One of the things I notice when I go to cons is that small press (the small small presses, not the Top Shelves or the Fantagraphii) and self-publishers don’t get how to market their work a lot of times. The future of the medium for them lies in leveraging the web, but I still see a lot of cases where creators have a pretty yet uninformative website, an obfuscated message and an over-reliance on clever merch to get the word out.
Small press comics creators are like local bands. Not just in the sense that they rely on word of mouth and stickers to get the word out, but also in that they have a lot of creative energy, are looking for platform for it, and don’t have much of a clue how sometimes.
There is, and I think this is something that I’ve mentioned before, this myth that having presence on the web is magical, that it will increase awareness instantly. Even in the best case scenario, that’s unlikely.
Likewise, just having a table at a con isn’t a slam dunk. Speaking personally, I like to wander around cons and look for new stuff, but there are lots of factors that conspire against me:
1. It’s loud
2. I’m being jostled constantly by virtue of my hugeness.
3. There’s some carnival barker in the next booth over shouting at me about “The Adventures of Zap^Man, the only hero with a ^ in his name!”
Really, the problem with the web and the problem with getting someone’s attention in person is the same – there is a limited window of time in which to capture a reader’s interest, and that window is full of competition from countless other stimuli.
I think too often, we (because I do this too) focus on the outposts where our presences exist online and not on the function those presences serve. The reason we have a website, a Twitter, a Facebook page, etc. is to engage with fans. All too often, inexperienced creators use these instead of engaging with fans, expect the tools to do the work for them.*
How do you do that? Communicate what you’re doing. Do it simply and clearly.
If I don’t know what your comic is about within a few seconds of noticing it, I will probably not go through an overwhelming amount of effort to find out. Have an elevator pitch for the book ready to go when you talk to someone. Boil that pitch down to its essence. Make sure that your booth or website’s signage has that one thing on it. If you’re selling a few different things, make sure they’re all cleanly laid out and priced, ideally with a description of what the object is on the table/site next to the comic.
I had a few people just hand me stuff for free. This doesn’t work. Why? I don’t look at it. Or, when I do, I don’t remember why I wanted to read it. And then don’t.
The other thing? Ask for readers. You’ll get them. If you see I’ve glanced at your booth a few times, ask if I want to know more about your books. If you want more pageviews, tell the news sites and blogs that you read that you’d love it if they could review your comic. The romantic notion of found art is great, but in reality, even that happens due to networking and good pitching. Give me something to write about and I’ll promote you for it. That’s the implicit commerce of blogging.
I’m inspired to write this by my experience at SPX this weekend; I saw a lot of great stuff there, but I have the feeling that I missed a lot of equally great stuff because it simply got lost in the shuffle or wasn’t promoted correctly.
$0.02.
*And I can’t blame them. I’ve sat with my niece through an episode of Handy Manny, and he doesn’t do shit – this is the legacy we leave our youth.
