Listen in, won’t you?

My experience at this year’s Pittsburgh Comicon, my fourth in a row, is in the minority it seems because it was a smashing success.

Okay, maybe not smashing but I felt like using an adjective and smashing sounded… smashing.  Anyway, I made a killing. And that killing pun wasn’t intended, but I suppose my not removing means it now is.  If you don’t get it, you will if you read on.

THURSDAY

The drive to Pittsburgh from Cincinnati was boring.  It was five tremendously bad audiobook hours of the DARK TOWER IV: WIZARD AND GLASS.  I’ve been enjoying the DT books for the most part, but this one was almost unbearable.  Stephen King should never, ever right shmoopy romance stories ever again.

Not to get too off topic here… Yes I could have just stopped listening to it, but promises me the subsequent books are worth the torture of this one.  I’ve been putting off finishing it for a long time and the roadtrip seemed like the best time to get it out of the way.

Anyway, the pain of that ended in the early evening once I arrived at the hotel.  Got into the room with no fuss, set down my bags and WHOA…  Largest hotel room I’ve ever had.  Granted, I’ve seen larger, but this room was as big as the penthouse and I am certain of this because the penthouse is where I went shortly thereafter.

Not much later, Tim () showed up.  He and I were splitting the place for the weekend.

Enter the penthouse party.  The folks from Luchador Entertainment were holding a small gathering for all the exhibitors. I had some free drinks, talked with Andy Bennett and Dave Aikens for a while, said ‘Hey’ to Aaron Douglas (Chief Tyrol on BATTLESTAR GALACTICA).  He’s said ‘Hey’ back.

And then, Thursday ended. The time to pilfer comics was at hand.

FRIDAY

If you haven’t heard, there has been recent drama surrounding this show.  The co-founder of the convention, Michael George, was recently convicted of murder. Many were concerned the negative press would damage the show itself and those concerns were valid. The number of dealers was clearly  smaller than in years past – perhaps half the size.  On the floor, I was hearing that some people were protesting the convention and pressuring some creators to not go. I suppose I can understand not wanting to support a convicted murderer, but let’s be real… he won’t be seeing any of your money while he spends the rest of his life in prison.

Anyway, the show had a lot going against it and the poor turnout on Friday had myself and my fellow creators/artists repeating the phrase, “Well, it’s Friday.”

To those on the outside of this sort of thing: Fridays are notoriously slow at comic conventions.  So much so that I among others regularly consider skipping Fridays. We always say “I might start skipping Fridays.” This also applies to Sundays– perhaps even moreso.  Anyway, this Friday was an exceptionally slow Friday. It wasn’t until 5:00pm that I was commissioned for a rather large piece of art, making up for the measly 4 or 5 comics I had sold since 10:00am.

At close, Tim and I went to some brewhouse for dinner and nerded out about comics, movies, books, etc. We’re pretty good at nerding out. Oh, Tim was also my neighbor on the convention floor.  This is he:

Tim Lantz, Lord of Darkness and Photoshop:
 

And here’s Neil Fitzpatrick aka Neiljam.  He was the friendly con neighbor on my left:
 

After dinner, I mosied down to the Make-A-Wish Karaoke Event.  It was sadly, kind of empty and after 30 minutes of failing to invoke enough courage to sing, I left to check out the bar.  Peeking in, I didn’t see any familiar faces, but as I turned away to go back to the karaoke, Ryan and Lauren (if you guys are reading this, do you have sites/blogs for me to link to?) screamed my name in the tune of Bloody Murder and bought me a drink.  Good times.

I went to bed early in preparation for what I sincerely hoped would be the polar opposite of Friday…

SATURDAY

…And it was.

Oh my science, Saturday was a hell of a day to sell comics.  I would say my sales were split evenly between repeat customers and new customers and that is a little surprising to me.  Granted, I knew I would distribute a large number of LACKLUSTER WORLD #5 (the new issue), but having so many people buy the full run — issues #1 through #5 — was quite unexpected.  I think psychology was at play here…

See, ever since #5 was released, I’ve been selling the full run for a $20.  That’s only a few dollars off the price, but I believe that we as consumers see $20 and think “Hey, that’s only piece of paper.” If we see $19 or $23 we think, “Hey, that’s like… more paper.”

By the way, you can buy my comics.  Yes.  Buy.

Ryuk from DEATH NOTE:

Robo-panda guy:

And that’s about it for the show on Saturday. I sold a lot of comics. There were costumes.

At close, we went to Olive Garden with 20-30 fellow artists and after that we eventually strolled into the bar downstairs.  Ran into Adam Talley, Robert Knight, Ryan McClelland and Lauren down there. After a few drinks I closed the arc on the previous evening’s didnt-happen and sang “What a Wonderful World” in my best Louis Armstrong voice. The first time in my life I’ve sang karaoke.

