Here’s a recap of how it went for my first attempt at selling books and games at a convention. I was at Crash City Con 2024. The registration was easy, the hosts were kind and helpful, I met cool people, and it was overall a fun experience.

In terms of how the business end went, here’s the skinny:

Books sold: 31
Games sold: 12

Total Revenue: $341

As far as direct event costs, I had the following:

Vendor space: $100
Hotel: $263
Gas to Roanoke: Maybe $18
Credit card processing: $7

Total event costs: $388

So, that gives me this:

Direct event return: $341 – $388 = $47 loss

Nearly breaking even that way. But now let’s look at cost of goods:

Cost to me of books sold: $198
Cost of games sold: Calling it zero. I have a ton of these still, and I’ve already more than made back printing costs for all five print runs, and I’m unlikely to do another print run, so each one sold is effectively pure profit for me. Just trying not to die with 2,000 games in my basement.

Not counting food or my time, because my job is this now, and I’d have eaten anyway.

Net return with goods costs: $341 – $586 = $245 loss

That’s not super sustainable, but it’s not too terrible for a learning experience, given this was mostly a trial run for doing this kind of thing more.

Lessons learned:

  • This particular convention had just moved to a bigger venue, and the vendor room was in a side space and pretty dead for most of it. Other sellers with more experience doing this were disappointed in their sales relative to other events. People who’d been to this one earlier said they’d had a better experience before.
  • I should probably find a convention that’s broader interest, not primarily RPG gaming like this one, since the books and puzzle games were only a side interest for many.
  • I should bring more books. I sold 7 of Daros and only had a few left. If the sales were stronger, I’d likely have run out of a couple titles.
  • I probably discounted the books too much. I was below the prices from other authors, and I didn’t leave myself much of a margin if people bought 3-4 books or more.
  • Very few people, even kids, wanted the cool stickers I printed up.

On the intangible benefits side, I got to meet some cool authors and made friends with my booth neighbors. I participated in a comically tragic author panel (the audience was nearly 100% wives of the panelists). I got to meet some new readers and spread the word about my books, even if they didn’t buy anything. The ones who bought one or two books might be back to buy more.

Most wonderfully, a reader who’s read and reviewed almost all my books tracked me down at the con and brought a stack of her paperbacks for me to sign. Once she introduced herself, I knew exactly who she was – she writes wonderful, warm reviews of all my books. So great to meet her in person. We talked about books and other stuff for 10-15 minutes.

All in all, an interesting experience, and it seems worth trying again with these lessons learned. I bought some shop and display supplies that I can use again, and the logistics I set up mostly worked.