions, and the hot-cool manager would talk about the book that was coming out and hand out fliers. And I just thought to myself, you’ve spent six hundred dollars just to be sitting here and not making any money. You don’t even have a product. And all these flyers you hand out are going in the garbage, if they don’t just get dropped on the floor around the corner. A year from now, no one will remember they saw you, let alone remember to look for and order your book.
At one point, one of the artists who had been gone for awhile appeared, elated. He had just spoken with Jim Lee and Darkhorse, and both had told him he was good, and they both gave him their contact info. To him, this meant he had a job. He was in. He was ready to shoot for the stars now. He was a superhero. And I thought to myself, that is great that he’s gotten this much encouragement, but we’ll see how this plays out. JH Williams III had promises of getting work at DC, and it still took him three months of working his ass off and not taking no for an answer. A lot of people get contact info, and it never ends up going anywhere. I’ve gotten contact info. People have told me my work is good. And it kind of feels like I’ve gotten nowhere, and I’ve wound up self-publishing as a result. I hate to be negative, but I haven’t seen much to be positive about yet. And maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this kid will become the next superstar. It happens sometimes. But if he isn’t, this poor guy is building himself up to be crushed emotionally by a slow and eventual rejection, the same way I built myself up when I was first starting out.
Immediately, the manager began cockily telling passers-by, “Yeah, this artist of mine just found out he’s going to be working with Jim Lee. Or maybe Darkhorse. He hasn’t decided yet which one he’d rather do. Well it was great that I was able to get some work from him for our first book.” It irritated and saddened me. The manager told me what a great convention he’d had, and I was thinking how it seemed to me they hadn’t accomplished anything.
* * *
I had my first video interview, by Espen Jorgensen, who knew Sam Kieth, and was doing a documentary on comics. He said he’s interviewed Sam and Alex Pardee, and wanted to include everyone involved with the “Ojo” book. I of course shamelessly tried to talk as much as I could about my own budding comics career, as if anyone were interested.
GETTING OUR CAR TOWED AT OUR VERY HOTEL PARKING LOT
As the con went on, I had a little money from the couple of book sales we’d made, and I’d brought a little money as well. So I decided I’d buy a page of original artwork from Mike Mignola. But fate never allows events to go as you plan them…
Our last morning at the con, we packed up in our hotel, checked out, and took our suitcases out to our car, and our car was nowhere to be seen. We saw someone working at the lot, and asked, and he said we’d most likely been towed, for not having a parking permit.
We went back to the hotel and had them call the tow truck, and sure enough, our car was there. The hotel paid for a cab to take us to pick our car up, and the towing fee was over $300. Mike Mignola’s sketches were going for $500-$600, and the towing wiped out enough of my cash that I would go home without an original Mike Mignola piece.
The hotel wouldn’t take responsibility for our car getting towed in the lot they told us to park in. Assholes. What the hell.
We hadn’t sold anything (relatively speaking), we had spent a fortune, between table cost and hotel. Only maybe thirty people bought my book, and who knows if any of them would enjoy it or not. But overall, I still felt pretty confident, and had a lot of fun. I was getting to know more artists, and they were treating me more like a professional. The next con, maybe I’d sell even more books. Maybe we’d get a better location (that must have been the problem), and that would help us. So maybe the reason our cocky neighbors hit such an irritable and saddening nerve with me was that I had nothing to show for it except a positive attitude, but thought I’d had a great con, the same way they did.