How to sell e-books at events

I’ve been thinking a lot about ebooks lately, and how it impacts the convention experience.

The problem: If you sell ebooks, how do you sell them at in-person events?

We sell physical books (we have 5) but I’m certainly not a big-time book seller. We’re probably more of a “design merchandiser” than a straight-up publisher; we illustrate our products and sell that illustration as merch.

Part of the magic of going to a convention is to meet creators, have a little time connecting with them, and perhaps buying a book/print and having them sign it. If one is just selling ebooks, there’s not so much to sell in-person at the show.

First of all, if you’re selling your books solely as ebooks, you’ve limited your ability to profit directly from the event itself.

Sure, you could go and have some POD books made, but they’re crazy expensive, and you’re not going to make much of a profit on your sale. I’m trying to convince other creators that making a profit at a comic convention isn’t just a privilege, it’s a MUST, I’m not going suggest that approach right now; the margins aren’t there yet.

More vital though, is the connection. People really like take-aways, they like to maybe  get a photo with you, grab a freebie, or maybe even a signature on a book that they’ve bought. They want to connect with you, their favorite creator.

With ebooks, that autograph part is pretty much non-existant.

A possible solution

I’ve been talking to one of my pals, Ovi Demetrian, who runs an ebook store called IndieAisle. Basically, he sells ebooks, helps people discover new stories, and he offers a book formatting service to make them into proper ebook formats. (It’s pretty cool.)

Ovi was going to be exhibiting at a local comic convention (the fairly great Phoenix Comicon) with the sole purpose of simply getting his brand out there, and finding new fans. I suggested that it’s always a better idea to make a profit, I suggested the following idea:

What if you sold access to your book, at the convention? No, not just an open laptop where they could order it online. Something more tangible.

Why not make an exclusive print/postcard or such, and put a unique download code on the card itself?

The fan would have a cool takeaway that could be signed (like a book) and the creator could have something on the table to sell.

Also, if the print were really cool, you could likely charge a premium for that too! (Getting paid for both the download and the print.)

The fan could go online after the con to redeem the book, making yet another connection to your brand.

We tried it, but it didn’t work so well… yet.

The biggest problem is that we run a full booth (10×20 in this case) and these little postcard prints were lost in the visual hurricane of both the convention and our offerings. Nobody saw them.

I remain convinced that it could work though, especially if one emphasized this as an offering. Also, if the practice itself was more widespread, it could maybe even catch on.

Other enhancements that might just work:

• Do more than just duplicate the cover of the book; it needs to be something more special then that. (Unless your cover is ass-kicking… James Jean perhaps?)
• Make the print a convention exclusive – offer folks a reason to stop by and buy your book NOW!
• If you’re doing straight up literary fiction, have a few different scenes/characters in your book illustrated to generate the prints.
• Offer a lot of books like this on your table. Cover your table with the mini-prints or postcards so that they can’t be missed.

Surely not the only answer