The convention season is almost here. This mean yours truly will be flat hatting it around the country trying to enrich your lives with the wonder and majesty that is my work of illustration and prose ARSENIC LULLABY (I may have used the word “prose” wrong…I may have also spelled it wrong but correct enough for spellcheck to not tell me…yes I am aware of the irony)
Here’s YOUR part in all this.
FIRST, if you want me to come to a show by you, you need to FIRST…FIRST…contact that show and bug them to have me. most convention operators book guests in this order…
1-who they want to meet/want to hang out with
2-who they THINK is hot and will draw in more paying attendees.
Yes…that is backwards, but it gets worse. Did you notice i put emphasis on “THINK” in no.2? See, in a perfect world people would run their businesses like a business and do things like…oh…pay attention to the industry in which they exist. Convention operators would go to other shows, and watch to see who actually has a crowd around their booth, how has people coming specifically to see them, who is making the show fun for the attendees so that positive word of mouth spreads (that would be guys like me) and conversely who , despite drawing some marvel or DC superhero book, is often absent from their table, rude and standoffish, shy and uninteresting in person, and not actually drawing any attendees that wouldn’t be coming anyway because one inker for a super hero book is as good as the next. If you already have 7 …having one more isn’t going to sweeten the pop for people who don’t care about that stuff. Pay attention here con operators…if you have a laundry list of super hero guys then you are going to get people who like superhero books…and that is ALL you are going to get. That leaves ALLLLLL the people with money and not much to do that weekend who like horror, comedy, indy books, or just want to find something they haven’t seen before. You want growth? start culling crops from more than one field.
Back to my point, most of these guys are not going to take the time or make note of who is ACTUALLY out there increasing attendance at shows. SO..YOU..are going to have to start letting them know, you and your friends, you and your friends friends maybe. While many con operators are lacking in their interest in researching these things, they are not stupid. If you raise hell, they will bring in the people you want to see.
The SECOND thing to do is contact me…with a link. That link means a lot because I am already doing 17 things a day keeping this business going. Having you tract down the link and fire it off saves me a few minutes…and minutes are precious around here…very precious.
The THIRD thing to do is to order stuff from our online store.
“why do that if you are coming? why not get it at the show?”
I’m glad you asked that! In order for me to come to your show I have to be in business, and pay bills every month, and have gas money or airfare to get to your show. You ordering things regularly ensures that I can do this AND let’s me know you are serious. You can always bring these items up to get signed or sketched in at the con. AND…since I don’t do commissions at shows ( I a brush and an inkwell and that don’t work so well on a card table being bumped into by children dressed at batman) you could order up a commission and pick it up at the con.
Does it sound like this blog is become just me trying to move merch? well…get used to it because that’s what I do at shows. The upside is all my stuff is worth having. It’s worth having because I have lasted over a decade and have been able to improve in skill and quality for ten years….want to know how good Arsenic Lullaby will be in another ten years? OPEN YOUR WALLET. (use coupon code 14cons to get 15% off at our online store)
http://arseniclullabies.highwire.com/
Alright then…let’s all do our part to make this years conventions just as exciting as last years!
…maybe not that exciting
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