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Behind the Scenes: 2024 Convention Season
🕑 Added 2024-11-08 04:42:31 +0000 UTCThis year was our first year doing conventions and signings for Everyone's a Catgirl!
We learned a TON, and we discovered that there isn't a lot of information out there for authors on tips, tricks, setup, takeaways, etc. So, we'd like to review the four major events we hit and dedicate this post to all of our author and future author friends. We hope it can help you in the future.
It'll be a long one. Grab a drink, and let's get started.
Convention Prep
Book Orders
I asked a few other authors who had done the events we planned to attend for sales numbers. I wanted to get an idea of how many books I should order and what we should bring to each event.
I based our numbers on theirs, and I ordered too many.
We did well at almost all of the events, but I'm still sitting on at least 50 each of Volumes 2 and 3. We have one more box of Volume 1.
The plus side is that I won't have to reorder them for a while, but they take up a good amount of room in our house. I don't trust the AZ heat, so I can't keep them in the garage. Now I know!
If you're writing a series, my suggestion is to order the highest number of the very first volume and about half of that in volume 2. Then half again for each volume beyond. (eg. 40 copies of volume 1, 20 copies of 2, 10 copies of 3, and so on). It's always easier to order more in between events.
Business Cards
Whenever I've gone to events, I see the stacks and stacks of business cards that get picked up, discarded, and forgotten. This photo is from the lovely Termashark, who likes to collect them:
These are from ONE convention.
I didn't want us to be in a stack like that.
I looked at magnets with some of our art on them, and the least expensive I could find was about $1 per magnet. So then I looked into pins. Vograce prints off these square pins for around 20 cents a pin, and I had an idea to add art of Ai (the character) to them.
I commissioned two different art pieces - one a softer, cuter style, one a little more like graphic novels - and we split them 125/125 for a total of 250 pins.
They were a huge hit! We asked people to pick their favorite of the two, and the blue ones were always gone first, so we stuck with those after our first event.
The cards we first bought were actually earring backings. I figured if I bought them with the holes already in them, it would save us some time. They were about 20 cents a card.
But they were very small...
The font on the back wound up being so tiny and hard to read that later we swapped to normal-sized business cards and bought a small hole-puncher. It was a lot easier to design around our own punched holes, and you can read them without having to hold them two inches from your face. They're around 40 cents a card. Which is still under the magnet cost, and I like them better.
I decided to change the formatting on the front to look like a quest in the books.
SPEAKING OF QR CODES: QR CODES ARE GREAT! I didn't realize how many people prefer them to normal business cards. At the Tucson Festival of Books, every other person asked if we had a QR code to scan. So, I made sure we had a QR code on our business cards after that.
Some vendors set their QR codes up in a frame and invited me to scan them. That is also an option! It's especially great if you run out of cards.
Other Merch
I knew right out the gate we'd have a tough time selling original characters at conventions. We bought 5 to 10 of each keychain depending on their popularity, a ton of stickers, and I restocked our coins after we ran low on most of our colors. The toughest part I couldn't decide on was the prints. We didn't know how to display them, whether to sell them, or what sizes to get. So you'll see in the first few events that we didn't really have them out.
I'll talk about things that changed and what we learned each con as I go through them. But these were the basic building blocks for us getting ready for...
Tucson Festival of Books (March 9 - 10)
I wasn't sure how well we'd do at our own table, and the tents at this event are $815 per tent or $915 if you want a corner. About ten years ago, when I launched my first two books, I signed on with a local author group that took a percentage of my sales in exchange for processing all of the orders. I remembered having a great time with them, so I signed us on again.
It turned out that they took a larger percentage than I'd thought, in addition to us paying $250 for the table, and we were in an awkward spot. But we made the most of it.
I'd had the idea to make our table themed after a San Island stall. So, the lovely Janna and her husband, Eli, helped us put together an awning setup. I bought cat-themed flags, and we used price tags in the shape of sakura blossoms and paper lanterns.
