Sunday, 13 October 2024

October Book Sales - live & online

Above: My table at Tetbury Goods Shed for a small but pleasant Tetbury Comic Con.

Live events / classes et al - £1952.69 (see below)
Etsy - £22.17
Lulu (Amazon) - £15.77
D2D - $8
Blurb - £2

D2D October sales - $8 (6 books)

A big drop from September's $70 from selling 45 Sweet Smell Of Sockcesses, all on pre-sale. This month that books sold 0 copies, as did Who Notes (which back in July sold 19 copies, in a month where everything sold at least one copy. What's happpened since then?)

4 x Richard The Third
2 x Midsummer Night's Dream Team

Lulu/Amazon October sales - £15.77 (13 books)  (reported Sat Nov 9th)

Remembering this was the second half of the month-long Facebook ad experiment, I only sold 2 quid more than the previous month, suggesting those ads really do nothing.

3 x Royalty
2 x 80s Superstars
2 x Christmas Movies
2 x MNDT
1 x Tales From The Bible
1 x Book of Esther
1 x 60s Pop
1 x 70s Pop

Etsy October sales - £22.17 - 3 sales (inc postage)

2 x Punk
1 x Richard The Third

LIVE SALES at events and classes

NB The sales at schools and art centres are on top of my Comic Art Masterclasses, for which I’ve already been paid. The caricatures are something I do at live events to attract people to my table. 

October began quietly with two books sold after a Port Talbot class with only 3 pupils in, and 2 books bought by the library at Killarney Community College. So chalk up 4 Richard The Thirds there. Then the comic weekends begin...

Sat 12 Oct: Wrexham Comic Con - £353

26 x Caricature only - (on credit card alone, more on cash, not counted up)
8 x Richard The Third
8 x Colouring Books (2 xWho, 2 x Cult, Hollywood, Euro Vol 2, 60s, 90s)
3 x Space Elain
3 x Midsummer Night’s Dream Team
2 x Findlay Macbeth
1 x Prince Of Denmark Street
1 x Tales From Bible
1 x Who Notes
1 x Socks comic

Sun 13 Oct: Tetbury Comic Con - £188

14 x Caricature only (+ more cash)
10 x Richard The Third
5 x Space Elain
4 x Colouring Books (Who, Euro Vol 1, Scot Pop (sold out), Xmas Movies (sold out))
4 x MNDT
2 x Joseph & Ruth
1 x PODS
1 x FM

Mon 14 Oct: Cantref Primary Abergavenny - £105

15 x Richard The Third

Thurs 17 Oct: Allerton High, Leeds - £98

14 x Richard The Third

Sat 19 Oct: Cardiff Film & Comic Con - £395 (card and cash)

57 x Caricature only (+ more cash)
9 x Richard The Third
1 x Space Elain (sold out)
1 x Who Notes (sold out)
8 x Colouring Books (3 Who (sold out), 3 Cult TV, 1 Romcom (sold out), 1 60s)
2 x MNDT
1 x Joseph & Ruth
3 x PODS
2 x FM
7 x Socks Superheroes 
1 x Dr Strange 86

Sun 20 Oct: Cardiff day two - £340 (card and cash)

45 x Caricature only (+ more cash)
9 x Richard The Third
3 x Colouring Books (80s, 70s, Hollywood)
2 x Beano annual 2008 (sold out)
1 x Shakespeare Omnibus 
1 x Dr Strange 86
1 x Tales From Nambygate
3 x MNDT
3 x PODS
1 x FM (sold out)
1 x Nativity 

Thurs 24 Oct: West Bridgford & Beeston libraries - £101

7 x Richard The Third
3 x Space Elain
2 x MNDT
2 x FM
1 x PODS

Mon 28 Oct: Putney class - £70.93

4 x Richard The Third
3 x Space Elain
1 x Tales From Bible
1 x MNDT
1 x Joseph

Tues 29 Oct: Letchworth class - £69.95

5 x Richard The Third
1 x PODS
1 x FM
1 x MNDT
1 x Esther (sold out)
1 x Space Elain

Weds 30 Oct: Swansea libraries - £87.90

9 x Richard The Third
3 x MNDT
1 x Space Elain

Thurs 31 Oct: Maidenhead library - £143.91

9 x Richard The Third
2 x FM
2 x PODS
3 x MNDT
1 x Space Elain
1 x Joseph
1 x Omnibus (sold out)

(I am tempted to include Friday at Arts Depot Finchley and Saturday at Clevedon Lit Fest, because they're part of the same consecutive run. But they're November, so you'll find them elsewhere.)

