My Table at Sac Con: The Power of Selling Your Book In Person

Credit: The Blogger

I would have been happy if people stopped to simply flip through my books at my vendor table at Sac Comic-Con last Sunday. Since that was my first vendor table at a convention, I really didn’t expect to sell anything. I sold five copies of my books!

The first sale was actually early on in the convention—within the first 10 minutes of opening! A father with his three kids stopped to look. I started giving my pitch for each book and, before I could finish, he said he would take one copy of each: The Fool’s Illusion and “CircaSixty Years Dead”. Later in the day, two more people made purchases at different times each. I also traded copies with the fellow author whose table was right next to mine, Jay Norry, for two books from his Zombie Zero series . We suggested doing reviews for each other’s books once we read them. I’ll leave reviews at Amazon for sure but may have fuller ones here. However, I may not be to do anything until the beginning of the new year because, as I told Jay, I’ve been quite behind on my reading. I’ll try to hustle it up a bit, though; I’m always too ready for the next read!

I wasn't able to have a banner made so I made this. Good enough for a first vendor table.
Photo Credit: The Blogger

So I was really delighted when my books sold. However, I keep in mind that displaying your books for sale at live events isn’t so much about selling them than about promoting them and engaging with the community. The goal should be to start conversations with people who show the least bit of interest in your work. Talking to people about not only your own but other authors’ work in a genre you share interest in makes you known both as an author and a fellow reader. As long as you have plenty of swag with you, including business cards, that identify your social media presence then your book promotion can go a long ways. I also think what helped was providing free Halloween candy for the kids (and adults if they wanted). Many of the people who showed interest in what I was selling had their kids with them, who I can’t sell to or allow to look at the books since they contain mature content, but having candy present for them shows a sense of community on the vendor’s part.

Credit: The Blogger

So presenting your work at special events, especially those like Sac Comic-Con where your target audience is at, in my case the sci fi/fantasy crowd, is primarily about two things: 1) Making your author presence known in the community; and 2) Bonding through conversation over similar interests that relate to the subject matter of your books. If the sales don’t come at the event, they will eventually come sometime down the line. The more people who know about your work, the more chance that they’ll tell others about it.

I want to thank all those who purchased books at my table and I hope they enjoy the reads. I also encourage them to leave honest reviews at the books’ Amazon pages since that will help me improve stories for the future. I also want to thank Jay Norry for the great conversations we had about our work and con experiences and for coming up with the idea to trade each others’ books. I hope to see you again at a future con, Jay!

Next time I’ll try to have some Halloween content here.

Until then . . .   

The Author's Appearance At Sac Comic-Con

I'm not leaving much of a post here this weekend because I've been busy all day preparing for my vendor table for Sac Comic-Con. The convention is tomorrow from 10 AM to 6 PM. You can read more about it at my Facebook page. This will be my first convention that I've had a table at, so don't be surprised if I seem a little rusty. I hope to see you there. My booth number is B25; I'll have a name sign up. If you can't make it, then . . .

Until next time . . .

Credit: Pixabay.com

One Last Revision On My Business Card Before Sac Con

Last week was really busy, so I apologise for posting late again. But I wanted to show you a major alteration I made to my business card (besides the contact info I added). Last post I showed the card bearing the name of my imprint which is “Far Out Phantastic Press”. Or at least that was the name. After doing some research, I discovered that to put that name on a business card may require me to register it with my home city or county and that would cost more than what I am willing to spend right now on promoting my work. Here in California, at least, you can use your personal name as for a sole entrepreneurship and not have to register it. So, for the time being at least, I had to replace my imprint name with my personal name on the card. So here is the revised version:

Credit: Steven Rose Jr.

As you can see everything else on my business card has pretty much stayed the same. Now I just have to have prints of it made by the end of the week because I will need them for Sunday which is when I will have my table of books for sale, The Fool’s Illusion and “CircaSixty Years Dead”. So if you happen to be in the Sacramento area and have not bought your copy of one or the other then you can come to Sac Con where I will be on Sunday and purchase your copy (or copies there) and save on the shipping you would have to pay if you ordered it through Amazon. I may even have one of the two books discounted there and maybe even free Halloween candy! If nothing else, then just come and say “hi” and talk about anything—the con, your favourite books (whether mine or other authors), favourite movies or TV shows, favourite comics, etc. So maybe I’ll see you there. If not, then . . .

Until next time . . .  

Trying to Get Ahead of the Goal: Imprint Logo

Last time I said I would try to have the designs of the imprint logo and name for my business card here. Although I completed my minimum goal for the week, I was hoping to have the whole card done by today. I guess I'm just trying to get ahead of myself so as not to get behind. But if we as self-publishing artists and writers can make it to our minimum goal within a self-determined time frame then that's what really matters. However, I'm trying to complete the card and so put the contact information on it by next week. I may be attending a convention that weekend and I want to have copies available for distribution. But here is what I've completed so far. (I apologise for the card image blending in with the blog's background due to matching colours, but I didn't have time to seek out a way of creating a lighter background for the display. I'll try to have that the next time when I have the full card done. . .  If I have it done.)