The bar party soon became another penthouse party and that place was packed to the gills with people, balloons, smoking, free drinks and general noise.  Sans the smoke, it was great fun.

SUNDAY

Sunday was pretty much what one expects on Sunday. “Well, it’s Sunday.” I did moderately well, but only stuck it out until 3:00.

On the way home, I spent another five torturous hours listening to that audiobook. OUCH OUCH OUCH. Stephen, stay away from teenage romance.  Focus more on killing the teenagers.

——

In closing, I just wanted to mention my new hat. I wore for nearly the entire convention and I think it is going to be my new convention staple.  If you want to find me at a con, just look for the guy in the fedora, looking gangsta’ like so…

Cheers.

Attendance was thin most of the weekend, but there were a few busy spells. My sales were about average overall, which is to say good. SPACE is always one of my best shows. This year’s show had a lot of things going against it. It was (accidentally?) scheduled on the same weekend as STAPLE in Texas and worse yet, Buckeye Comic Con also happening in Columbus. Additionally, it is about six weeks earlier than usual and I predict that in four weeks, many comic readers will be looking for it only to be disappointed that they missed it. Darn.

My big seller was of course the brand spanking new LACKLUSTER WORLD #5. This issue is easily my favorite of the series and I would argue my best. It’s pretty personal to me and I’ve been holding the hope that it brings readers to tears. Feedback thus far has been to that effect. My friend Kris said, “Thanks for making my wife cry.”

Gynn and/or Rick (which one of you two writes the reviews??) gets a gold sticker for writing the first review and it’s a great one.

Saturday night, I had a scheduled interview with Dave Sim. He and the Cerebus Yahoo! Group people invited me to join them for dinner, so I was able to conduct the interview from the back seat of a mini-van and in the lobby of the wacked-out German restaurant while we waited for an hour to be seated. I won’t come right out and say why I interviewed Dave (not yet anyway), but I can say it has a little something to do with the return of a little installment based writing I’ve done in the past.

That’s quite a huge clue really.

Anyway, SPACE was fun as always and it’s always great to see all the cool kids with their cool books. For those of your that couldn’t make it to the show, you can buy LW5 here.

And now, photos.

Look! New banner graphic!

Mary modeling a fine looking comic book:

Stolen from comicrelated.com: Joanna and I drawing some doodles on this year’s jam boards:

During the SS run, I exhibited at two conventions: Heroes Con and Wizard World Chicago. Within the first hours of each show it was clear that SS had been making an impact on people. Person after person approached me to thank me for “the great column”. Half of those, give or take, purchased my comics. Perhaps their purchases were signs of gratitude for “the great column”. Perhaps they were real interest in the story and art as I displayed it though SS. How can I really know?

As I confessed in Sequential Smarts #5 (Public Relations), my decision to write the column boiled down to one factor – my own self-promotion. Without that, I simply would not have had a good enough reason to go through with it. The end results were very inline with my expectations. I had no delusions that I would be some new exploding force on the comics scene, but I did expect (and receive) a very large marketing push, that at the very least, put me on the radar of almost everyone in comics.

Despite, my self-serving reasons for writing SS, I truly did try to write the best column I could, giving away the most honest, no-bullshit marketing information I know when it comes to self publishing comics. In the end, I wrote 22,500+/- words on marketing comics and if the hundreds of comments and emails full of praise and “give me more SS!” are any indication, my time and effort were clearly well spent.

So, the question is: What now?

Well, I intend to write more installments of Sequential Smarts, albeit on a much less frequent basis – maybe every six weeks.

Additionally, the encouraging response has me moving to collect these 10 articles, fill in some of the information gaps that may exist, and edit the whole package into a printed handbook/workbook of sorts. But… it would be dishonest of me to say that the idea wasn’t on my mind from the very beginning.

I’ll spill more info on this as I make progress. And at the moment I have more pressing projects to work on.

So, if you’ve been reading, thank you.

If you’re signed up for a free comic, it will be there soon.

And if you want more Sequential Smarts, just wait while I reload the cannons.

Last but not least, I want to thank my SS editor, comic collaborator, and friend Chris Arrant (his Livejournal and his website). Without him, SS would have never found its home at the comic-news-mothership, Newsarama, and very possibly might not have ever been written.

Congratulations. You’ve graduated.

Yes, this is the final installment of my initial ten-week run on Sequential Smarts (I’ll be back with more in the near future). I wish I had a diploma to hand out, but I guess just like my college education, it’s not the fancy piece of paper that matters – the real knowledge comes from the experiences you have and will have.

So, instead of a diploma, I have something better…

I am giving away 100 free copies of LACKLUSTER WORLD #1 (the first issue of my self-published comic series which I’ve mentioned repeatedly over these past 10 weeks). All you have to do is signup with your name, email and shipping address. I’ll even pay for the shipping costs. The only limitation is that you have to live in the US or Canada.