Total Live Book Sales For October : £1952.69


103 x Richard The Third

22 x MNDT

18 x Space Elain

15 x Colouring Books

12 x PODS

11 x FM

8 x Socks Superheroes

5 x Joseph

2 x Omnibus

2 x Tales From Bible


And if we check out my table of Live Book Sales for 2024 so far, we see..



772 Richards sold this year, that's pretty damn good. Adding in the 113 copies it had sold by the end of 2023, that's 885 copies sold. If we call it £4 profit per book, then Richard has earned me just over three and a half grand since I published it a year ago. Okay, I know that works out at a page rate of £27 a page, so it's not like working for The Beano, but I know authors who are earning less than that. (Though I know a lot who are earning a lot more, obviously!)


And 96 Midsummer Nights Dream Teams is an interesting figure. Two factors might be helping that: the change of logo on the front page to the "Saturday Night Fever" version, which makes it more eye catching, and the fact that when I describe it to my classes (with families watching) I mention it's the book without stabbing and blood and death, so maybe more kids and parents feel safe buying it? Or maybe they prefer that play? Meanwhile Prince of Denmark Street may sell slightly less cos it doesn't say "Hamlet" on the cover?




My Books and where to get them:

Richard The Third - Amazon - Etsy - Barnes & Noble - Waterstones
Findlay Macbeth - Amazon  - Etsy 
Prince Of Denmark Street - Amazon - Etsy - Kindle
Midsummer Nights Dream Team  - Amazon - Etsy 
Shakespeare Omnibus Collection (all 3 books) - Paperback

Sweet Smell Of Sockcess - Putting A Show On At The Edinburgh Fringe - Amazon - ebook

Who Notes - Doctor Who Reviews - Amazon - Lulu - ebook
Space Elain - Amazon - Lulu - iBooks - Barnes & Noble 
Tales From The Bible - Amazon -  Etsy - Webtoons
The Book Of Esther - Lulu  - Amazon - Webtoons
Joseph, Ruth & Other Stories - Amazon
Captain Clevedon - Amazon
Tales Of Nambygate - Amazon  




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Friday, 11 October 2024

They're Eating The Dogs! They're Eating The Cats! - comics by kids


A week of comics by kids in schools in County Kerry, Ireland. Oh and also The Lake District and Port Talbot. Did I ever mention distance is no object?


The Lakes and Port Talbot. The first was a little one off class on the Saturday of the comic festival in Bowness, and the second was a one off morning class at Port Talbot library. Fun ones that you can forget you’ve done, cos they were part of a busy day. Anyone else remember Shakey Hands Man on Banzaii?


Killorglin day one. So I returned to County Kerry, for my third visit, and this time the good folk of Killorglin had me in for two whole days. Interestingly the Peppa on Steroids title came about without them having seen the identically named comic from last year. Oh no, it’s not another meme is it?


Killorglin day two. Memes are a constant thing with high school kids. The “Mama” one seems to be based on a tiny video clip that wouldn’t pass muster on You’ve Been Framed but which they all thought hilarious. 


Killarney was a revelation. I wasn’t expecting such a busy town full of American tourists and horse drawn buggies. Wish I’d had time to see more of it. As it was, two classes created two marvellous comics. Plus one of the pupils, Emma, who can draw better than me at their age, made me the star of their comic strip…


The celebrities seven of these eight groups chose to appear in my demonstration strip (I didn't make a note of who the short class at The Lakes chose) were Michael Jackson ( a rather disturbing three times), Ryan Reynolds, Adam Sandler, Osama Bin Laden, and The Weeknd.



