This blog post is for authors and writers who want to know more about selling books in person, specifically at a very large event. Everyone else, go outside and play: it’s a nice day!
I’ve written before about the success I’ve had in hand-selling books, mostly at small craft fairs and outdoor markets in the semi-rural area where I live. Recently, though, I decided to put my selling skills to the ultimate test and dive into the deep end of the biggest pool I could find in my part of the world: Awesome Con.
Awesome Con is…Well…Awesome
Debuting in 2013, Awesome Con is Washington DC’s version of San Diego’s famous Comic Con. Awesome Con rapidly ballooned into a sprawling three-day event with 70,000+ attendees, and appearances by megastars from sci-fi/fantasy films, books, and other media.
This year, Awesome Con featured, among other celebrities, Anthony Daniels (“C3PO” from the Star Wars movies), Sean Astin (“Samwise Gamgee” from The Lord of the Rings), and Hayley Atwell (“Agent Carter” from the MCU). So, yeah: Awesome Con is a very big deal.
In the past, I had been very hesitant about trying to sell my sf/f books at Awesome Con, because of the high vendor fee and massive time commitment. I didn’t believe that I had the salesperson chops or a catalog extensive enough to do well at such a big venue.
Nevertheless, on a whim, I had submitted, sometime in 2021, an application to be a vendor at Awesome Con. I had forgotten all about that until I received an email late in March of this year, saying that I had been accepted to sell books during Awesome Con, which ran the weekend of June 3 to June 5. It was time to put up or shut up.
Getting Awesome
After busting my hump for several weeks to publish my latest novel, Stray Cats, by June 3, I trundled many boxes of my books into Hall B of the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in DC. Hall B is so large that you could easily place a full NFL football gridiron in it, and have plenty of sideline room left for coaches, second-stringers, medical staff, water boys, and cheerleaders.
As I walked in, I felt a little intimidated at the size of the place, and the thought that it would soon be full of tens of thousands of people. That feeling deepened when I saw that my table was only a few spots down from that of Timothy Zahn, a NY-Times bestselling s/f author who has written over a dozen very popular, very successful Star Wars novels, and who won a Hugo Award back when that was actually a big deal.
Timothy Zahn is a sci-fi superstar; I am a no-name, self-published wanna-be from Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
But as I said, put up or shut up, so I unpacked my books, set up my display, and got to work. The vendor room was open Friday, June 3 from 1:00 pm to 8:00 pm; Saturday, June 4 from 10:00 am to 7:00 pm; and, Sunday, June 5 from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm.
So, how did I do?
The Numbers
Over the three days at Awesome Con, I sold 80 books: 13 on Friday, 45 on Saturday, and 22 on Sunday. I pulled in a gross profit of $1,525 and a net of $540. I priced all books at $20 each, but I ran a special where if someone bought a copy of Stray Cats at full price, they could have Lost Dogs, its predecessor, for $15 (more about that later).
Sales figures for my books were:
- Stray Cats (a cat living nine lives on nine worlds)
- Copies sold: 38
- Gross profit: $760
- Lost Dogs (post-apocalypse novel about two dogs on Kent Island)
- Copies sold: 25
- Gross profit: $425 (10 sold @ $20 each; 15 sold @ $15 each w/ Stray Cats)
- Dragontamer’s Daughters (like Little House on the Prairie, with dragons)
- Copies sold: 11
- Gross profit: $220
- This Wasted Land (dark fantasy/horror novel)
- Copies sold: 6
- Gross profit: $120
Total gross profit: $1525
Costs were:
- Awesome Con table rental: $350
- Required liability insurance: $87
- Printed copies, Stray Cats: $220 (38 copies @ $5.78 each)
- Printed copies, Lost Dogs: $152 (25 copies @ $6.08 each)
- Printed copies, Dragontamer’s Daughters: $91 (11 copies @ $8.24)
- Printed copies, This Wasted Land: $40 (6 copies @ $6.59 each)
Total costs: $940
Total net profit: $585
For the first time this year at Awesome Con, vendors were required to purchase liability insurance. I’ve never had to do that anywhere else, and it’s total bullshit. What, is someone going to give themselves a papercut while flipping through one of my books?
But I had to show proof of insurance before I could attend, and my existing umbrella coverage didn’t apply, so I signed up with the insurance provider that Awesome Con suggested. But still.
I didn’t include costs for gas, parking, or food, because that’s just too down in the weeds for me. I also did not include costs for promotional materials (banners, cards, etc.) or the credit card reader I purchased recently, because I have used and will use those at other events.
