I’ve been to a lot of conventions. The first convention I ever went to was Nekocon in Kuopio in 2006. I was just a visitor back then, but nowadays I’ve been doing all kinds of things in conventions. So let me write some of my best lesser known convention tips for comic artists!
I’m not going to tell you all the things other people have already said a million times. I have in fact organized a wonderful collaboration ebook called Making Money from Webcomics, that was made in Saari Residency in Finland by an international comic artist group!
You can read this PDF ebook for free from the Helsinki Comics Center website here. I feel that I don’t need to repeat everything said in that ebook.
But I have some small tips that aren’t mentioned as often. I have been to conventions in Europe and in North America. All of the tips don’t work in every convention, but I’ll just write them out anyways. Use them if you will.
1. Get an orange or yellow high-visibility jacket or vest
Why? Well, conventions are often full. Like really REALLY full. If you want to go from place to place fast, wear a high visibility vest. People will assume you’re on your way to fix something and they will give you space. This won’t work if the vest is on top of a cosplay though.
2. Convention tickets cost too much? Host a panel!
Many conventions give out free tickets to people who do some kind of a programme. If you feel like you’re dumb af and can’t talk anything intelligent, host a panel. Invite people who can talk about things to it. Your job is just to ask them questions and make sure everyone gets equal amount of time to reply. I have often gone to a convention where I have an artist alley table, but the table plus the tickets to get in are adding up! So I host a panel or do a lecture about something relevant to the convention’s themes. That way I get free ticket for myself. I often share the table, so my table mate has to take care of the table while I’m doing the panel, but other than that it’s pretty simple. Also, some conventions give you free food if you host programmes!
(I also have to add, if you want to become a memorable comics artist, doing talks and programmes helps on that too.)
3. Make your business cards as stickers
I used to have normal business cards and after every convention I found them in the trash cans around the area. I had paid to get them printed! Next time I printed more, I printed circular stickers with my website and social medias instead. I never saw my business cards in trash cans anymore. I did sometimes see them out in the wild! Like in bar bathroom walls or telephone poles outside. But that’s just free advertising!
(Some say bookmarks work too, but I personally throw those away just as much as business cards.)
4. If you want to network, volunteer at the convention
Interested on networking? If you’re a total beginner and you don’t know anyone I suggest instead of trying to mingle with the cool kids in the bar, just volunteer at a convention. You get access to the greenrooms and backstages where you get to be the person the cool kids are so happy to see! The guest of honor needs a pen? You’re the volunteer who gets it for them! You also get to mingle with the other convention organisers while you’re on your break. Besides, if you don’t know how to approach people, it’s way easier to start a conversation when you’re carrying a pile of chairs together with someone than if you have no common goal at all.
(If you’re afraid that the cool kids would treat you like a lesser person or as someone not worthy of their time because you’re “working for them”… don’t worry. The actually cool people don’t do that. And the ones that do… They’re not the ones you want to network with. If they don’t treat the staff right, you really think they would help a beginner artist out? Not gonna happen.)
5. Network with the staff
The previous point works the other way around too. People who are working in a convention are VERY motivated to make the comics scene a better place to be in. They are the people you want to hang out with. The cool famous comics artist might be a cool person, but everyone is already trying to get something out of them and that gets tiring. That’s why it’s not always worth it to try to force yourself in on their inner circle. I know a ton of people who in one year are organising chairs and the next year they’ve published a comics anthology.
6. What conventions get you the best sales?
How to choose the convention that has a better chance to get you really good sales on your comic books? Check out who are the main guests! If all the guests are actors, don’t even bother.Selling fanart of the characters they play might work really well, but your original comics aren’t going to be a hit. If there’s a lot of comics artists as a guest on the other hand… that’s the convention you want to go to! The visitors often choose the events they attend based on the guests, so you need to choose the events you go to based on the people that are going to be there. You need comic fans to sell comics. Movie fans don’t buy them as much.
7. Apply for a travel grant
I know that about 45% of my audience is based in USA. This might not be for you, I’m sorry. But I also know that about 40% is from Finland and 10% from Sweden! This is for you. If you go to a convention in another country, especially if you go for the first time, you probably won’t sell much. No matter how much your friends who have been there for years tell you they sell so well and they make same kind of stuff as you. They sell well because they’ve been there before. They have established themselves as a part of that community. If you’re going for the first time you might very well make so little money that it doesn’t even cover your travels!