I learned something very valuable that weekend: 75% of the guys who looked at our table took off running. I'd thought it would be fun to have it be at least a little cute like the first two covers, but this was a poor assumption on my part. I was dressed as Ravyn, so I did get a little heckling in, but I knew we'd have to adjust.
That sticker display idea was not a great one. I stuck the stickers to the square with double-sided dots, but when I tried to peel them off, it ruined the backing, which ruined the sticker. The letters also kept falling off when I bumped the square or if the wind kicked it over.
I also realized we'd need to change how we displayed the coins. That stand made everything inside fall over whenever we opened it, and was also victim to the wind. I'd learned after shipping the little plastic stands that they tended to snap in the mail, so I started doing more research on better display options.
Overall: Despite all of this, we had a fantastic time and sold 60 books there, which blew us away. We sold a few of the little prints and 3 [Cat Pack] bundles. We met a lot of incredible people, and this is high on my list of places to return to once we're able to start looking at conventions again.
Shortly after TFOB ended, we had...
Game On Expo (March 15 - 17)
This con came so quickly after Tucson that it felt a little like whiplash.
We realized during this con that Ry had to slouch pretty far down to talk to people, so this would be our last time using the awning. I wanted to give our Sakura blossoms one more try, and was hoping that by printing out the prices, maybe people would be less intimidated.
Plus, we had six incredible readers out at this one with us, and we hoped that would help pull in people.
Here are a few things we switched up after Tucson:
1. Mailing List Signups
One of my clients suggested putting out a clipboard with a signup for our newsletter. It was something I'd put together just that month, and the signup sheet helped out a lot this year.
2. New Sticker Holder
I picked this up on Amazon. It's meant to hold cell phones in classrooms, but I thought it would work well for all of our stickers. On one hand, it made people stop and finger through the stickers. On the other, it didn't put them prominently on display as I'd hoped.
You can also see in this photo that I started picking up the 3D coin displays from Amazon. I didn't think to sell the bigger stands until later. But the display looked a lot nicer.
3. A New Keychain/Pin Display
We used this for the remaining events this year. I think I'd like to convert to cubes next year and have one keychain out for people to touch and flip around. This looks a lot better, but the pins just didn't sell as well as I'd hoped.
4. Blind Boxes
I had an idea to create blind boxes of the leftover Patreon pins we had, along with a few chances to win books, enamel pins, coins, etc. Only one sold. I'm not sure what to do with the rest of them lol
I think these work well for existing fandoms, but not so much with original stuff.
4. A Print Binder
We put together a binder of 8 x 10 prints, but we didn't really have the room to keep it open. I think people were too nervous to flip through it, so there wasn't a lot of interest.
(We ditched the tip jar later.)
I also bought two anti-fatigue mats. I'll probably buy a couple more since we have a lot of people who like to come and hang out, but these things will save your lower back.
It was so wonderful to meet and see members of our community. We had a great time with everyone, and we had a blast getting dinner together every night.
Overall: As a con, Game On Expo was okay. We stayed at a hotel right across from the convention center, which wasn't as cost-effective as it could have been. And it seemed the attendees were JUST looking for retro games or tabletop games. It didn't help that we were put in a very strange spot in the back corner where there wasn't a lot of foot traffic. The amount of people who pointedly ignored us or gave us a wide berth was disheartening.
We were able to break even, and that is thanks to our fantastic helpers who shepherded people in, carried signs, and cheered us on. But this won't be a con we return to for sales.
We had a bit of a break, and up next was...
Phoenix Fan Fusion (May 24 - 26)
Near the end of Game On Expo, Janna and I talked about ways that we could start connecting new readers to our characters. It's hard to get attached to a character if you know nothing at all about them.
That's when the personality quiz was born.
Ry and I signed up with Opinion Stage to create a [Class] quiz that helps connect new readers to a character in Nyarlea. We took a lot of time coming up with the questions and determining the answers, and we had members of Discord take it to tweak things here and there.
I made sure that the results had everything for a [Cat Pack]. I'm excited to add more characters as we're able to get more enamel pins and artwork.
