Tag: business stuff

Like I said in January most of my money comes from conventions.  It’s from 10-12 different conventions a year. Here’s a break down of all the prep which goes into those trips.

HOW I PICK SHOWS

First, I need to pick which shows I go to. Since, convention sales are a big part of my income is really comes down to profit margins. I go back to any show where I have made $500 profit. (Though I might change that rule to 175 profits per day because more and more shows are becoming longer than 3 days. ) So after everything is paid for I need to take home at least $500. Some times I can make a low sales show work because I live close by or can crash at a friends house. For example, Rose City Comic Con has my lowest sales of my regular shows but I live in Portland and on the same lightrail line as the convention center. So my costs are $5 a day in public transit tickets and the table cost which is $200.  The other side of this is sometimes it means not returning to shows where I can have fun and see a lot of friends. I’m probably never going back to MoCCA because the tables are $450 (last I checked a few years ago) and a plane ticket cross country is $400-600. So it means even if I crash at a friends how I would need to sales twice as much as Rose City to just break even.

Now I am always looking for new shows, especially ones in February, June, August, and November. Those months usually don’t have shows. When I go to a new show I ask friends who have been and look at plane tickets. I try to figure out how sales will go. Right now, I’ve on the fence about trying Heroes Con, DINK, and Denver Comic Con.  I have heard good things from several friends but in both cases but I need to cover a hotel, flight, and table. So I might give one a try in 2019, but this year is out. Also keep wanting to hit up Wondercon, which would be much easier, but it keeps conflicting with Anime Boston which is one of my best shows. This year was one of the few times that conflict didn’t haven’t but I got waitlisted.

When I go to a new show I bring my 2 test boxes. My 2 test boxes includes:

• 10 of each Cautionary Fables and Fairy Tales
• 10 of Can I Pet Your Werewolf
• 15 Misfits of Avalon vol 1
• 5 Misfits of Avalon vol 2
• 5 Misfits of Avalon vol 3
• 15 Fame and Misfortune
• 15 Better to Find You With
• 20 From Scratch
• 5 Sorcery 101 vol 1
• 2 Sorcery 101 vol 2

If I sell all of this that will make me 1500 gross. In most cases that will get me over my $500 profit goal. Part of why I’m hesitant about Heroes Con and the others is I would have to sell all of it to make goal. Even then I might not.

PREP

Now that the shows are picked for the year, I try to make sure I got everything organized. Every December I go through all my past convention notes. I box up or order anything I’ll need for that con every. In my closet right now are several boxes that have written on their side:

• AB (short for Anime Boston)
• 1 of 5
• Holds BTFYW/BUFFY/MOA1 (short for The Better to Find You With, Buffy, and Misfits of Avalon vol 1 respectively)

On the inside flap of the box it will say

• Buffy – 10
• BTFYW – 40
• MOA1 – 40

So as soon as I open the box I know exactly what is inside.

I always take as many books as I sold the year before rounded up to the nearest interval of 5. If I sold out I’ll add 5-10 to that number. So in this case Misfits sold 39 copies at Anime Boston last year, which is why I’m bringing 40.

Doing this lets me know if I need to order or reprint books before the season starts. Like I bought 200 copies of Misfits of Avalon and 50 copies of Buffy from Darkhorse to have them at shows through the whole year. It’s not that I don’t expect Buffy to sell, but more I want my con sales to focus on my creator owned things rather than work for hire so I limited Buffy sales to 10 – 5 per show.

I also have a con kit box that goes to every show. In that is:

• Promo Flyers
• Sharpies
• Cough drops
• Aleve (my preferred headache medicine)
• Tums
• Ear plugs
• Square Reader
• Sold out form

This will get update before every show. Promo flyers are obviously so people can find me website later. Sharpies are for signing and sketching in books. Square reader is how I take credit card sales at shows. Paypal also makes one but I like Square better. Cough drops, Aleve, and Tums are for if I start to feel sick during the show. Usually I use Fisherman’s Friend cause they are stronger than other cough drops. Since I mostly sell books and books are heavy I do my best not to over bring those. That makes the sold out form important.

If has a blue border to match the price tags and table cloth on my con display which is the same blue on my website. I circle the book or write what they want in the blank space. I usually write the persons name and address cause I have an easier time writing my own hardwriting. Basically, someone can pay for a book or original page at the con and I will ship it to them for free.