My Books and where to get them:

Richard The Third - Amazon - Etsy - Barnes & Noble - Waterstones
Findlay Macbeth - Amazon  - Etsy 
Prince Of Denmark Street - Amazon - Etsy - Kindle
Midsummer Nights Dream Team  - Amazon - Etsy 
Shakespeare Omnibus Collection (all 3 books) - Paperback

Sweet Smell Of Sockcess - Putting A Show On At The Edinburgh Fringe - Amazon - ebook

Who Notes - Doctor Who Reviews - Amazon - Lulu - ebook
Space Elain - Amazon - Lulu - iBooks - Barnes & Noble 
Tales From The Bible - Amazon -  Etsy - Webtoons
The Book Of Esther - Lulu  - Amazon - Webtoons
Joseph, Ruth & Other Stories - Amazon
Captain Clevedon - Amazon
Tales Of Nambygate - Amazon  


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Monday, 7 October 2024

Grampa The Burp Guy - A month's comics by kids


Thanks to September being a particularly quiet month for Comic Art Masterclasses, this montage takes in comics drawn by me, from ideas from kids, ranging from St Ives Library in August to Chiswick Book Festival in September, and schools in Cardiff and The Isle Of Wight in October.


St Ives in August seems such a long time ago, and here are the kids comics looking as fresh as a daisy. Luckily this year I'd done the class on a fixed fee rather than a doorsplit, as we weren't very well attended. Somehow we'd managed to book the classes on a day which wasn't part of the Book Festival, as had been planned, so it hadn't really been publicised. These things can be harder than you think.


Chiswick Book Festival, by contrast, was a pair of classes that I'd agreed to do on a doorsplit, and this time it worked very much in my favour as, somehow, the word hadn't got through that my class is limited to 30 participants. The afternoon had 45 booked in it! I got away with it, and had the bonus that not only did I get a greater doorsplit than if numbers had been as low as I can normally handle, but also that amount of parents of that amount of kids meant I signed and sold loads of books at the end. As you can see here, I sold five quid's worth more books in two short bursts after these classes than I did in a whole day at The Lakes Festival later that month. And that's 5 times as many as I sold in a whole day at TBC in Bedford. Selling books to parents after public classes is my best market at the moment.


My first actual classes in an actual school since the end of the last school year didn't take place till Herbert Thompson Primary in Cardiff had me in at the start of October. And what a smashing pair of comics they dreamed up.


To round off this batch of comics we have a pair from the Isle Of Wight, where I was brought over courtesy of the IOW Literary Festival. The festival paid for the classes and paid the extra for the ferry as well, which was marvellous, because otherwise these classes would have been prohibitively expensive. It's great to be able to reach schools who might otherwise not be able to afford a visiting author/artist like my humble self. That said, we suffered a bit of communication breakdown. My morning school was in Sandown, which was a 40 minute drive from my afternoon school. But the message hadn't got to the morning school that they needed to leave me time to get to the next place. So I turn up at 8.30 ready to start, only to find that they've scheduled my class to start at 10, so it doesn't finish till 12.20. So it's a bit of a rush to get to my afternoon school in Ryde.

The afternoon school suffered an even worse communication cock up, for which I have to responsibility because i accidentally agreed to it in an email, not realising what I was agreeing to. They wanted two 1hour sessions. I explained my workshop takes two hours, so couldn't I do that instead? We agree on that. And what I don't realise that I've agreed to teach both classes at once. So I arrive, late, in the hall instead of a classroom, and there's 60 kids waiting for me to try and be heard. I give it a go. Then, worse, I see more kids are joining the group, but I have to rattle on without time to question it all.

By the time I'm halfway through the class, struggling to be heard over the brouhaha, I discover that, as well as the Year 3 and Year 4 I'd (accidentally) agreed to teach, someone's brought in a bloody Year 5 group as well. It's impossible and unmanageable and, by the end, I feel has made me come across as some kind of bad supply teacher who can't deliver a comic art workshop to 90 kids, rather than the education-and-entertainment genius that I usually give the impression of being. It also takes over half an hour on the photocopier at the end cos I have to produce a different version of the comic for each one of the three classes that had been bundled in there.

So, the reminder to myself is: read your emails properly and make sure you never agree to teach a class bigger than the manageable number of 30. Unless it's a book festival class where you're on a doorsplit, and the parents are there watching and waiting to buy heaps of your books afterwards!


The celebrities these eight groups chose to appear in my demonstration strip were Michael Jackson, Jackie Chan, Merlin (yes, the magician), David Attenborough, Ronaldo, Billie Eilish, Mr Beast, and Kendrick Lamar.



