Selling at GHC Cincinnati, Year 2: How It Went & What We Learned
[Edited to add Part 2 on 4-15-24]:
In my haste to get the write up finished as we traveled, I missed a few important takeaways I learned about the wheel, the transactions, and the pitch. I hope they’re helpful! 🙂
About the prize wheel:
This is the one I got. It cost more than I wanted, but I liked that it could stand on the floor or a table and that it was dry erase. It worked great and should last a long time.
A larger wheel (like my link above) helps get kids’ attention from a long distance away, compared to some of the smaller options available on Amazon.
Cannot emphasize how important I felt the wheel was to our overall sales. So many kids came, engaged with me, and my husband pitched the parents during this time. I mentioned that in my original report, but I wanted to highlight it here.
My primary goal with the wheel was to bless the kids with a few minutes’ diversion, not as a tool to make sales. This is a subtle but important difference, I think. Most of them were so bored being at an event for adults. They were desperate for something fun designed for them. Regardless whether their parents bought a book, I wanted to give the kids a good experience, even if only for a few minutes. With that in mind, I gave a lot of time per kid and had some really nice prizes that did cost some money:
Actual chocolate candy, not cheap grandma-candy nobody likes (lol)
Real, printed books written by other middle grade Christian authors! I paid shipping, the authors donated the cost of the book. I tucked flyers inside their books and talked the authors up to parents. This was very well received!!
Lots of choices with my character stickers, character bookmarks, and character coloring page choices. These items were great conversation starters as the kid and I worked together to select their prize. (“Do you like cats or dogs better?” “Are you science kid, a sports kid, or an art kid?”) Of course, the materials also related to my characters, so it gave me a chance to make a personal connection between that kid and that character. I did have a few kids who asked their parents to buy the book that their character came from.
About the transactions:
We used Square to read credit cards and also had a cash box.
I use Shopify for my direct store and would have strongly preferred to use their POS solution. However, they don’t currently support bundles in POS. (WHY?!?)
That said, I’ve been using Square as my POS solution for years and it is so simple and clean.
Maybe 80% of our sales were credit card, 20% cash.
About the pitching:
If we’re pitching to an adult, I find they don’t really care about the plot. They want to know (usually in this order) 1) what age it’s for; 2) what type of content will or won’t be in it; 3) if you’re any good and/or if it will hold their kid’s interest.
If we’re pitching to a kid, I find they do want to know what the book is about (the typical plot-based pitch), but what they really want to know is “What will this book do for me? Will it make me laugh, keep me on the edge of my seat, make me feel like I’ve made a new friend, etc.”
I mentioned this below, but I’ll unpack it more: I recommend being bold about the values in your book. If you don’t have LGBT content, say so. If you don’t have swearing, say so. If you do or don’t have <insert hot topic here>, say it. You’re not picking a fight, you’re being honest with potential customers and protecting their time.
Hi, everyone!
We are traveling home from Cincinnati, Ohio where we sold books at this city’s 2024 occurrence of Great Homeschool Conventions.
Last year, I wrote a summary of what we did, how much it cost, and how much we earned. I thought it might be helpful to post a summary of this year’s performance for comparison.
Context
I write funny Christian mysteries and funny Christian superhero novels for kids ages 7-13.
We brought seven titles in the same fictional universe (split across two series). ~50 units of each title.
I’m a second-generation homeschooler. (Not a requirement, but helps our credibility. I did have customers ask.)
I use “we” and “us” throughout the summary because my husband participated in everything as a full partner! 😁 ❤️
What the Event Looked Like
Thursday
We arrived at our hotel on Wednesday PM so we could sleep well and get right to work in the morning.
We had three-quarters of the day to transport cargo, set up the table, and eat/rest before the evening selling hours.
It took us less than an hour to set up. We’ve sold at many in-person events, so the experience helps things move quickly.
Exhibit hall opened for shopping from 5-8:30 pm.
We were immediately swarmed by families who were first-time customers last year. They saw us on the exhibitor list and came for the newest book(s). It was so great!
