Thanks for the post and I’m glad you are enjoying the current series of articles. They are actually laying the groundwork for a book I’m finishing up on marketing techniques and tips for comic book publishers. A book I’m hoping to have finished and ready for release here in the next couple of weeks.

What was your friend doing to sell his books at the local wrestling shows? If you’re talking about shows with 25 people attending, then he really shouldn’t expect much in the way of sales.

Our main book, the Cadre, features a former wrestler as a superhero (the White Dwarf) and we used that as an “in” with a few different smaller wrestling promotions as well as with the retail division of the bigger shows. We did switch out backcover ads which were different (and supported) each promotion we were working with so they had a bit of a vested interest in helping to push our books.

The key is all in your build up and what you are doing to market your sales at the shows BEFORE you get there. Press releases, flyers and posts online are great…we’ve even run targeted local cable ads right before shows to show people we were going to be at a show. Sometimes you can even get the promotion to kick in for a co-op on the commercials, especially once they find out how cheap cable advertising can be.

I go in to a lot more detail on this stuff in the book. Keep your eyes peeled on the Nifty Comics home page for details very soon.

Mat N.

You mentioned selling at wrestling shows in the first part and again in part 3 here you talk about teaming up with a smaller fed. How has that worked out for you? A guy I know was selling his book at the San Francisco show a few months back and mentioned it was kind of a bust. I go to local wrestling shows, like the ones in the hotel ballrooms and indy shows like ROH and SHIMMER but they seem big enough to have a dedicated following, but not really big enough to support any cross promotion. Which is why I ask if it’s worked out for you.