Hmmmm. The first thing to say is that my sales were shit. Really bad. The worst sales I have ever had at a convention. I'm not sure why.
It didn't help that Richard 'Elephantmen' Starkings had the table next to mine and at various times his queue of people waiting for signings stood across my entire table. I don't mind this for a bit, but after about 30 minutes I became pissed off. There was literally not enough of a space for even the tiniest of passers by to reach my stall. I asked him to move the queue but he just looked grumpy and said 'Go and get one of the Thought bubble staff to move them'. From this I deduced that Richard 'Elephantmen' Starkings is some kind of a cock. It's your queue, move them out of my way. It would be easy to ask them to move slightly, and it sounds much nicer coming from him instead of me looking mean to them. I went to talk to the staff who were very helpful as usual and then I had to moan at the queue until they moved. It lost me an hour of possible sales. I probably wouldn't have sold any more but it did put me in a bad mood for quite a while. I know there was very limited space at the show and it was very crowded but this kind of thing can easily be avoided by other stall holders being decent and showing some respect, even to small press people.
-coming soon - the rest of my report which is a lot better
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8 comments:
Sorry to hear this Rob, this kind of thing really got to me last year. You should have started chucking bite sized chunks of stinking bishop at him until he complied.
I did have some cheese but i ate a lot of it myself, then gave the rest away. I think an earlier sale to someone would have calmed me down and then I could have got going properly.
IIt's pretty poor etiquette of the Elephant Press man, I would say. Hopefully, he'll think about what happened and come up with a system that doesn't encroach on his neighbours (like a dele counter system where people take a number and return later). Other people's queues blocking access to paid-for tables can be a problem at some events. I hope organisers think harder for a solution.
Gin Palace 2 is great, by the way. Another job well done. I’ll post a plug on my website in the next day or two.
Thanks Paul, glad you liked Gin Palace 2.
Hey Rob, I've had this problem at conventions too, the big guy next to me has the huge crowd blocking front of my little display. I've found it's simplest just to put on a big smile, stand up, and address the crowd directly, always happy and cheerful, with something like "Glad you folks are all looking forward to meeting (inset name here), but if you wouldn't mind swinging the line around a bit, it would help to let my two fans find my table." or something like that... then physically get up and re-arrange folks. Always smile, keep it light. Everyone is usually very co-operative. (And sometimes it even makes a few of them actually look at MY table, too!)
Hi Brad
I had already tried the asking them nicely and smiling thing but they were unco-operative. It just got me down as I was having trouble getting my first sales of the day and cheering myself up.
Have your copies of 'Gin Palace 2' turned up yet?
Richard Starkings, the guy behind Comicraft? You should have informed his fans that a Gin Palace #2 contributor (me!) used Starkings' 'Comic Crazy' font and that Starkings would be more than happy to put his signature on the book. An essential purchase for all Starkings completists!
Hi John
Doh! I wish I'd known that, could have made some money off the queue..
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