Monday, 15 April 2024

April Live Book Sales - Wales, Ireland, events & schools



Selling books hand to hand and face to face continues to be my best way of getting them out there. Last month's tally shows me selling the equivalent of 66 Richard The Thirds at live events, and an actual 96 Richard The Thirds in schools, while my sales on Lulu/Amazon, Etsy, Blurb & D2D combined add up to about 40 books, which really doesn't compare.

April started well with the good librarians of Dublin taking 20 Richard The Thirds between them (the profit from which may just have covered the cost of the extra bag I need to take on the plane to carry them), and my next school ordering 29 copies in advance. Then came my first live event:

Swansea Stars Of Time Comicon, Sat April 14th

Total £393 - All books and caricatures, no art sold.

Richard The Third - 26
Midsummer (new edition) - 6
Prince Of Denmark St (original) - 4
Findlay Macbeth (new edition) - 2
Omnibus - 1
Socks Superheroes - 10 (sold out)
Doctors Who Colouring - 3
Euro Vol 1 - 1
Euro 2, 60s Col, Xmas Col - 1

This total follows on from Bristol with the practice of charging for my caricatures, which I had formerly been giving away free as an attractor to my table. Now I say they're free with a book, or a couple of quid donation (or they don't need to keep them, but no one took that option). Halfway through the day I'd already run out of my 100 pre-printed sheets and had to go out and buy more, so I drew about 150 caricatures in the day. If each of those netted me at least a quid, then that explains a fair bit of the total. It also explains the complete sellout of Socks Superheroes comics. At £3 that's the cheapest thing on the table, so they'll obviously plump for that if they really only want the caricature. So I need to print me off some more pocket money comics.

The next option up pricewise would be my three classic Shakespeares at £5.99, but as you can see the overwhelming choice was Richard The Thirds at £6.99, which tells you the demographic of the crowd. Hundreds of parents with kids, for whom Richard is the first choice by far. Some of them have alreay made a beeline for it because they've spotted the "Dogman" lookalike logo, which is starting to get me worried that I've done too good a job in apeing that house style. I mean, it's supposed to appeal to Dogman fans, but I don't want anyone thinking I'm passing myself off as the real thing. 

The new editions of Findlay and MNDT are the Lulu editions without the play at the back which, having sold out of my original 500 print run of both, is all I have left to sell. Meanwhile Richard is down to its last 90 copies, so I'd better get ordering that new print run, hadn't I?

This is my biggest one day total, excluding artwork, sales yet. Other events have taken two days to not raise that much. eg (book sales only, no art):

NICE Beds Sept Sat & Sun = £353
LFCC Nov Sat & Sun = £297
LFCC July Sat & Sun = £294
Bristol March Sat only = £279
Lakes Sept Sat & Sun = £266 
Exeter March Sat & Sun = £187
Torquay Feb Sat only = £213

April Sales In Schools

Apr 8 - 12 Ireland - 20 Richards sold @ €7 (yet to see what this becomes after deductions)
Apr 18 - Christchurch Lichfield - 26 Richards @ £6 = £156
April 20 - Abergavenny - 3 Richards, 3 MNDT, 1 Tales From Bible = £46
Apr 22 - Maidwell Hall, Northants - 9 Richards @ £6 = £54
Apr 23 - Etchinghill - 23 Richards @ £6 = £138

TOTAL April 2024 = £907

107 x Richard The Third
2 x Findlay Macbeth
4 x Prince Of Denmark Street
9 x Midsummer Night's Dream Team
1 x Tales From The Bible






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) - Amazon

Tales From The Bible - Amazon -  Etsy - Webtoons
The Book Of Esther - Lulu  - Amazon Webtoons
Joseph, Ruth & Other Stories - Lulu
Captain Clevedon - Amazon
Tales Of Nambygate - Amazon  


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