GETTING TO THE SHOW

Books are heavy and that is mostly what I sell. This isn’t much of a problem if I’m car pooling with a friend. Load the car up and go. If I need to fly to a convention, I used to try to fly Virgin America cause they let you check up to 10 bags. But they got bought by Alaska Airlines. I can still check up to like 10 bags but it’s way more expensive. So this year I will mail them ahead. I try to send them a month ahead of me. If the books get lost, then I’ll check them.

Mailing them ahead of time is also why that “AB box 1 of 5” label is important. Because then I know which box got lost and what was in it.

If I’m not staying with a friend and I’m mailing stuff ahead of me, I need to call the hotel or convention to find out how long the hotel/con will hold my books and if there is a fee.

All of my display stuff that I’ll explain in the next part, fits into a large suitcase that I always check.

DISPLAY AT THE SHOW

The last step before the show begins is my display. I tried to brand my display with the same color scheme as my website. I linked you to my Sold Out Form and that blue is color of my table cloth and the color of my price tags.

Books are where I make most of my money and what I want people to focus on. They are front and center. My books get displayed on a colaspable shelf like this one . It is 18 inches wide which works for me because all my books are 6 inches by 9 inches or 9 inches by 6 inches. I keep meaning to paint it black or blue so it will also match my website. This keeps all my books upright and facing people who are browsing. It also keeps them close to eye level. All the covers are clearing visible. Some of the books in the back get hidden, and because of that I try to group books vertically. So Misfits of Avalon vol 3 is in front of the Misfits of Avalon vol 2 which is in front of Misfits of Avalon vol 1. Someone who is familiar with the book will still see the series clearly, but volume 3 in front will let people who have other volumes there is a new book. But the title is still clear so that new people can flip through the series. Cautionary Fables and Fairy Tales also gets stacked vertically.

For each book I have made a price tag. They are 10 inches tall and 6 inches wide. They fit nicely behind each book and poke out. Sorcery 101’s price tag is 7 inches tall and 9 inches wide for the same reason. I do individual price tags because of something I learned from reading “Why We By: The Science of Shopping.” People only spend like 30 seconds reading signs. So a giant price list is less likely to me read than an individual price tag.

I have tote bags and still haven’t quite figured out how to display them. I try to find a place to lay them flat so the design is clear.

Also laying flat is my portfolio. I don’t usually sell prints because I’ve had better luck selling books. Prints of my character did okayish. But most people I sell to at shows have never heard of me and it’s easier to tell someone to try a book than to grab a print of a character they don’t know (And I don’t think people should sell fanart.) Also, laying flat is my price list for commissions. Commissions I could make more money off of if I put more focus on them. However, I don’t really like to do commissions at shows. I’d rather stay  in selling/pitching mode rather than switch back and forth between that and drawing mode. Also, I ink traditionally so it’s hard to make my work portable. All in all, I’m okay with them being an after thought. If you want a commission, you are better off shooting me an email before the show and picking it up there. I did recently get an ipad pro to draw digitally. So I might try to do digital commissions at shows now that I can be less concerned with bring all my inking stuff.

I also have two banners behind me. They are both the tallest version of this banner.   I picked that one because while most people have 3 foot wide banners, the 2 foot wide one will fit in my large suitcase. But the 3 foot one doesn’t. One design is the blue black and white color scheme of my website. That one has my name on it and characters from different comics. I might redesign it in a year or so. The other design has Danny lighting his cigarette and has Sorcery 101’s logo on it. The Kel McDonald banner is more helpful for people who already know me. The Sorcery 101 banner brings over more people who don’t know me. They ask about the title which leads to my sales pitch. The Sorcery 101 banner is also easier to spot cause it is bring orange. So if you need to design a banner and are still unknown, maybe make a banner for your comic rather than you. Both of these banners are VERY TALL.  They are hard to miss.

Giving someone a clear way to find you is important. I think that makes one of the most popular ways to display prints at shows a bad idea. I see it most at anime cons, but it happens are every show. I think it’s just more prevalent at animecons because the artists lean younger and therefore are less likely to have the funds for a big banner. There is a thin wall of prints taped together and only a small space for the artist to poke their head out. If you google anime con display you get 9 million examples of this. I don’t want to pick on anyone by grabbing a picture so I drew what I’m talking about.

First off, that display is flimsy and I’ve seen more then one fall over. Second, they are hard to put. My display can be put up by just me and takes ten minutes or so. Also, the sign being in front of the table means when the con floor is crowded someone can’t see it and therefore find you. Then the mass of images will blur together with nothing standing out from far away. If you and several other people in a row have a display like this is will be hard for someone to see you. And finally, this wall puts a wall between you and the person who wants to buy stuff. It’s hard to see if someone is browsing through that tiny window and hard to engage with a customer. If you want to do a print wall, try to put it behind you rather than in front of you. You should be visible. Part of why folks are coming to cons is to talk to/see you.

