Gavin G Smith writes gripping science fiction and his latest is ALIEN CULT, a terrific murder mystery noir set in the ALIENS universe.
We Discuss: Writing for other people’s IP, including games and film novelisations The crucial difference between a consistent universe and fan service Why he might enjoy research too much And why it’s more important than ever for authors to value their work…
I’m Mark Stay, author of the Witches of Woodville series and The End of Magic trilogy and welcome to this fourth episode where I’m sharing what I’ve learned from doing 42 comic cons in 2025…
Missed the previous episodes? Click on the buttons below…
These are quick fire questions on books: what to stock and how to sell them, engaging with the punters, selling merch, promoting the event and more…
TRANSCRIPT
ANDREW GUILE
How many books do you need to sell to make it worthwhile?
It depends on the costs and the size of the comic con. I go into the formula of that a bit more in the first episode of this series. But the way it works is I set myself a target based on what I need to cover the basics. I always breathe a sigh of relief when I cover the table cost. In 2025, I sold an average of 28 books per event, and that’s with 9 books for sale.
IAN WATSON
Is it worth having a table at a convention if you’re a debut author with only one title to sell or should you really wait until you have a catalogue?
KATHERINE FRANKLIN
How many books did you start with on your first table (titles, not units)?
When I started ten years ago it was with just one book – Robot Overlords – and it was hard work. Not a money spinner, but the tipping point was getting three in a series. After that, I was making good money.
JULIAN BARR
How do you pick which books to bring?
My main focus is the Witches of Woodville series and the End of Magic trilogy, because you’re not just selling one book, you’re selling 3-5. I will always try and have a copy of Robot Overlords or Back to Reality handy, especially at the bigger events, but there may come a point where there just isn’t room on the table.
JENNIFER TAYLOR-GRAY
What are some good opening lines to interact with potential readers?
HEIDE GOODY
What would you typically say to a customer who strolls past? Any tips for getting them to engage?
Just ask if people are having a good day. Offer bookmarks.
When pitching, start macro, then get micro. For example, I’ll say, “I’ve got fantasy or witchcraft: what might be more up your street?”
And make it clear that these are your books: people are often surprised to discover that you are the author. And they definitely warm to you knowing that you’re the author. So I’ll say something like, “This is my series, The Witches of Woodville…”
Once they express an interest in a particular book, have a pithy description ready: maybe memorise the blurb or shoutline on the back of the book? Something short and sweet: for the Witches of Woodville I’ll say that it’s a cross between Dad’s Army and Bedknobs and Broomsticks, and if I get a glimmer of recognition or a laugh, then I’ll offer more…
Do NOT start rambling about the plot in depth: the last thing you want is to bore them to tears. You’re selling the sizzle. Wear your marketing hat. It means being reductive about your books, but that’s the gig.
And hand them a copy of the book. They’re not always sure if they’re allowed to touch the books. And I learned this as a bookseller: it’s much more difficult for a customer to put it down once they have it in their hot little hands.
KATHERINE FRANKLIN
Do you find that additional goodies or ‘lures’ do well? E.g. merch, sweets, games?
JENNIFER TAYLOR-GRAY
Do you have anything interactive on your stall or just books?
I keep it simple. Mainly because there isn’t much room. When I started, I would have a bowl of Jelly Babies to lure people in, but post-Covid that’s not really as appealing, and I was starting to feel like the Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
AL Billington, author of the Beast Be Gone series, has D&D dice and offers a prize if you roll a 20, and his table is always crowded, though he did tell me that some people think they have to pay to roll the dice and that giving away bookmarks seems to be more effective…
By the way, he did a similar summary of what he’d learned from doing comic cons in 2024, and it’s really good. There’s a link below so you can check that out if you want…
My friend Phil Oddy, author of the excellent Entangled series, sells branded mugs and badges alongside his books. He says…
I’ve never sold a mug. I almost sold one, once. But people do comment on them and I think they elevate the table a bit. I do get a lot of people complimenting my covers and they show those off in a different way. I might have more luck if I dropped the price a bit (they’re almost as expensive as the books and if you’re a new customer, why would you spend that much on a mug for a book that you don’t know if you like yet?) Maybe once I’ve got a bigger fanbase…?
The badges are great, though. They definitely bring people to the table – they like to rummage through the bowl and find the different designs… which is then a good way into a conversation about the cryptic slogans I’ve printed on them because those all link back to the books. They also are a good way to add a few pounds onto someone’s total spend (I have a bundle which is 3 books + novella + a badge and the badge makes £35 a sensible price point based on how I price everything else – although I’m going to have to rethink it all now the series is 4 books!) I have sold badges on their own to people who seemed keen but say they’ll buy later, or will buy the ebook, or have run out of money because it’s the end of the con. They were very cheap to buy and have definitely been worth it. I’ve got some more designs in mind, so will be increasing the range for 2026!
Thank you, Phil! I might have to invest in some badges in 2026…
I have seen tables that are littered with merch and, frankly, the books get lost. Put yourself in the position of the customer wandering from table to table: they have just a few seconds to discern just what it is you’re offering, and if your book is just one of many objects scattered about the table, then it’s going to be overlooked. Keep it simple!
JENNIFER TAYLOR-GRAY
Do you stand/sit/hover?
I stand. I appreciate that not everyone will be able to stay upright for 6-8 hours, but I just find that sitting makes the lure of the dreaded smartphone all the more tempting, and before you know it you’re slouched over and doomscrolling through social media.
Standing means I’m alert. I watch as people approach my table (I have a much better idea of who reads my books now, so I know who to look for) and then I offer a bookmark or ask them how they’re doing.