So apply for a travel grant. When the grant pays for your travel expenses you’re not going to be in as much pressure to sell a lot and you can concentrate on building some new connetions.
(Tip to Finns, sorry for the moon language: Kun kirjoitat apurahahakemuksen, älä kirjoita siihen että menet coniin. Coni on lainasana, joka kuulostaa epäammattimaiselta. Käytä vaikkapa sanaa messut, tapahtuma tai festivaali. Esim: Haen 2000€ matkaan ComicCon -sarjakuvamessuille Puolaan.</moonlanguage>)
(Another extra tip for everyone! To make it easier to get grants, email the convention and ask if they can send you a PDF invitation! It can look like anything, as long as it at least pretends to be official. A paper like that makes the grant foundation believe that your trip is well planned and legit! Basically every convention I’ve asked has been happy to write me an invitation.)
8. Volunteer in your local comics organization for better networking
Okay so this is a networking tip again. But let me tell you this works! I have been volunteering for the Finnish Comics Society long enough that I eventually became a board member and then the chairman. That job is not paid, it’s still just volunteering, but with more responsibilities. But I gain so much from it! First of all I get to know everything happening in comics, I get to go to every event ever, I get invitations to art exhibition openings and so on. But for networking it’s amazing.
This has just happened to me recently. I went to a comic con and saw very interesting art on a table. I went to talk to the person behind the table. They replied to me, but it wasn’t really a conversation. They wanted me to buy something and leave (not very good networking from their end). When I mentioned them I am the chairman of Finnish Comics Society, the person even got up and shaked my hand! Suddenly I was worth networking with! I have to admit, I didn’t like the attitude, but I understand if the convention has been long and you can’t bring yourself to be as excited about every person you meet. This artist was actually very wonderful, they were just tired from the con.
This helps me a lot outside of Finland too, because people often know about Finnish Comics Society, but they definitely don’t know who I am. So just having that thing they recognize, me being a board member, helps us connect in some way!
9. Start a mailing list
This isn’t only a convention tip, it’s an all around great tip for any comics artist. Start a mailing list, because on social media you can’t be sure who sees your posts and who doesn’t. I use Mailchimp for my mailing list, but I actually just started by sending a lot of emails from my own personal email! It doens’t have to be anything fancy, main point is that it’s a direct way people are sure to get the information on where you’re going and what are you doing!
I send emails about once a month or two months. I never send affiliate marketing links or spam. That’s not the point here. The point is to send people package of information on which cons you’ll be in, what comics have you published and where to read them!
I would also suggest getting your own website, like this one that I have. I have been posting my comics on Instagram and Twitter for a long time, but I have noticed that it’s actually really hard to browse through all of them and read them on one go! So that’s why I changed my old portfolio website into a blog oriented website. People can actually read all my comics, I can put alt texts in them!! (That hasn’t been a feature on Twitter since I started posting there, it’s very new.) I can make up my own categories and people can search through them based on that! It’s way better than having them all in one feed on Instagram where it’s impossible to organize them into categories.
Also, Millenials Kill wouldn’t work on Instagram at all. It needs to be read one chapter at a time, not panel by panel or page by page.
So those were the convention tips for comic artists! I hope they help!
I just realized many of these convention tips for comic artists were about networking. This is because I have personally found networking to be very difficult but at the same time one of the best things to help me further my career in comics. I have gotten almost all of my paid jobs in comics because I talked to someone who then told me about an opportunity I would have missed otherwise. I rarely drink alcohol, so networking in a bar is not for me. I’m also quite bad at small talk so I need a common ground with the person to be able to talk with them. I hope these tips help you too, because I have had to spend 10 years to find them and finally be able to network!
This whole post about convention tips to comic artists started from quite a weird place. When I get anxious, I tend to start cleaning. That’s what I’ve been doing a lot lately as I’m waiting for the results to come in from the University I have applied to. As I was cleaning, I came accross a huge pile of convention badges. Ever since my very first convention I have saved all the badges from the events where I’ve been either on the artist alley, volunteering, as a speaker or as a featured guest of some sort!
The badges were in a horrible messy pile, so I decided to film the process of me untangling them and talk about the different events I’ve been to. If you want to see me talk about the conventions I’ve been to, here’s that video!
Ps. I often do lectures on how to make webcomics into your career, which includes this kind of talk about convention tips! If you’re interested in getting me to your event/school/organization to do a talk, you can contact me through the contact form on my About page!