And the final part of my display is me. I’m not a very fashionable person. But I try to dress nicer than I usually do with a button up shirt. I pick button up shirts with a collar and a front pocket that has a button flap. The front pocket is where I put my large bills so the flap is to make it so they aren’t visible. Obviously most people have a cash box or bag, but I worry about losing it/forgetting it. I also wear a tie that matches Danny’s piano key tie. So I match my books and merch a little too. Now that Sorcery 101 is done I might switch to something kinda werewolfy if I can find it.

And all that is before the show even starts. Next month I’ll post about at the show stuff.

So last year I redesigned my website. I’d like to take you through the process of what I was thinking.

If you don’t remember what the old site looked like here are some old screen caps.

and

NOTES BEFORE GOING IN

The first step to the redesign was making a list of what I thought were problems with the old design. Here’s what I wrote down:

• The navigation image was confusing people/not instantly  intuitive. It made it hard for people to get to parts of the site they didn’t always check like the store or to older comics. I tried giving it a small tweak about a year ago but over all the image nav wasn’t obvious enough. And clarity it key with these things.
• The visual hierarchy wasn’t clear enough. With websites you want whatever is most important to be the biggest thing. So the image nav was too big and detracted from people paying attention to comics and new posts and really everything.
• It wasn’t instantly clear which comics were updating or when. I had regular posts about when stuff did update but nothing that was instant. But there was no where to clearly show what was going on right now.
• I am doing a lot of new stuff and it was hard to make space for it all. I had new comics, work for hire gigs, writer notes, podcasting, added a patreon, and planned to do more. With every new thing there was no clear place to put it, so it got slapped into that  sidebar with a tower ad. I wanted clear space for it.
• The comic shelf was overly complicated and I had too much stuff. I like the visual of the comic shelf and displaying all my work. People rightfully complained that it had too many clicks to get to new comics. It was also hard to show which stories were connected. And if you clicked one of the finished comics at the bottom, you would have to scroll back up to the square to see what it was about.
• Box ads (aka the 250 by 300 ads) are full of malware and autoplaying noise ads. More so that leaderboard and tower ad.
• The please turn off adblocker message breaks which shows up when you come to my site with ad blocker was breaking the site.
• Save my place marker which was under each comic page as you read it only worked on one comic at a time.

Then I wrote down my goals going into the new site design that you are currently looking at. They were:

• I wanted a look that didn’t read as default webcomic site. One thing I’m not crazy about is there are a lot of webcomic sites that look the same. Comicpress and tumblr made it easier to get comics online, but it also made a lot of sites look very similar. That was something I always tried to fight against.
• I needed a site that can handle multiple comics and make it easy for someone to read and find them all. I’ve always had more than one comic. Sure the first few were Sorcery 101 spin offs, but I always have wanted to do more. I quickly realized that getting a new domian name for a comic that will only end up 100 pages or so is too much work for something only running for a year.
• Improve the comic shelf. I like the visual idea of the comic shelf so I didn’t want to scrap it completely.
• Have the updating comic clearly marked.
• Have the store be easy to find and mix my own ads into the general ads.
• Get more people to pay attention to my Patreon since that will lead to getting rid of ads, which are always ugly.
• Give the blog section easier navigation so someone can track down old posts.
• Con appearances need to be immediately clear.
• As I get more press from the print side of comics I needed a place to put those, a bio, and a headshot. I didn’t 100% need them on the site, but I thought having a press page would make it easier for someone to grab that info on their own.
• I wanted the place where people read comics to be spars as possible so nothing would retract from reading the comic. I know folks like to comment on the page directly, BUT all I think comments really only add to discussion of a current page. If someone is marathon the comic I want them to focus on the comic.
• No comic on the front page. I know this is unpopular in the land of reading webcomics, but I found that going this route leads to people not paying attention to the rest of the site. So comics that are finished end up ignored.
• Make it clear which comics are connected. When Dracula Mystery Club started a few people thought it was the Sorcery 101 world, not a huge issue cause it didn’t get far. But this is more of a problem for with Fame and Misfortune and would be for future The City Between stories because they are close in tone and genre to Sorcery 101.
• Branding is focused on me as an artist rather Sorcery 101. I’ve been slowly making this move I’ve been slowly making since Misfits of Avalon started and I knew Sorcery 101 would be wrapping up. With Sorcery 101 done, I visually wanted to make it completely clear. That only thing left in this is move is changing from sorcery101.net to kelmcdonald.com. But that is getting saved for when I don’t need ads companies to have approved my domain. Some of those are hard to get on to. 
• Portfolio section just needs to look prettier.

