Case (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
case) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomsecrets2015-02-08 03:20 pm
case) wrote in fandomsecrets2015-02-08 03:20 pm
[ SECRET POST #2958 ]
⌈ Secret Post #2958 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
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Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 054 secrets from Secret Submission Post #423.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
Re: fandom frustration
(Anonymous) 2015-02-09 03:02 am (UTC)(link)Then you are there anywhere from 2-4 days. Talking to people all day (which exhausts me since I'm a natural introvert) and not eating much because there's no official break time for people with tables.
Like I always have a blast running a table and I prefer it to being just an attendee, but it is DAMN exhausting.
Re: fandom frustration
I manage to get by because I am very picky about how I pick my cons. For instance, this year, the only two I know for certain I'll do is a small comics con that I've done well at four four years running, and where the tables are very cheap. (They've also given me a free table in the past because it was a weirdly shaped, weirdly positioned one that nobody wanted, only for it to turn out everyone know associates me with that table.) The other is a DID con, which also has a free table because I'm a speaker. It'll still cost a wad, on account of being far away, but I'll be the only comics guy there and have been meaning to travel there a while.
I also only do two-day cons, AT MOST. I prefer one. The DID con is going to be intense, because it'll be for THREE. That way, I can recuperate afterward.
And I ALWAYS pack a lunch and snacks for every day I'm there. No way am I flubbing my meal plan because of a con. I need that energy!
--Rogan
Re: fandom frustration
(Anonymous) 2015-02-09 03:30 am (UTC)(link)Are there and cons you would recommend?
And haha I always have food or a friend who will get me some, but I still end up often not eating because I'm busy talking to people. It often takes me forever to eat because every time I take a bite, someone comes around.
Re: fandom frustration
I'm in kinda a weird position in most comic cons because I have a niche genre: educational mental health comics. So big cons are actually BAD for me, because nobody comes to SDCC to buy a comic about dissociation, you know what I mean? Also, because my comics are educational, I want as many people to get them as possible, so I sell them as CHEAPLY as possible. None of my comics cost more than $5 these days. One day, I hope to have a comic with fancy things like a spine or color, but not for a while.
Even if I were to completely sell out of every comic I can carry, I would not make more than $300. So I focus mostly on axing my overhead and getting into the cheapest cons I can, because if I only have to shell out $20 for a table and it's within walking distance, well then, I can afford to gamble. But I could never afford to go to, say, SPX. I literally COULD NOT make back the cost of going!
This means I often end up at weird little podunk cons purely because I manage to schmooze my way in at the last minute, hitch a ride, or find crashspace that makes it affordable for me to go.
Since I'm recovering from an eating disorder, I'm on a pretty strict meal plan, and have strict hours. Another system member WILL force-feed me if I try and resist. If new people come by, well, I just have to mumble at them through a face full of sandwich.
--Rogan
Re: fandom frustration
(Anonymous) 2015-02-09 04:28 am (UTC)(link)I sell fairly well, I have enough of a following that people come to conventions to see me but I haven't done anything significant enough that a convention would invite me for free (well I did get one invite once, but it was for a small convention that was rather far from me, and getting into the convention for free wouldn't really have made a difference with all those travel costs.)
I just never know where to go since I'm not hugely into the convention scene, a lot of the stuff I had recommended to me for this year I missed the deadline for, and people ask me if I'm going to cons all the time and I'm just like "I don't know! I'll try!" Plus I never want to go through the exhaustion mentioned earlier if it's not going to be worth it.
I've never been to a convention with super cheap tables though and I'd love to try one, for some reason even our "independent comics" convention here is SUPER expensive on table costs. It sucks.
Re: fandom frustration
That was Ephemera Zinefest, which was in Kentucky and I did fantastically at, for such a short tiny con (it was maybe five hours total). MICE is my standby; tables these days cost $50, I think? That's in Boston, a two-day con. I also did SPACE in Columbus, OH. That was $50 for a two-day table, and even though I had to cough up for bus fare and a hostel room, I made all that back, so totally worth it.
Those have been my big successes so far.
It helps that I know a lot of comics creators in Boston, so I am pretty well hooked in to the New England comics con scene, and can pretty quickly get involved. (And take tables from last-minute cancels, ohoho!)
Since you're doing art and stuff, you might see it worthwhile to do more general geek cons--if you're in New England, Conbust might be worth checking out, or Paint and Pixel or MECAF.
--Rogan