My Books and where to get them:

Richard The Third - Amazon - Etsy - Barnes & Noble - Waterstones
Findlay Macbeth - Amazon  - Etsy 
Prince Of Denmark Street - Amazon - Etsy - Kindle
Midsummer Nights Dream Team  - Amazon - Etsy 
Shakespeare Omnibus Collection (all 3 books) - Paperback

Sweet Smell Of Sockcess - Putting A Show On At The Edinburgh Fringe - Amazon - ebook

Who Notes - Doctor Who Reviews - Amazon - Lulu - ebook
Space Elain - Amazon - Lulu - iBooks - Barnes & Noble 
Tales From The Bible - Amazon -  Etsy - Webtoons
The Book Of Esther - Lulu  - Amazon - Webtoons
Joseph, Ruth & Other Stories - Amazon
Captain Clevedon - Amazon
Tales Of Nambygate - Amazon  



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Tuesday, 1 October 2024

September Book Sales


(Above, my table at the Lakes. Not as wide as two banners. Yes, I know. I managed)


September's Kev F Book Sales

Live events / classes et al - £638.41 (full breakdown here)
D2D - $70.40
Etsy - £39.94
Lulu (Amazon) - £13.26
Blurb - £0
eBay - £477 (but this doesn't count as it's not my books)


D2D September sales - $70.40 (57 books)

Sweet Smell Of Sockcess is the runaway, er, sockcess with 45 sales, almost all on pre-release. Who Notes, Elain and Esther have all however disappeared without trace, Richard sold 10, MNDT 3 and Joseph 1. (And I know that adds up to 59 books. The chart total vary on different pages).

Lulu/Amazon September sales - £13.26 (reported Weds Oct 9th)

Despite a Facebook advertising campaign, aimed at plugging colouring books but directing people to my website, I only took a quid more than the previous month.

3 x Tales From The Bible, PODS 
2 x Royalty Colouring 
1 x Captain Clevedon, Christmas Movies, Eurovision Vol 2, 60s Pop, 70s Pop 

Etsy September sales - £39.94 - 5 sales (inc postage)

2 Digital Richard The Thirds
1 x Who Colouring, Eurovision Vol 2, 1960s

Blurb - probably £0 again

5 units sold it says, but as always is opaque about what, and for how much.

Flogging shit on eBay - £477

It's not my books, so it doesn't count, but in what has otherwise been a very quiet month, I've kept things ticking over with such items as:

Gladiators signed front cover proof £230
Gladiators souvenir magazines £31
Transformers comic No 10 £25
Transformers comic No 45 £15.30
Gladiators Comic No2 £15
Viz No 26 £10.99
Judge Dredd Role Playing Game £9.99
Monsters Of Rock programme £9.22
 - and sundry other magazine for a fiver or less



My Books and where to get them:

Richard The Third - Amazon - Etsy - Barnes & Noble - Waterstones
Findlay Macbeth - Amazon  - Etsy 
Prince Of Denmark Street - Amazon - Etsy - Kindle
Midsummer Nights Dream Team  - Amazon - Etsy 
Shakespeare Omnibus Collection (all 3 books) - Paperback

Sweet Smell Of Sockcess - Putting A Show On At The Edinburgh Fringe - Amazon - ebook

Who Notes - Doctor Who Reviews - Amazon - Lulu - ebook
Space Elain - Amazon - Lulu - iBooks - Barnes & Noble 
Tales From The Bible - Amazon -  Etsy - Webtoons
The Book Of Esther - Lulu  - Amazon - Webtoons
Joseph, Ruth & Other Stories - Amazon
Captain Clevedon - Amazon
Tales Of Nambygate - Amazon  





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Monday, 30 September 2024

On The Lakes


I had a really enjoyable weekend at The Lakes Comic Festival, and it was another very interesting and ambitious event, as has been its way since the start. The Lakes is the event that gets Arts Council funding, and this year's major endeavour, to put itself a cut above the contenders, was The Rights Market.

The Rights Market had been planned some time in advance, and involved a number of international publishers coming over for two days of meetings with UK publishers (and, in my and a few other instances, self-publishers) to discuss publishing our work in their territories. At the last Zoom meeting that was held in preparation, I and a couple of other publishers discovered that we'd not received an email telling us how to book our meetings. So it was that, having shorter notice than most, while some were meeting as many as a dozen publishers, I only had meetings with four.

