How To Make a Profit Tabling At Comic Cons
Convention season has officially begun! We give you the lowdown for how to actually make a profit at comic cons!
Hello Lifeline Comics readers!
With Convention Season starting up again, we wanted to take a moment to share some of our advice and recommendations for making a splash (and a profit) at Cons!
We’ll also reveal our next set of Enamel Pins, beg you ask you to help us get a Ringo Nomination, share our Con Schedule for 2024, and talk about Hazbin Hotel, the Nickelodeon Documentary, and Love Lies Bleeding.
Let’s get into it!
Help us get a Ringo Nomination!
The Ringo Awards are like the Golden Globes of comic books, and one of the biggest awards in our industry. To get on the ballot, we need a lot of people to nominate us.
This would be a HUGE step in our comic book career! We’d appreciate if you could spread the love and nominate a few of our titles.
Announcing: LGBTQ+ Fox & Wolf Pins!
Because you demanded it, we are making more Fox and Wolf enamel pins with the colors of a variety of LGBTQ flags, including: Pansexual, Lesbian, Nonbinary, Bisexual, and Asexual - with the already produced Gay and Trans foxes rounding out the set!
The Kickstarter goes LIVE April 1st! Be sure to follow the pre-launch page so you don’t miss out on the campaign.
Ending in One Week: “Slice of Life”
The Kickstarter for our 236-page graphic novel collection of “Slice of Life” Season One ends one week from today! Don’t miss out on this long-running tale of an anime character coming to life and falling in love with a closeted cheerleader!
We’ve already unlocked some really cool Stretch Goals, including an Avatar: the Last Airbender-inspired art print that features Yuriko & Lucy as benders!
We have other cool prints available through out initiatives, so don’t miss out!
How to Make Money at Cons
Now on to the main topic of this newsletter: making money at Conventions!
Cons are the lifeblood of comics. They’re places to meet new fans, interact with existing fans and fellow creators, and spend all of your hard-earned money on awesome comics and merch!
We’ve talked to a lot of creators who never look at conventions as profitable ventures. And while profit isn’t always the most important aspect of tabling at events, we’ve had the fortune of turning a profit at almost every convention we attended in 2023 and 2024.
So we wanted to take a minute to talk about our experience and some of the tools we use to make every Con as successful as possible!
And if you’re looking for even more discourse we touch upon the broad strokes of making money through different revenue streams here.
Look and Act Professional
When you’re roaming the aisles of artist alley, what’s the first thing you notice about a booth? What convinces you to stop by and make a purchase? Presentation! It’s the beautiful artwork and the way that artwork is displayed.
As writers, one of the biggest game changers was investing in a comic rack. It was about $100 on Amazon, and worth every penny. Have a killer display! It’s worth the investment.
We have a pretty large library so we’re able to showcase our wide range of genres and titles, but you can do the same if you have multiple issues of a series and/or variant covers. One of the most common compliments we receive are “wow, you really have it all” or “your set up is so colorful”. The rack is key to conveying this message!
Okay, so now you have potential customers at the table, how do you continue to capture their attention? Be bright, be friendly, and get to the point. Your elevator pitch will make or break a sale. Make sure you have a concise version.
What makes your book different than any other comic in artist alley? Make sure you stand out from the crowd. Figure out what makes your product unique.
Example: I have a superhero book Like Father, Like Daughter that I could pitch 1 of 2 ways:
Less intriguing pitch: “She’s a superhero that goes to school and deals with high school and family problems.”
This sounds similar to a lot of other indie books on the market. You could probably find 5 other people with the same premise in your artist alley aisle alone. What makes this different than any other superhero book?
Better pitch: “Like Father, Like Daughter is about a teenage girl whose father leaves her to be a full-time superhero. Now she must decide what to do with the very powers that made him leave.”
This shows a new angle to the superhero genre. It’s something familiar with a Kat Calamia twist. Find your twist!
Keep Robust Accounting
Like with any comic (or business) venture, you should create a budget for the events that you attend.
Be aware of all of your costs, which may include the cost of the table, cost of travel (gas? plane? rideshare? public transit?), cost of your product, and even cost of food you eat at the con. Even if you don’t include all of these metrics in evaluating your success at a Con, you should be aware of each expenditure and keep documentation of it for future reference.
