Thought Bubble: The products

A6 postcards of 2 of my illustration friday, also the extra I made for Guy Loveridge and my travelling man print.

The life and death of Porkchop and George

Procrastination screen print sequential

Chocolate naughty words (which weren't as broken at the event)

Adult colouring book (a collaboration with Hollie smith)

Mer Mystery 

Clay badges and shrink plastic velcro badges

Stickers (mainly sexy penguins)

Jump comic

Business card (complete with qr code to my animated logo)

Ear stretchers with Rick from Rick and moray on

Packaging paper on tracing paper patterned with me dancing 

These were my price tags. On the second day I reduced a lot of my prices to try to increase my sales. I made them look like it was a sale and in the last hour I made a 'crazy end of thought bubble sale' where I reduced a lot of things to a puns and added free badges with everything.

I also sold the Terry Pratchett mobiles I made last year. My chocolate naughty words didn't really sell well over the weekend and i had a lot left over so when we were packing away our table I handed them out to the people on tables around us. The table next to us, Treehouse comics, gave me a free comic to say thank you. It was a good event and we chatted to people on tables surrounding us and got a good idea of how they had set up post uni. The Treehouse comics people used to be based in dundee in scotland but had expanded and moved to edinburgh to be closer to a big city. The people on the other side of us were twins who used to go to LCA and do the game design course. They were selling big digital art prints to advertise their game and they talked to a lot of people and just explained their whole concept rather than pointedly trying to sell stuff which I thought was a good way to deal with customers. My mermystery comics were mainly sold because I would point out the wrapping to people and tell them it was me dancing and then I would demonstrate some dance moves to break the ice and thats why people bought it. 

Strengths:

I packaged my things professionally

The stand and table made us look like proper illustrators

I talked to people

I had a variety of products

I advertised my mermystery

Weaknesses:

My work wasn't eye grabbing enough

A lot of people paid more attention to Hollie's side of the table

My badges weren't of a high quality

My chocolate naughty words didn't sell well

I only sold one badge

Things I learnt:

When you talk to people you can just talk about everything and if they like and get along with you they are more likely to buy something. A bit of emotional blackmail but its good for an up and owing illustrator such as myself.

Packaging is key, I looked a lot more professional than last year and people just assumed that this was our full time job and were surprised to find we were still in uni.

Comedy is one of the best ways to engage people.

Adding 'freebies' helps sales.

People come over and look at fan art they recognise but they don't always buy it. But it is a good way to draw people in so they look at my personal work as well.

Big clear price signs make people more comfortable when buying as some people found it very awkward last year asking about prices. Which I understand because theres the fear it will be too much and then they'll know your a cheapskate. 

I need to spend more time and care on making the physical things like badges and stickers because mine were not up to the standard of others being sold at Thought Bubble.