In order to make these meetings I travelled up on Thursday night and stayed over. Then my four meetings, about which I was quite nervous, were with a French publisher Nathan, Scholastic USA, VigeVage from Slovenia (all on the Friday), and WSOY from Finland on the Saturday. Three showed some interest and asked me to send PDFs of my books. So who knows where that will lead? I won't get my hopes up. I left them with these sheets explaining what we'd been talking about...



With Friday's meetings concluded, I had no other commitments, so after I'd spent some hours remaking PDFs to send to my prospective clients (listen to me, they tolerated me for fifteen minutes each and I'll probably never see them again in my life) I checked out the art exhibitions at the Jetty Museum (a bit of Doctor Who and some visiting Palestinian artists) then took it easy until the evening event, which was a light hearted debate about who is the best Avenger. The winner was Speedball. No, me neither. This was followed by a showing of animations of a comic character called Dickie, which were quite good fun. After which everyone seemed to just disperse.

I was rather disappointed that the evening fizzled out then, and that I got back to my room in time to watch Graham Norton. Imagine how much more disappointed I was when, the next day, someone told me about the launch events drinks party that I'd missed! Apparently everyone else had known to go to the Arts Bar after the opening event, and I missed the memo. I can't find it in the programme or in any emails.

At this point I have to confess I suffer rather bad Comic Con FOMO. Way back in July at an event in London I thought we were going to go out for a drink together with some friends, then they let me down by going out for a meal together without me and Hev, which I didn't realise had happened till I caught a glimpse of them through a pub window. (This had followed last year's NICE con in Bedford, when on Saturday night, there had been a meal for the comics guests, to which I hadn't been invited, and I couldn't find anyone in any of the hotel bars so had a miserable night there. On top of which there is the Thought Bubble con coming up, for which I didn't manage to make the cut for a table, so won't be going, and which famously has a good Saturday night party, which I've yet to see, because the one year I did make it there, 2021, was the one year the party didn't happen!) 

This is one of my big nightmares: Twinkle's Picnic Syndrome. This is a name I coined years ago based on a strip in Twinkle comic, read at the time by my sister Jude. In the strip, Twinkle misses out on a big party with all her friends because she's ill. But it's okay, according to the strip, because Mummy and Daddy take Twinkle out for a picnic all of her own, and that makes it alright. Ever since I saw this strip, over fifty years ago, I've railed against the injustice of this. Of course it's not alright, Twinkle's Mummy & Daddy! A party with her friends is the greatest thing Twinkle can experience. A consolation-picnic with you two just rubs salt in the wounds. What could conceivably be worse? I suppose if Mummy & Daddy threw Twinkle their feeble second-fiddle picnic, and then halfway through Twinkle realised that her friends were all having a party that she hadn't been invited to, which she finds out about cos she catches a glimpse of it over the hedge from the horror-show runner-up losers picnic that she's having to endure? Yes, I guess that would be worse.

Whatever, there being a party that I hadn't been invited to made me feel pretty miserable when I found out about it the next morning. My mood was slightly lifted when Simon Miller (who I see at these events every year) came to my table and said "didn't you see your Facebook messages?" They'd seen me walking glumly past the window of the pub they were in (en route to watch Graham Norton) and messaged me to invite me in. Of course I don't notice Facebook messages so totally missed it. But that cheered me up. Knowing you're wanted makes all the difference. And I bet the drinks party was shit anyway.

The Comic Book Marketplace (known at other events as The Dealers Room) had suffered last year from being in a tent without a floor, which meant that exhibitors' books and artwork got damp overnight. I think this had led to a number of people not re-booking for this year. This year we were in a tent which was, on the plus side, water-proofed thanks to a solid floor, with a carpet even. But, on the minus side, it was half the size of last year's tent, making one feel that one was at a smaller scale event than before.

Small scale was also the appropriate term for describing the tables. At such events, we're used to 6 foot wide tables. But here the tables were only 4 feet wide. This meant we were a little squeezed in, but whatever, we got on with it. And my mood and temperament improved when, by the end of Saturday, I'd sold a healthy amount of books. You can see my totals here. I even had time to deliver a Comic Art Masterclass down the road at the Jetty Museum from 3.30 to 4.30, after which there was still brisk trade going on right up until 6pm.