You should also track product sales at a given event. This is especially relevant if you print on demand and/or if you did not cover the entire cost of your print run via Kickstarter or other distribution models. Knowing how many books to produce for or bring to an event is a key metric. Every event has its own identity. But knowing what your best-sellers are will help you make informed decisions when attending the same or different events in the future.
At the end of the year, we always put together a summary report of every event we attend. This helps us get a sense of which events were the most profitable, most costly, produced the highest Revenue, etc.
While not every Convention has a strict profit motive (more on that below), having this detailed summary information at our fingertips is key to us in determining our slate for the following years.
Variety in Your Product
When we first started selling at Cons, we only had three comics: Like Father, Like Daughter, HAUNTING, and The Dancer. This is natural, as it takes time to build up a library of other comics and products.
But in just a few years, we’ve significantly expanded our offering to include over ten different comic series, plush dolls, mystery boxes, enamel pins, stickers, and more!
Offering a variety of products has been instrumental in seeing growth in our Con revenues and profits over the years. Not every potential customer is interested in a particular comic genre - or even in comics in general. Offering other items opened up an entire new market for us and significantly leveled up our convention performance.
Pay attention to what is working for your neighbors when tabling at conventions. Always ask yourself how you can expand your offering to appeal to even more potential buyers. And always be willing to experiment with new genres or products. Even items that aren’t always best-sellers (like our plush doll) can be big eye-catchers that get people to look at the other products on your table.
Graphic Novels are your Friends
Tying into the previous point, one of the best ways to improve your Con game is to build towards graphic novel collections.
While floppies can and do sell, graphic novels are a huge help towards increasing your revenue and profits at conventions. On top of (usually) having cheaper margins, graphic novels (from our experience) are better-selling products. For whatever reason, it’s often easier to convince someone to drop $20 on a graphic novel than it is to convince them to drop the same $20 on four single issues.
HAUNTING’s convention sales more than quadrupled from 2022 to 2023 after the introduction of our graphic novel - even selling at the same events both years. And similarly, our Bi Visibility: Still Bi graphic novel makes for a much bigger slice of our con profits than our floppy first one.
Find your Niche
Comic Cons are great, but they aren’t the only events to make money. We’re lucky to have a wide range of books so our titles fit in a variety of places. We have a lot off all-ages queer titles. So some of our personal favorite events are education conferences (which haven’t had any table fees), and prides (I mean look at how many are on our schedule this year).
This year we’ll be exploring even more niches outside of comics including a horror convention and hopefully tabling at a few anime conventions. At comic con, you’re just another comic in the crowd. But at other niche events, you can be the only comic table and truly stand out. It’s a great way to find a fresh audience, and welcome new fans into our comic book bubble.
Plot Twist: Not All Cons Are About Making a Profit
We’ve talked a lot about making money at cons. But here’s the twist: it’s not always about the money.
Every year we want to up our game as creators. We like to look at every angle, and ask ourselves, “How can we do that better?” And one of the big revelations we had this year is that we don’t need to make a profit at every comic con to make an event worth it.
Making money shouldn’t be your sole focus at conventions. Don’t just think about the quick sale, but instead the lasting connections. Comic con is a great place to meet online fans - to match the face with a name you’ve known from Twitter for years. It’s about meeting new fans that you’ll look forward to seeing at the next con.
Take the time to step away from your table to support other creators and make real connections with your peers. Comic Cons are meant to be interactive so don’t forget the social part. Join a panel, grab dinner with a friend - find where you fit in at cons.
We’ve spent several years “roughing” it at conventions to meet certain profit goals, but this year we cherry picked a few cons where we’ll treat ourselves. Even if that means spending an extra night in a hotel before an event so we’re not completely dead by the end of the weekend. These small changes can really help allow you be on your A-game during a convention and put your best foot forward.
Upcoming Conventions/Events
And here’s our personal line up for Spring-Summer 2024! (Some more may be added as the year progresses)
March 29th - Trans Day of Visibility (Newark, NJ)
April 19th-21st - New Jersey Horror Con and Film Festival (Edison, NJ)
April 28th - A Big Gay Market (Washington Park in Albany on Knox Street Mall)
May 3rd-5th - Fan Expo Philadelphia
May 11th - New Dorp Comic Con (Staten Island, New York)
June 2nd - Jersey Pride (Asbury Park)
June 2nd - Philly Pride (Philadelphia)
June 9th - World Pride Washington DC
June 15th - Providence Pride (Rhode Island)
June 22nd - West Hartford Pride (Connecticut)
June 29th - Harlem Pride (New York)
June 30th - New York City Pride
July 12th-14th - Florida Super Con (SPECIAL GUESTS) (Miami)
July 25th-28th - San Diego Comic Con (Not Tabling)
Indie Creator Comic Con Experience
Speaking of conventions, we were invited as guests to the first Indie Creator Comic Con, and we had a blast!
