Y'know, I read
Seth Godin's blog pretty regularly. He's a smart guy with a nice turn of phrase and I hope I've learned a few things from him, too.
Today's post is the first one I really felt like sharing, though. For this bit in particular:
"
A few years before that, I had published a book about a political issue. An activist's handbook. I had 20,000 copies in my garage when I found out about a large march in Washington. I bought an outdoor booth and trucked the books down to DC. I stood on the Mall in my little booth and watched more than 250,000 people walk by in less than two hours. Every single one an activist. Every single one a demographically perfect match for my handbook. After 100,000 people had walked by and we'd sold only one book, I lowered the price from around $10 to $1 just to prove my point--that it wasn't the book and it wasn't the price, it was the ability of the audience to listen that mattered. This group, in this moment, was there to march, not to shop.
Most people, most of the time, steadfastly refuse to pay attention."
Some of you may recall a four part series I wrote last year on exhibiting at conventions (Part 4 (with links to Parts 1-3) is
right here). It's funny thinking of what Godin wrote above since I felt exactly (and I mean
exactly) the same way about exhibiting at to both the Alternative Press Expo and the Small Press Expo. He dropped his prices to $1.00. I gave my books (well, galleys and ashcans) away for free. To no avail. His audience was there to march. My audience was there to do many other things than buy comics from unknown creators. Huh.
As I write this, many, many comic book and webcomic folk are about to descend on Southern California for the truly massive
San Diego Comicon. And while artists will do far better than break even, I really doubt that will be true for the majority.
"
Most people, most of the time, steadfastly refuse to pay attention."
Exactly.
Von
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