Post Marscon Thoughts
| It took me a week to recover from the Marscon science fiction convention. I had a great time last weekend, but was very exhausted and I had a mountain of work waiting for me when it was over. For Marscon, EPIC VA got together and paid for a dealers' room table where we sold books and CDs. We also did three panels, two on erotica and one on e-publishing. In addition to that, I participated in two other panels, one on BDSM and one on digital art. Looking back, here are a few of my thoughts on the weekend. 1) Selling in the Dealers' Room a. Motor mouths sell more stuff. Pam Kinney and I manned the dealers table on Friday evening and Sunday all day. That's when EPIC VA sold the most stuff. Pam and I are both motor mouths, but hopefully in a good way. We had no problems starting up conversations with anybody who passed by our table. The folks who manned it on Saturday told us they were more laid back, and thought sales went better when someone talkative was at the table. I know for a fact Pam and I talk more than the rest of EPIC VA combined. Fortunately, we did not talk so much that we scared people off (I think). b. Know what you're selling. I had no problems selling the CDs I made of my podcast. I knew what the product was and how to pitch it. Same goes for Pam. She knew her stuff, and she talked enough about it that I knew her stuff too by the end of the weekend, so I sold a few of her things as well. We had a harder time pushing the other folks stuff though. I could give general descriptions, but I would have liked to have had a list of blurbs for each book or CD on the table, a sort of cheat sheet if you will. It would have helped me direct people to the right thing and maybe sold more stuff. c. Be able to SEE what you're selling. We set up a small set of shelves on our table to give us more space, which was great because we had a ton of books, but the table was really small, and once folks sat behind it, we couldn't see around the shelves to point things out. Again, made it harder to direct people to look at certain books. 2) The Panels a. Give everybody in the group a chance to participate. I made certain that everyone who contributed to the table had a chance to sit in on a panel. Some of these guys traveled quite a distance through some nasty weather to be at the con. They came to sell books, sure, but they also came to GET THEIR NAME OUT. The panels were a great way to do that. b. Always double check the convention schedule and post changes immediately. A few of the panels I put together had the panelists double-booked with other panels at the same time. I didn't find out until Thursday night, which gave the con time to change the schedule, but not to reprint the copies they were handing out. If I had been smarter, I would have immediately made up signs for the first schedule change and posted them where everyone could see them. As it was, the digital art panel had smaller audience than I think it otherwise would have had, and the book collecting panel it was switched with to fix the double-booking. We fixed that problem for the erotica panels on Saturday night by posting big fluorescent yellow signs around the con. c. Let your audience talk, but don't let one person take over the entire panel. I was moderator on five panels, and part of my job was to make sure the audience had a chance to comment and ask questions throughout the panel. But the panelists need to talk too. That's why they're there. For four of the panels, it wasn't a problem. But for one panel, one guy just had to be the never-ending voice of wisdom. Fortunately, I have no problem cutting people off when I need to, and neither did the other panelists. 3) Handling the Money for Sales a. Get organized! I should have printed out a spread sheet to track who brought in how much money for change in the cash box. I also should have tallied the sales at the end of each night. AND I should have waited until after I got home to disperse the payments back. That would have ensured that the money was tracked and kept in one place until I had time to sit someplace really quiet with my computer and figure out how to divide up the money. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. The good news is, we ended up with an extra $40 in the cash box rather then ending up short. The bad news is, I have no idea whose money that extra $40 is. Final thoughts - the con went very well. We didn't make a ton of money, and did not come close to breaking even, but we did have standing room only in all the BDSM and erotica panels, and we had people say they'd like to see more of that next year. Plus, we did sell some stuff, even if it wasn't much. I got to learn how to handle a dealers' table and I learned what I need to do for next year. AND I was asked to work on programming for Marscon next year. It's not a big position -- I'll just be helping out with putting together ideas for panels -- but it's nice to know they thought highly enough of what I did for last weekend to ask me to help out in any capacity at all. Next stop on the tour to world domination - Ravencon. I can't get a table for the con, but I did sign up to volunteer. I figure I'll get my foot in the door, learn more about the con, and have a great time to boot. Labels: Conventions And Appearances |
posted by Helen at 2:24 PM
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