Matthew Sardo put on a wonderful show. The attention to detail was immense. The creators were treated like kings. WE EVEN GOT FREE PIZZA! The show was extremely well-organized for both creators and attendees a like.
It was a true comic show, which are becoming rarer to find these days. There was a mix of first-time vendors and comic con veterans, which made for a diverse and fun room. We even had a chance to shop a little ourselves!
If you like indie comics do yourself a favor and make a stop to this new fan favorite convention!
Media
And let’s discuss some non-comics media!
Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV
Kat: A few years back, Twitter took a deep dive into Dan Schneider’s disgusting behaviors with YouTube commentators creating hours of footage dissecting the disturbing content that kids were digesting and child stars were enduring. It showed the true power of internet journalism, and now ID is telling a full-blown expose of Schneider’s “Kid Hollywood”.
Quiet on Set is a tight journalistic piece that explores the untold narrative of Nickelodeon’s dark history from an array of sources that range from entertainment journalists, crew, and the child stars affected by Schneider and his hires. There are plenty of heartbreaking moments that the piece takes its time to dissect, especially the juxtaposition between Drake Bell and his father recounting the heaviest of bombshells. If you’re looking for a well-researched journalistic narrative, I can’t recommend this documentary enough.
Hazbin Hotel
Charlie Morningstar, the daughter of Lucifer and Princess of Hell, creates a hotel in an attempt to rehabilitate sinners and get them into Heaven in this animated adult comedy.
Phil: I really didn’t think this show would be for me. I actually stopped watching midway through the first episode because it seemed like it wasn’t my type of comedy. But at the prodding of my partner, I went back and finished the show and was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it.
I was most surprised by the sincerity of Hazbin Hotel. At first glance, it looks like it could be your standard adult comedy fair, leaning on the “shock value” of crude and violent humor. But the series has an earnestness and vulnerability that I found very compelling. Watching the first episode, I never would have expected a beautiful ballot like More Than Anything. But Hazbin caught me off guard and made me really feel for the characters and their relationships.
Unlike a lot of adult comedy, the series isn’t afraid to get serious and give its character moments the space to breathe and land. There’s no pressure to cut the tension of a serious beat with a joke, and I really appreciated that.
There are A LOT of characters in Hazbin Hotel. Sometimes, it even feels like too many. But at least our main cast all get some really great stand-out moments. Angel and Husk have very compelling arcs. Alastor always remains enigmatic but engaging. And the Sapphic relationship between our leads, Charlie and Vaggie, is really sweet.
Speaking of the music, it’s pretty great. I appreciate the varied types and genres of songs. It feels like a Broadway musical - a great one that really tries to experiment with its sound and not make every song sound the same. I’ve been listening to the soundtrack pretty regularly since I finished the show, and I expect I will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
Hazbin Hotel isn’t a perfect show, but it definitely gets better as it goes on. I would’ve liked to see more of the actual redemption effort at the hotel. We see Angel (and other characters) develop and improve via their own stories and plotlines. But not much of Charlie’s actual efforts/exercises at the hotel to redeem her guests. I believed that Angel (and to a lesser extent, Sir Pentious) improved enough to maybe get into Heaven, but not necessarily because of anything Charlie specifically taught him at the hotel.
Hazbin Hotel was a surprise hit for me. I’m very excited to see where they take things in season two. And I liked the series enough that I’m currently making my way through spin-off series Helluva Boss.
Love Lies Bleeding
“Reclusive gym manager Lou (Kristen Stewart) falls hard for Jackie (Katy O'Brian), an ambitious bodybuilder headed through town to Vegas in pursuit of her dream. But their love ignites violence, pulling them deep into the web of Lou's criminal family.”
Phil: We went into this movie with no knowledge of what it was about and zero expectations. We just really wanted to see a movie. And I’m glad we did, because Love Lies Bleeding was a really unique viewing experience that I don’t know I would’ve gotten to see otherwise.