Credit: Steven Rose, Jr.

So, as you can see, I haven't gotten ahead with the card but I got a head on the card. The head being the image of the skull, of course, which I showed separately last post.

Until next post . . .

What a Brand Icon Should Do for an Imprint

It’s been a long but far out fantastic day today. I attended two sci fi-related events: a Doctor Who celebration at the Sacramento Central Library and then, after that, a steampunk tiki party at The Jungle Bird in midtown. I’m much more atom punk than I am steampunk but both are retro punk and tikis became a very heavy pop cultural icon during the atomic era (mostly the early half of the 1960s). And I just dig tikis! I got a collection of them—figurines, cups, etc.—in my house. So, as I said, it was a long day and so I really didn’t get much of a chance to work on my writing with the exception of this blog post and some marketing of my books, The Fool’s Illusion (which turns 4 years old this month!) and “Circa Sixty Years Dead”. 

Part of marketing one’s work involves branding that work. I’m not a business man and so, frankly, I hate the word “branding” which is a big buzz term in today’s age of the startup and freelance revolutions. However, branding is probably more important now than ever. A self-published author’s brand should be about as identifying to the author as his/her writing style. It should identify that author as well as the author’s work. Doing this can go a long way in communicating to the world the existence of that work. So, as I’ve mentioned in several posts during the summer, I’ve been putting together a logo for my imprint. Although I’m still working on the lettering for the imprint name, which is “Far Out Phantastic Press”—a slight variation of this blog’s name, as you can see—I’ve completed the icon:

Credit: Steven Rose, Jr.

It will also serve as the “O” in the word “Out” of the imprint name. But the skull, in the way I’ve drawn and painted it here, along with the imprint name will identify my work not just for the dark fiction it tends to be but also for the many elements of ‘60s and ‘70s pop culture that tend to make up my writing even though not all my stories necessarily take place in those time periods. The style of this skull icon depicts those eras with its simplicity, its pale green colour and the eye-ball staring out from the one socket. The manner this skull is depicted in not only identifies my love for ‘60s and ‘70s pop culture but also for skulls in general. I love skulls and skeletons like I do tikis, only a tiki icon wouldn’t depict my horror fiction as efficiently as a skull would. I don’t write Hawaiian horror enough to use a tiki as my imprint icon. However, that’s not to say that I never will write that kind of horror.

Next time, I’ll try to have the full logo, both image and imprint name, completed and posted here.

Until then . . . !

Wandering Through the Dark Carnival Sci fi/Fantasy Bookstore

Photo Credit: The Blogger

I’m sorry I missed posting Labor Day weekend and for running late with this past weekend’s post. Saturday I was out in town for most of the day and last weekend I was in Berkeley visiting a friend who I hadn’t seen in over five years. I had been planning a San Francisco day trip all summer but it didn’t quite work out so I had to settle for Berkeley which is a bit closer to Sacramento. One reason I had originally wanted to go to San Francisco was to check out a science fiction/fantasy bookstore there called Borderlands. I’ve bought books from them in the past but only at conventions. I heard they carry all the sci fi and fantasy books you can ever find there. However, Berkeley has an alternative to that book store: Dark Carnival.

Dark Carnival is a used-book store that specialises in science fiction, fantasy, horror and mystery. It fronts Claremont Avenue accompanied by a cat-size, brown dragon figure laying on top of the wood-looking business sign that hangs over the entryway. As I was walking up to the store, the owner was outside inflating his two approximately, 30-foot “Cheshire” grinning black cats for the store’s Halloween promotion.

One of the two inflatable "Cheshire" black cats in front of the Dark Carnival bookstore.
Photo Credit: The Blogger

Inside, Halloween supplies, such as styrofoam mini pumpkins with ghoulish faces and witch figures, were on display seemingly at random points of the store rather than in a designated seasonal section. Although Dark Carnival’s main inventory, books, is well organised much of it is piled onto the floor due to lack of shelf space but this aspect of “messiness” is often a good one for any book lover. An overload of books tells any avid reader that the store will likely have what he/she is looking for. That’s not to say that Dark Carnival is a magical book shop that will have any specific title or edition of book you want regardless of the two floors the store consists of. Regardless of the fact that the amount of merchandise can overwhelm a customer’s search. But the shelves are labeled with letter tags signifying the initial letter of authors’ last names which help a lot.

I was looking for vintage paperbacks, ideally John Campbell’s work which seems to be very hard to find even in new editions. When I wasn’t finding anything by him I asked the owner if Campbell’s stuff would be anywhere else in the store other than under the C’s in the main shelves and he said it wasn’t likely. So I thanked him and walked over to the Stephen King section hoping to find an original paperback edition of Carry (one of his horror novels I haven’t read yet) but as large as the collection of King was I didn’t see any there. Interestingly though, I saw a literary critical anthology of his work. Like this book, non-fiction material related to the genres can be found throughout the store, many of which are shelved in the sections of their respective fiction authors. For example, if they pertain to a particular author such as King or Lovecraft, they will be shelved along with the author’s fiction. This makes sense, since most people who are going to care about literary criticism of an author are going to love that author’s works.