The Saturday evening, in contrast to the washout and FOMO of the Friday, was an absolute delight. There was a quiz, run by the Thorps from Viz, and my team came second. I'd been on the winning side last year, but this was just as much fun. On my table, to all intents and purposes The Scottish Table, was Stephen and Ro Slevin, who'd had me up to Paisley for the last two years, John McShane and Pete Renshaw from Glasgow, Stevie White of Tara Togs fame, Stu Gould the Nuts man (and my printer for all my Shakespeare books), and John Jackson of Wallop and Spitfire. 

Inbetween quiz and karaoke, I went through to the bar and met a chap called Mark Fuller, who has very interesting plans for the future of the comics industry. We enjoyed a long drunken chat, putting the world to rights, soon joined by John and Stevie for one of those pub conversations that I don't have often enough these days. You know, the ones where you can't remember the next morning a fraction of what you were talking about. But you know it was really important.

For the karaoke I sang Drive In Saturday in a Northern accent. I was the last number of the night and it was midnight already. Now that's what I call a comic event Saturday night.

Sunday fair flew by, with me selling a good few comics, and a bit of original artwork, which all served to make it worthwhile. The five hour drive home afterwards was pretty painless too.

Oh and one joy, just as I was packing up my books, was this lad...


His name's Isaac Thompson and he came over to thank me for kick-starting his career. I taught him in my Comic Art Masterclass at his school ten years ago, and now he's self publishing. And quality work it is too. It's a book called Killjoys Never Die: Vampires Death and Guns, and it looks a million dollars. There you go, twenty years of my classes, and someone's finally taken it to heart.

So all in all an excellent weekend, with highs that far outweighed the lows for me. I must say, looking around the Comic Martketplace, that I'm not sure if everyone did the roaring trade I did. The punters this event attracts are not the big body of die-hard fans that you'll get at Thought Bubble or TBC (the rebranded Bedford con, still one of only three comics-only events on the calendar), and I'm not sure the kids and families, who dropped in on the off chance, were going to be so interested in the high-ticket art books and the niche comics that a lot of people were offering. At least one family thought they'd come into a food market and were surprised to find very little was edible. Me, doing Shakespeare for kids, this is my target audience. But most publishers, I'm not so sure.

The Rights Market was a magnificent achievement, and I'd like to hear what people have made of it. And whether they'll come again. I'd like to hope that word of the waterproof marquee will reach those exhibitors who came last year but cried off this time, so that next year they could justify twice the exhibition space. As for the total attendance, that's the hardest thing to assess. The Friday night event was a sellout, there were lots of punters passing through the marketplace tent, but with the talks being in scattered venues across town, it was hard to work out how many were there in total, and whether it was a popular event.

I know three years ago, when it was still in Kendal, that The Lakes festival felt busier, because we had The Brewery venue to ourselves, the perfectly positioned Town Hall space for the public to drop into, and people like The Phoenix came along and made a big show of themselves. This time there was no sign of them or their ilk, and I think there were fewer events all told. But there was, as I say, The Rights Fair, and maybe that makes up for a shortage of other attractions. Who knows?

I'll give them my feedback, and we'll see what happens for 2025. 



My Books and where to get them:

Richard The Third - Amazon - Etsy - Barnes & Noble - Waterstones
Findlay Macbeth - Amazon  - Etsy 
Prince Of Denmark Street - Amazon - Etsy - Kindle
Midsummer Nights Dream Team  - Amazon - Etsy 
Shakespeare Omnibus Collection (all 3 books) - Paperback

Sweet Smell Of Sockcess - Putting A Show On At The Edinburgh Fringe - Amazon - ebook

Who Notes - Doctor Who Reviews - Amazon - Lulu - ebook
Space Elain - Amazon - Lulu - iBooks - Barnes & Noble 
Tales From The Bible - Amazon -  Etsy - Webtoons
The Book Of Esther - Lulu  - Amazon - Webtoons
Joseph, Ruth & Other Stories - Amazon
Captain Clevedon - Amazon
Tales Of Nambygate - Amazon  


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