For starters, it features a romance we don’t get to see often enough in (widely released) film. Not only a Sapphic romance, but one between two not overly femme women. But while the romance itself is solid, what really won me over to this movie is Kristen Stewart’s Lou. She really carries the entire movie for me, with both the writing and Stewart’s performance bringing such a rich and complex history to the character that you can feel anytime she’s on screen with another character.
While I wouldn’t call the first act “slow”, things definitely pick up in the second act when the movie takes on more of a thriller tone. It’s here where I felt like Love Lies Bleeding was firing on all cylinders - intrigue, theme (particularly its framing of “love” as an addiction), character, and visuals.
The movie takes some big swings in the third arc (at least one of which I don’t necessarily think worked). But I really love that Love Lies Bleeding is a movie you can talk about and analyze. It’s been far too long since we’ve gotten a movie that warrants some analysis. And while it’s not that high of an honor since 2024 has been pretty weak in the movie department so far, Love Lies Bleeding has taken my top spot of the year for the moment. We’ll see how long it can keep it!
Comics
Let's discuss some comics we've enjoyed recently!
As always, we'll spotlight a Direct Market Indie Book, a DC or Marvel book, a Kickstarter book, and a Webcomic!
Indie Comic: The Infernals
Kat: I’ve been a huge fan of Ryan Parrott’s writing since his run on Go Go Power Rangers. He’s a master at allowing world building to inform character work. The Infernals is no exception.
I’m not usually a fan of demon mythological stories, but Infernals grounds itself with the very concept of the son of Satan’s death. How does family affect legacy? How will this dictate Satan’s grandkids’ own path? The first issue pulled me in with this new spin on a familiar tone. If you enjoy comics like Sandman, then The Infernals is one to pick up.
DC Comics: Amazons Attack!
Kat: Good tie-ins can be hard to come by! How much do they need to tie into the main story without sacrificing the book’s own identity? Amazons Attack strikes the perfect balance with beautifully crisp art by Vasco Georgiev.
The book is influenced by the events of the current Wonder Woman flagship title, while taking different Amazons on their own adventure (with Mary Marvel also thrown into the mix). If you enjoyed Josie Campbell’s Shazam mini-series this is a great predecessor.
Webcomic: The Little Trashmaid
“Short comedic strips about a naive little Trashmaid adapting to her garbage-filled environment.”
Phil: A very popular and very cute webcomic that started over five years ago and is still going strong. Mostly silent shorts following the life of a young mermaid navigating a trash-filled ocean with wonder and excitement. Always creative visually and super cute, it’s hard not to smile while reading this comic.
While our lead Trashmaid is super fun by herself, the comic also builds up a loveable cast of characters throughout its run that are all lots of fun to follow.
It’s a fun comic with a good message - seeking to spread awareness and fight against ocean pollution. The team behind the comic even directly helps to clean the oceans with their products by donating much of their proceeds to charities actively putting an end to ocean pollution.
Kickstarter: MARY SHELLEY'S SCHOOL FOR MONSTERS: ORIGINS 2 Comic
“The monster crew journeys to the Arctic and Japan to confront villains from their past. Prepare for brand new monsters and magic!”
Phil: Wicked Tree Press and Jessica Maison are back for a Kickstarter- and Comic Con-Exclusive comic set 150 years before Shel and Frank founded their School for Monsters. If you’re a fan of globe-trotting adventures and creative monster stories (featuring everything from cuddly to horrific), then this is sure to be an exciting comic series for you!
And HAUNTING fans can see amazing art in this book from Anna Wieszczyk - who you may recall as the artist for the first four issues of HAUNTING!
Check out Mary Shelley’s School For Monsters: Origins #2 here!
In Closing
Thanks, as always, for reading our newsletter!
Be sure to check out “Slice of Life” Season 1 before the campaign ends this Thursday and to follow the Pre-launch Page for LGBTQ+ Fox & Wolf Enamel Pins!
And if you’re not already subscribed, now’s your chance! Don’t miss out on future updates!
We’ll have more news for our next EverAfterVerse book, The Witches of Oz, in our next newsletter, so stay tuned for that!
Current Kickstarter: “Slice of Life” Season 1 (Ending 3/28)
Next Kickstarter: LGBTQ+ Fox & Wolf Enamel Pins (Launching 4/01)
Next Convention/Event: Trans Day of Visibility (3/29 - Newark, NJ)