Building the Site

So Kevin Wilson did the nuts and bolts of designing and building the site. After I went over the problems and goals with the site we also talked about websites I liked.

So first I told Kevin the colors I like and use for my branding. The blue, white, and black. He lightened the blue a little to make black text pop on it better after doing a few color blind tests (aka usability for people who are color blind). He then sent me a few fonts that he think for work. After those very basic things were decided, he moved forward.

He sent me two mock ups of the pages were the comic appears since that is the simplest page. For the wallpaper and Patreon button, he originally used Sorcery 101 art, but since that is no longer updating I told him to use art from Misfits of Avalon and Fame and Misfortune. I wrote my name a new times to give the site a nice header.

For the big this is currently updating picture, we briefly talked about using a slider, but apparently research shows that most people never make it past the 2nd slide. So a static image worked for now. The patreon ad being immediately to the right of that giant image makes it hard to ignore and all the social media is right there afterward. The sign up for my newsletter bar is also a new addition. So everything to keep someone up to date is right there when it first loads. And the big image would be easy to switch out as new books came out, kickstarters happen, or new comics end up updating.

Kevin, pointed out that my blog posts vary from giant writer notes posts to tiny here is a new page posts. This could result in a HUGE empty space in the sidebar. So small previews on the front page help it be more static and nicer looking.

Because I told Kevin I want my own ads in the mix and the big rectangle ads are a pain to place we decided next to them would be a good place for the personal store add. It would auto-fill with my newest product.

Navagation is pretty standard and resembles what people are used to on other sites. Easy and clear.

The blog itself was easier to design. I was mostly just a matter of adjusting the sidebar to have what I want on it and making it easier to navagate. We tried a tag cloud at first but that looked really ugly. So a list of links just seemed the nicest.

The press page, the portfolio, and various table of contents pages was just a matter of taking the blog page and only messing with the content part.  For the press page that was just a matter of posting some links and trying to get wordpress to make some columns so my headshot wasn’t just standing on it’s own. The portfolio was a matter of switching plugins. The one I was using was clunky, not very pretty, and also didn’t load very fast. The chapter list pages are a little bit of work. I was using a table before but those don’t resign nicely on phones or smaller browsers. Kevin did some custom coding to get the same result but resize nicer.

Then came the hard part, the comic shelf. Like I said I like the visual of the comic shelf but it was a problem to how complicated it was to figure out and how many clicks got you to the comic. After talking it over, the solution because making it look like a book store display, with an info card next to each book. This also solves the how to note which books go together. Each shelf can fit 6 books and two cards. I put Misfits of Avalon and The City Between up top because they were the ones updating at the time of launch. While Sorcery 101 is the longest, since it is done it needs to move aside to give newer comics the spotlight. I also made sure all my print only work is listed at the bottom because they don’t need to be accessed as much as the readable webcomics. They are also listed in the store, so they can be more prominent there rather than here.  To solve the too many clicks button I got an easy read for start button as well as a story list for each group.

Now for reading comics themselves, like I said that is the sparest. I left it to what needs to be there and ads. Which lead to some empty space here and there. So I gave each archive an in site ad to that comic’s book. So Misfits tells you to buy the newest Misfits books, Sorcery 101 tells you to buy Sorcery 101 vol 2, etc etc. Sadly we couldn’t get the save my spot comic marker to work. So it got scraped. Basically what would happen is if you were reading Sorcery 101 and saved a spot and then saved a spot on Misfits, the Sorcery 101 spot saver would be lost.

And all through out the site, I switched the 300 by 250 ads for Project wonderful ads. Those size ads were always the one that sneaks in sound even though I tell it not to and is usually the reason for malware problems. So giving that space to smaller webcomics advertising on Project Wonderful was a better bet.

Then the store is the final bit. I removed all the comixology listing cause there are 50 Sorcery 101 chapters on comixology and they were clutering up the store with something you can’t actually get from my website. So there is now a general Comixology ad to the side. I also put a gumroad ad to the sidebar too because the one thing my store can’t do is pay what you want. That means my dreaden files sketch book and any future art pdf’s I make can’t be in the store proper.

Over all I’m happy with this and it seems to suit the transition I’m making from Sorcery 101 to different work in the future. Even a year later I’m digging it, especially the comic shelf.