After the surge of returning customers, we mostly handed out information and pitched to new potential customers. Most people were gathering information tonight and planning to make their purchases tomorrow.
Friday
I gave a talk on writing mysteries for tweens and teens from 8:30-9:30 am.
I didn’t count exactly, but there were at least four families who visited our booth and purchased because they had attended my talk.
Exhibit hall was open to customers from 9:30 am to 8:30 pm. Exhibitors are expected to staff their booths at all times, so this really is a two-person job.
We sold steadily throughout the day. Some returning customers from last year who hadn’t visited us yet, lots of new customers, lots of people who visited TH PM or earlier in the day.
Note: Many customers were shopping for their children but didn’t have their children with them at the conference. They took our information TH PM or Friday AM, then showed their children at night in the hotel or during lunch that day. They returned after lunch on Friday to purchase.
Also, at least three moms bought from us on Friday because their hotel roommates had bought from us on TH, and after seeing the books, they wanted some too.
This is the long day and your feet will HURT!
Saturday
Sold from 9:30 am to 5:30 pm.
You have from 5:30 to midnight to break down. We were done packing up in less than an hour.
What It Costs Us to Attend
$800 in hotel
$100 in gas
$600 for the booth
We don’t count food. We treat this like the “vacation” part of our working vacation and go to fun places because we want to and we’re not staying on a budget.
How Much We Made
Just under $2,000!
It was enough to pay for everything (minus food, see note above) and bring a little bit home.
This was a HUGE improvement compared to our first year, which was ~$300-something if memory serves.
Things We Did Differently This Time
I spoke
We bought a vertical banner to increase visibility =
$325 in design fees from my graphic artist
~$140 in production
We had business cards + a flyer with our pricing
We had a prize wheel to attract kids
We brought rubber mats to save our feet
Conclusions & Takeways
For the love of everything, buy yourself a rubber mat.
Experienced vendors said that sales get better the longer you consistently appear in a location. Comparing Year 1 with Year 2, that definitely proved true for us.
Some homeschoolers bought a single book, but many bought the entire 7-book set. Including customers who had never read anything by us. Having multiple related books to sell is strongly preferable to only having one.
More than one family bought our entire set based on nothing other than 1) the strength of our pitch (no LGBT, swearing, crass humor, or graphic violence); and 2) the quality of our art. One mom literally said, “You look legit, so I will assume you are legit” and handed us a $70. Power Pup art for a single book costs me $800, but I see again and again that quality art is an investment you MUST be willing to pay for in certain genres (i.e. kidlit) if you want to catch people’s eye.
Flyers, flyer, flyers!!! Last year we had NO PHYSICAL OBJECT for people to take while they considered purchasing. You must have business cards and preferably flyers with your prices/convention booth number so that people can find you again. Most are investigating the offerings first, then buying later.
The first audiobook/ebook in both of my series is permafree on my website. When a family had heard the whole pitch, liked what they saw, but weren’t ready to buy, I offered the free audiobook as a risk-free way to try us. They were so grateful and I know from my overall customer follow-through numbers, many people who try our free stuff come back for the paid.
The prize wheel was huge! I interacted with the kids while my husband pitched our books to the waiting parents. I gave away character stickers, character bookmarks, candy, character coloring pages, and free read-alike books that were donated by similar authors. (I paid shipping.) Every prize had some choices, which gave me a chance to tell the kids a tiny bit about one of our characters and keep them there a little longer while my husband pitched the parents. :)
Note: I was amazed how popular the die cut stickers were. Even teenagers wanted them. Again, I believe this is because of the quality of the art. Everyone thought they were so cute.
Also, more anecdotally:
I had returning readers who were delighted to see me and asked to take a picture with me. (Squee!) Many parents thanked us for keeping junk out of the books and giving them quality options that their kids liked. We also got lots of positive remarks about our oversized font, the shortness of the books, again the quality of the art, and the fact that there was a biblical worldview without it being a sermon in disguise.
It was such an amazing, gratifying experience to see that our product is serving families well and that our work matters.
Hope this write-up was helpful. If you have questions, just let me know!