While I was looking through the King section, the owner came up to me with an anthology of sci fi authors which one of the stories was Campbell’s “Who Goes There?”, the novella that The Thing movies were based on. That is a story I’ve been intending to read as soon as I could get my hands on a Campbell book of short fiction. So I took the anthology to hold onto in case I decided to buy it, but it had many other authors’ stories who I wasn’t as familiar with and the book was quite high in price (I don’t remember how much, but it was pretty close to 20 bucks) so I was probably going to turn it down. Then he came back to me a little later and put two other books containing Campbell’s stories into my hand. One of these two was a hardback complete works collection of Campbell’s stories. It was called A New Dawn: The Complete Don A. Stuart Stories. Don A. Stuart was the pen name Campbell used while he was writing science fiction and before he went on to edit Astounding Science Fiction magazine. And being a complete works collection, it included “Who Goes There?”. So it shows you how dedicated the staff at this store is to finding the books you’re looking for. I’m sure the owner found these three books in places I would never have thought to look. So I bought the copy of New Dawn.

I went on to look through the Lovecraft section. Not finding anything I was that interested in at the time, as far as his fiction goes, I did find a few works by the author Simon about the Necronomicon—the legendary book of the dead referred to many times in Lovecraft’s fiction and that formed the basis for his Cthullu mythos. I was hoping to find a copy of the Necronomicon itself, but didn’t see it there so bought Simon’s Dead Names: A Dark History of the Necronomicon instead.

Besides books, Dark Carnival also carries vintage magazines related to the speculative genres both pro and amatuer. You can also find novelties such as alien dashboard wobblers. And if this place isn’t enough for the sci fi/fantasy nerd, only two stores down is the Escapist comic book store also owned by Dark Carnival’s owner. Unfortunately, I only had time to look briefly through it and so didn’t purchase anything there. Maybe the next time.

Next post I’ll have more about my imprint logo thats icon I am just finishing up on. I may even have a photo of it by then.

Do you know of any other good bookstores that specialize in science fiction and fantasy, used or new? Feel free to list your responses in the box below.

Until next time . . .  

Celebrating the Summer of the Loving Dead

Credit: Pixabay.com

This summer has been a 50^th anniversary for the Summer of Love but it’s also been a summer of the loving dead. The latter began with my work on the “Circa Sixty Years Dead” paperback edition and it has continued with this weekend’s Zombie Walk here in Sacramento.

Sacramento Zombie Walk and Carnival of the Dead

Today was the 17^th annual Zombie Walk for Sacramento. But I only attended the pre-Zombie Walk Carnival of the Dead, yet hardly even that. There were a lot of neat games and booths there, not to mention costumes of the living dead. However, it was so damn hot on this 104-degree fahrenheit Saturday afternoon/early evening that I didn’t stay for much more than an hour. I’m surprised the heat didn’t do a further job on the zombies’ already rotted skin and flesh! But the event was a knock-out and, though I wasn’t there for it, the actual walk really turned out to be a knock-out! The undead really gave it to the alt-right and they didn’t even have to be in San Francisco to do it. Check out the video coverage on it at Sacramento Zombie Walk’sFacebook page. It's the post that reads "Oh no protesters at the Zombie Walk!"

Summer of ‘Circa Sixty Years Dead’

All summer I’ve been working on the paperback edition of my short horror story, “Circa Sixty Years Dead” and finally, just last week, I got the final version of it out. As I said last time, I improved the book cover but now I’ve seen the proof of that improvement with my “proof” copy that came in the mail earlier this week. So, it’s now confirmed that the excessive pixelation of the title’s lettering and of the goddess statue are gone, and that nasty line that ran along the left edge is also out.

Like I said, for much of the summer I’ve been working on the paperback edition and it’s seemed to be a process of trial and error but one that has paid off. The process included writing the back cover summary, trying different file formats for the manuscript, releasing the book only to find out the cover was greatly flawed, and re-releasing it with the corrected cover. It’s been a long, trying process but also a worthwhile learning experience. That’s what self-publishing is all about, trying different things to see what works and what doesn’t. Kind of like writing itself, isn’t it?

Well, because I had goofed on the book cover the first time and only found out this past week with hardcopy proof that the second shot at it worked, I am still offering the paperback version for the low price of $3.89. In this way I will celebrate both the paperback release of “Circa” and this Summer of the Loving Dead all the way through the end of the month. So if you haven’t bought your copy yet then do it now because the end is almost here!

Next week: more about my imprint logo and maybe more writing tips and a mini book review.

Until next time . . .