Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Fangirling at a Comic Book Show

I sold in the dealer room of a comic book show this Sunday--the ASH Comics Show up in Indianapolis. I got a lot of love there but didn't sell anything big. My neighbors were Mike, who moonlights at Wal-mart when he's not selling toys at the fairs, and Bell, Book and Comic from Dayton, Ohio. They were terrific neighbors. Mike gave me trail mix--with candy!

There is a difference between a convention, which is usually a multi-day event for fans of something, and a show, which is usually a one-day event for collectors of something. I do pretty well selling at conventions, for a couple of reasons, I think. First, fans are more likely than collectors to buy things that are more homages to a particular theme than collector's items. Second, the multi-day factor allows people to visit an item several times over a couple of days, getting attached to it, and then they all buy on the morning of the last day.

The comic book show was okay, however, because the table price was pretty cheap, and for a cheap price, marketing is a worthy goal. I gave out a lot of business cards to people who liked my stuff--Mike said he'd put a couple by the time clock at his Wal-mart--and pointed people to my Web shop and blog. It's very fun, too, to have the geeky conversations you can only have at a place like this. I'm a big nerd, but I'm not out-nerding anyone at a comic book show.

I'm in the process now of putting my fangirl quilts up on etsy. Here's my first one:

The rest will hopefully be up in the next couple of days.

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, comic books I'm reading, dog-walking mishaps, road trips, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!

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