Lessons Learned
Here are my take-aways from Awesome Con:
- Be okay with risk, or don’t do it
- Bring your “A” game
- Don’t go cheap
- It’s hip to use Square
- Be optimistic
- Don’t panic if it doesn’t go well at first
Let’s look at each.
Be okay with risk, or don’t do it. On my drive to Awesome Con that Friday, I calculated in my head that I needed to sell about 40 books to break even. That may or may not have been true—math isn’t my strong suit—but I set that as my minimum goal: selling 40 books.
However, I also reasoned, there was a small but nevertheless greater-than-zero chance that I would not sell at least 40 books. It might happen that I was in way over my head, that I would be competing for sales with authors there who had larger catalogs, better displays, and better sales techniques.
The worst-possible case scenario was that I had paid hundreds of dollars for the table rental, the BS insurance coverage, the copies of the books, and the parking; and that I had committed to being there for all three days (because that’s the agreement you enter when you sign up with Awesome Con); but I would sell nothing.
I had confidence in myself, my materials, and my books that I would sell at least 40 books, if not more, so I was okay with taking the small chance that I might not sell any. But if you’re going into a big event like Awesome Con, you must be okay with some risk. If you’re not—and it’s understandable if you aren’t—then you shouldn’t. Stick with events with lower costs and smaller time commitments.
Bring your “A” game. But if you are going to dive into something as big as Awesome Con, you have to be good at sales. I use a very effective “soft-selling” technique, which I describe in Selling Books In Person: An Author’s Guide to Winning Fans & Making Money, and it worked well again at Awesome Con.
From what I saw, some of the other authors around me were also very good salespeople, and they did very well for themselves. Others were mediocre; some were poor at it.
You don’t have to sell books my way: I’m not egotistical enough to think that how I sell books is the best method out there, or that there’s nothing I can’t learn from others. But when you spend $350 just to get a table for the weekend, you can’t afford to be less than skilled at presenting your books to potential buyers.
And selling is definitely a skill. Some people are natural salesmen—I’m not. It’s an ability I developed over time, through trial and error, research and observation, and asking questions of writers I saw who were good at it.
If you’re not yet comfortable and good at sales, then you need to keep improving before you try a venue like Awesome Con. I’m used to smaller markets, where I’m the only author there, or if there are others, they don’t write sci-fi and fantasy.
At Awesome Con, there were a lot of sf/f authors competing with me for sales, and at first, I struggled to make an impression on potential buyers and differentiate myself from the other writers. But in a short time, I got into a groove and really started killing it.
Don’t go cheap. It was tempting, what with that $350 entry fee, to try to minimize any other expenses, particularly on promotional materials. But while attending Awesome Con 2016 with my wife and daughter, I had seen that most of the authors there had very attractive, professional displays. In the spirit of bringing my “A” game, I couldn’t set up a table that looked like one you’d see at a yard sale.
For Awesome Con, I purchased another, larger banner to the one I already own, which shows off my book covers, my distinctive name (the second-best thing my father ever did for me), and the tagline that plays off that.
I also invested in t-shirts with the same banner image (a small one on the front, larger on the back) that I wore each day. I had small table signs, laminated blurbs about my books (including favorable reviews), and lots of business cards with my book covers. I think my display turned out well.
VistaPrint was the source for most of these items. From Oriental Trading, I ordered blue plastic bags for anyone who wanted one. The bags were inexpensive, but look very nice. The banner and shirts were pricey, but worth it. As I mentioned before, all of these are things I can use at future events, so I think they’re excellent investments.
Another excellent investment, worth its weight in gold, was the device I’ll talk about next.
It’s hip to use Square*. Pre-pandemic, I only accepted cash or checks for book purchases, because credit card readers were too much hassle and expense for me. COVID broke a lot of people, including me, out of the habit of carrying and using cash. I knew that for Awesome Con, I would need some way to process credit card payments.
The Square Terminal is reasonably priced ($300), portable, customizable, easy to use, connects to wireless Internet, has a lot of battery, charges very low usage fees (2.6% of each transaction, plus $0.10), and funds are deposited to your bank account the next business day.
I had tested it out at a bookselling event in March, and quickly made back my money at Awesome Con. Of the $1525 that I brought in that weekend, purchases on Square accounted for about $900. I was very pleased with how it worked, and I heartily recommend it.
*If you get the Huey Lewis reference, you’re old.
Be optimistic. So far, I’ve talked a lot about how much it cost to be a vendor at Awesome Con, what the professional expectations were, how much skill was required, and the number of competing authors. All of that might be dissuading you from attempting to sell at a venue like Awesome Con, so here’s the part of the show where I try to convince you otherwise.