I worked with Kiora to design 16-bit pixel art to create pins for each character result. Everyone who took the quiz received a pin for free (that's two free pins if you count the business cards).
Everyone loves this quiz. My favorite part has been the groups that score the full party or the BFFs who get Ravyn and Cannoli. It was so cool to see so many people walking around with our pins on their lanyards.
Remember the author group I talked about in Tucson? I'd already signed up for a table with them before I found out they'd be taking 25% of our sales on top of the $300 table we paid for. In addition, our table faced the loading dock all the way in the back of the convention center - no one was going to go back there.
Brandon Varnell was a superhero. He had a 10 x 10 booth and offered us a piece of it. That 3 feet of space saved our con.
Overall: We met SO MANY new people at PFF. We were right in the middle of the exhibitor's hall, and there was a ton of foot traffic. We sold 64 books, and Janna and I were stopped constantly for photos. This convention was a ton of fun, and we'd love to do an exhibitor's booth there again in the future.
This was also the first time someone asked us if we were selling the coin cases, so I made sure to order a few to have on hand and then started looking at individual cases for shipping and selling at future conventions.
That just leaves...
UwU Con (November 1 - 3)
Time for a few more changes. First and foremost, the flowers had to go. I was tired of watching guys snicker at us.
I redid all of our pricing into an iPaw that we could hold and hand out. This way, people could hold them and read, and it was easy to say, "Here's everything that comes in a [Cat Pack]."
Besides, Maon's keychain designs are so cute. I love getting to use them again.
Second, we learned that readers love to see keywords for books. So I threw them on some of the most badass art we have for another sign to hold. With a QR code to our Linktree, if that's all the time someone had to talk!
Next, I watched Brandon's prints do super well at his booth during PFF, so I printed off 5 copies of 5 different 11 x 17s at PrintKeg to sell and include in [Cat Pack]s. I bought a binder off of Amazon to put them in, and we had plenty of table space this time to lay it flat.
Lastly, we prepackaged all of the Bell coins in their cases and boxes, then marked them on the bottom. If you pre-ordered Volume 4 and received a coin, we used the same golden boxes. This made grabbing them from under the table for [Cat Pack]s and individual purchases WAY easier than boxing them up as they sold.
And look at the pretty new sticker stand! Janna suggested it. It's a teaching stand for flash cards, but it fit the stickers so well, and finally put them all on display.
We had 10 PEOPLE with us over this weekend. Have I mentioned that you guys are fucking amazing? It was surreal to listen to everyone pitch and see them ferry in more people to talk and hear about the story.
This was our best convention all year.
Overall: The anime crowd is where it's at. Very few attendees gave us that weird wide berth or nervous side-eye. Almost everyone at least stopped to hear our pitch, and more than a few people brought their friends back. The prints did great, and having them sized that large really grabbed people's attention. Including the ebooks that were picked up and a few sales post-con, we sold 70+ books at this convention.
We'd said we would take a break from cons in 2025, but Ry and I both agree that UwU will be the exception.
Our Goals for Next Con
Get a vertical banner of some sort. We felt very smol at UwU surrounded by all of those giant displays.
Figure out a better display setup for keychains and pins.
Get more prints!
Have more [Class Pin]s handy. We ran out of 3 of them at UwU!
My Final Suggestions to Other Authors
One of the pieces of feedback we so often receive is how contagiously excited and passionate Ry and I are about this series and our community. This is our heart. At our booth, we're constantly on our feet, talking about anything and everything with anyone who stops by. I cosplay as a new character every day, and oftentimes, so do those who come to join us. If you aren't excited about your work, no one else will be.
We did 2 panels this year, one at Game On for LitRPG and one at UwU for Publishing a Web Serial. They can be nerve-wracking, but it's a great way to help other people who are just starting their journey.
I know that it can feel scary to put yourself out there. Especially in person. But these were my favorite weekends this year. Getting to connect with so many new people and share what I love doing so much is so inspiring.
Questions?
If you have any questions, comments, or feedback, we'd love to hear it! Drop it down in the comments, or let us know in Discord!
We'll see you soon!