What’s even better is that once I’ve shipped it, your information will be permanently purged from my records, thus you will never get another email or message from again – that is, unless you choose to signup for my mailing list on your own accord.

Bottom Line: One free comic delivered to your front door. No strings attached.

How’s that for creative marketing?

The link to signup will be at the very end of this column. So, I guess there is one string… You have to finish reading this first…..

Read the rest at Newsarama.com

Keep your eyes open for it…

I want to give you my comic-cooties.

Really, I do. If I can infect you with the goodness that is my comics, then you will go out and infect others, telling them about my great works of graphic literature. It’s pretty easy too. All I need is a good comic coupled with ready-made story (bestowed unto you via good marketing) and VOILA! You have the bug.

It is not as dirty as it sounds. In fact, people love finding new things that they can tell their friends about. See, we humans are a selfish species and when we come across something new, unique, hilarious or just plain cool, we get to connect that something to ourselves, giving us a kind of social currency. Being the bearer of this great new thing is both a little ego-booster for ourselves, and a useful favor to those we know because we are informing them of something that we believe he or she will enjoy.

It’s commonly known as viral marketing or word-of-mouth marketing, and as comic entrepreneurs, you and I are not looking for a cure… we are cooking up a contagion….

Read the rest at Newsarama.com

One year ago, I returned from Wizard World Chicago with the largest profit I’ve ever made at any convention. Feeling jazzed-up about that whole thing, I was inspired to write about why and how my recent success came to be. The result was an article here on Newsarama.com and it was more than an answer to “Why did I do so well at this convention?” It was an answer to “How can anybody do well at a comic convention?”

The buzz that article created was actually my catalyst to writing Sequential Smarts. Anyway…

Seeing as how I’ve technically talked about conventions already, I don’t want to just repeat myself here, so I’ll try to hit some different angles, but I do recommend you give that previous article a read-through.

Preparing to market your comics at a convention starts with a question. What is your reason for going to a comic convention – your goal?

You basically have three choices: Research, Raising Awareness, and Sales…

Read the rest at Newsarama.com

You’re an ugly, fat-assed comic book reading loser.

Being stereotyped sucks. Comic fans aren’t the only ones getting it – Self-publishers get the “Oh, you’re… self… publishing” treatment too. Manga creators are often being treated as if they aren’t creating “real” comics. Even big name creators like Joe Quesada and Warren Ellis get the occasional label for being late on book releases.

Stereotypes are just brands-gone-wild and although stereotypes are typically negative opinions born in the social subconscious, the act of branding is an intentional engineering of a positive stereotype. Having a brand is having a pre-existing opinion that anyone can tap into and assume is knowledge. It’s a reputation. An identity.

In Comicland, there are thousands of titles and creators trying to create a positive reputation for themselves. Some of them are with publishers. Some without. Some write comics. Some draw them. Regardless, all of these people including you and me are competing for the adoration of comic readers. The only way any of us can stand out from the rest is to build a brand for ourselves. And not just any brand, a STRONG brand.

Without a brand we’re just another guy or girl who: “Oh, you’re… self… publishing.”…

Read the rest at Newsarama.com

Posts for SS7, SS8, and SS9 to follow. Eeeek…

Every comic creator needs a web presence.

Note that I didn’t say website. I said web presence. Using the Internet to effectively promote your comics and yourself goes way beyond putting up a few pages of text and pictures. Promoting online is a series of overlapping strategies and techniques, most of it focused on promoting your website, which is a promotion in and of itself.

Does that sound scripted? It is. I use that blurb of copy on nearly every new design client I acquire…

Read the rest at Newsarama.com

People don’t read Newsarama.com, The Pulse, Comic Book Resources, or The Comics Journal for the advertisements. They read them for the articles.

Sure, these outlets need paid advertisements to stay afloat, but marketing your comics is a difficult task, and as I thoroughly explained last week, advertising is not the best way to do it. You need to promote your comics through credible outlets that already have people’s attention. You need to transform your dreaded advertising into interesting content that people actually want. You need Public Relations.

The true concept of Public Relations (PR) can be a hard thing to grasp if you have never worked with it before. It’s intangible. It’s zeitgeist. It’s a philosophical concept like love or friendship or anger, but in its most basic definition, Public Relations is just that – your relationship with the public.

Building PR for you and your comics requires time and strategy. You have to constantly keep your master plan up-to-date by contacting media outlets, staying alert to what others are doing for PR and constantly brainstorming clever ways to seem more interesting than everyone else. It can become complex if you let it, but the basic steps of building it are simple. For example…

Why do you think I’m writing Sequential Smarts?…

Read the rest at Newsarama.com