In recent years, Awesome Con draws in 70,000 people over its three-day weekends, enough to fill a decent-sized NFL stadium, like Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, home of my beloved Steelers. You can’t ask for more foot traffic going past your table.
Furthermore, all those attendees were fans of my genre, science fiction and fantasy. Admittedly, not all of them wanted what I was offering. Some of them were just there to get autographs from celebrities. Some were there to listen to panels. Some were there to show off their latest cosplay, or to see others in costume. Some wanted to buy artwork, or gaming materials. Some were shopping for books, but mine weren’t the particular sub-genre they wanted (“Sorry, I don’t have any stories with zombies”).
But that’s okay, because all of the people there were at least interested in the same sort of stuff I write about. It’s not as if I was trying to sell my book about cats having cosmic adventures to readers of historical romance or military fiction.
If only 1/10 of 1 percent of those people at Awesome Con decided to buy your books, you’d do very well for yourself (which is what happened to me). When you have that many potential buyers in one place, the odds of making money are very much in your favor, provided you know what you’re doing.
Don’t panic if it doesn’t go well at first. The doors to Awesome Con opened at 1:00 pm on Friday, June 3 and…nothing much happened for a very long time. Some people trickled past the author section where all of us were, waiting and eager to sell our books, but hardly anyone seemed interested in stopping at a table, much less buying. It wasn’t just me, either. Finally, about 2 ½ hours into the Con, I made my first sale.
The afternoon slipped into evening, and more people showed up after work. Like the early birds, they were content to just walk around and see everything to be found in this massive hall. I was starting to get very nervous, even panicky. I worried that I had made a tremendous and very expensive mistake.
Fortunately, the fellow next to me had been a vendor before at Awesome Con, and he assured me that what I was seeing was perfectly typical: most people didn’t buy anything on Friday. I did manage to sell 13 books. When 8:00 pm rolled around and I left for the night, I hoped that what my colleague said about Saturday being the big sales day was true. Otherwise, it was going to be a very long weekend.
On Saturday morning, the doors opened at 10:00 and…not much happened. People came trickling past the author section once again, just like they had the previous afternoon, and I became uneasy. Folks were just walking by, glancing at things. No one was stopping. No one was interested. An hour went by. My unease tightened into a knot in my stomach.
And then…and then it was as if a dam broke loose. Suddenly, there were mobs of people everywhere, and many of them were coming to my table, asking about the books, picking them up, looking through them. I greeted them, and told them about the ones they were interested in, and answered their questions. And then purses and wallets opened, cash and cards came out, and I was signing books (every one of them), slipping them into bags, and thanking people.
This went on for several hours, tapering a bit in the evening before picking back up again right before closing time. I sold 45 books on Saturday, more than I ever had in a single day ever. I had already reached my minimum goal, my break-even point, and everything else would be gravy. The authors around me kept looking over with furrowed brows, as if thinking, “How the heck is he doing that?”
I knew Sunday wouldn’t be as good as Saturday, but it had to be better than Friday. I was correct. The pace was definitely slower, the crowds not as large, but I still sold 22 books. By the time that Awesome Con ended at 5:00 pm, I was exhausted but felt accomplished.
Final Thoughts
“Exhausted” because it was a lot of work to get ready for Awesome Con. I knew Stray Cats would be popular among the attendees (lots of cat-lovers), so in the weeks before the convention, I wrapped up the book.
I finished drafting the last bit, brought in the final illustrations from the artists, edited the entire thing, formatted it for Kindle and print, gave the specs for the softcover version to the friend who was finalizing the cover after the initial artist dropped off the face of the Earth, and ordered copies just in the nick of time so that I would have them by June 3.
As the days to Awesome Con ticked down, I was so excited/nervous that I hardly slept. That situation didn’t improve at all during that weekend. By 2:00 pm on Sunday, I was running on fumes. But it was all worth it.
My only complaints were: 1) that This Wasted Land did not sell well; and 2) that packing up and leaving Awesome Con on Sunday was a titanic fustercluck of poor communication between the third-party outfit running the logistics, and us vendors.
As for the former, I don’t know what happened: usually, I sell quite a few copies of TWL, but this time, I only managed six all weekend. As for the latter, my situation would have been improved had I not brought so many boxes of books (but then, I had figured that it was better to have too many copies, than run out).
I’ll definitely do Awesome Con again next year, and apply what I learned. I’ll let you know how that goes.
If you’d like more tips on selling books in person, including details on my technique, take a look at Selling Books In Person. You can find it on Amazon in softcover and for Kindle.
Kenton Kilgore writes books for kids, young adults, and adults who are still young. Follow Kenton on Facebook for frequent posts on sci-fi, fantasy, and other speculative fiction. You can also catch him on Instagram.