And I’ve never managed to hover. It’s a neat trick if you can pull it off.
JENNIFER TAYLOR-GRAY
Is there anything you’ve tried and decided is a complete waste of time?
I did a food festival once. A big one. People just weren’t expecting to see authors – and there were a few of us in a large gazebo – but sadly it didn’t work. Total waste of time. Local fairs, Christmas fairs etc are a good place to test the waters… but not food festivals.
I did a Renaissance Fair this autumn – all outside – and the weather was very dicey: I was sheltering under a gazebo. I did well, but if the weather had taken a turn for the worse, then it would have been a disaster. They’re doing the same thing next year, but have upped their prices to MCM comic con levels, so I don’t think I’m going to risk it this year.
And this next thing isn’t a waste of time, exactly, but my first batch of bookmarks didn’t work. They had a link to sign up to my newsletter, but people aren’t going to sign up until they’ve read the books (and the books have a prompt in the back anyway)… It soon became clear that what people wanted was to know what the books were about, so I switched the newsletter stuff for Goodreads reader quotes and now the bookmarks are much more effective.
ANDREW GUILE
What do you think is the biggest factor that helps make the event a success (e.g. your stunning banter? What jumper/t-shirt you chose that day?! The number of books – in a series – that you have? Your banners? Where your table is positioned in the hall?)
Having a quick and pithy pitch really helps. Having a simple multibuy offer also makes a difference: make it clear that they’re getting a good deal.
Sales patter (banter) helps: if readers like you, they’re more likely to give the book a try. Be positive, best foot forward etc. No snark. No grumbling. Enunciate. Tummy in, tits out.
The T-shirt thing is interesting. I did get some Witches of Woodville branded shirts, and they didn’t make any difference. However, my HHGTTG ‘Don’t Panic’ shirt draws the right kind of reader. You have to remember that no one knows who you are. And you’re surrounded by the biggest brands in the world – Star Wars, Marvel, DC, Pokemon – so you have to work harder to convince people to take a punt… and if you can show that your writing might be a bit like the thing they like, then that can’t hurt.
Regarding the number of books: three is the magic number. One is hard work. Two isn’t really a thing… but three is when people say things like, ‘Ooh, I’m looking for a new series!’ and buy them all! And you should offer a multibuy discount. It’s worth it.
The banners are great. As I mentioned in the video of the tour of my table, the thing I’ll do next time is have the quotes at the top, because the ones at the bottom are hidden.
Table positioning: this can make a huge difference… If I’m mid-row, that’s fine. A corner table can be a sweet spot. By the door can be good or bad depending on the flow of the crowd: you soon become an expert in motion dynamics doing this gig. Most people will do at least one circuit before they start to make buying decisions (another reason why it’s so important to hand out bookmarks: they need to remember who you were!).
At Newmarket Racecourse, they put me by the front door at the bottom of the stairs: this made me look like some guest of honour and I did nothing to dissuade people of this notion. Had a very good day.
Bigging it up at Newmarket Racecourse
JULIAN BARR
What do you do if you sell out of stock?
You have to turn a negative into a positive. I put up a Post-It note declaring ‘Sold out! Sorry!’ and grin and bear it. I’ve only once completely sold out: when I was only selling Robot Overlords, so I packed up and went home early. That was a long time ago,
Also, if you’re traditionally published, make sure that you let your publisher know what you’re doing. Send them an estimate of how many books you’re going to order in the next 12 months and ask them to print accordingly. The last thing you need is to book a big, expensive comic con only to discover that your book is reprinting the week after. I learned that lesson the hard way.
JULIAN BARR
How do you deal with the crushing rejection when someone looks at your stuff, shrugs, and walks off?
It happens so often that you shrug it off. You endure a lot of humility with this gig. Sometimes you’ll get people saying, ‘I’ve never heard of you!’ to which I smile and reply, ‘You have now!’ It’s rare that anyone is genuinely rude, but as with anything in life, just let it go: you’ve got no idea what’s going on in their lives to make them behave like that.
But I won’t pretend that there haven’t been moments where it’s been dead, or humiliating, and I’ve thought, ‘I bet [insert name of famous author here] doesn’t have to put up with this…’
TRACY BUCHANAN
What do you recommend doing in the lead up to promote your stand and drive people to it?
Not much beyond the usual social media/newsletter stuff. It’s not like a bookshop or library event, in that most of the people attending the comic con won’t be your readers (a lot of them don’t read at all!) and they won’t have heard of you. You’re trying to create new readers, so just make the most of the folks who are there (if that makes sense?). What’s nice is that by the end of this year, I had people who had bought books earlier in the year coming back for more, and they had signed up to my newsletter etc.
Thank you everyone for your questions. I hope you found that useful.
This was supposed to wrap up after four episodes, but I’ve had a couple of people ask about selling at comic cons overseas, which I’ve not done… but I’ve asked a couple of writer friends who have, so if that intrigues you, there’s a special bonus episode HERE…
I’m Mark Stay, author of the Witches of Woodville series and The End of Magic trilogy and welcome to the second episode where I’m sharing what I’ve learned from doing 42 comic cons in 2025…
Let’s talk about costs, sales targets and cashflow. Ooh, exciting! This episode all stems from one very long question from…
ZOË RICHARDS, author of Tell it to the Bees and Garden of her Heart (not an author of fantasy or science fiction, but she sells at craft markets)
Zoë asks: What do you class as a good day/event?
TRANSCRIPT
I’m Mark Stay, author of the Witches of Woodville series and The End of Magic trilogy and welcome to the second episode where I’m sharing what I’ve learned from doing 42 comic cons in 2025…
Let’s talk about costs, sales targets and cashflow. Ooh, exciting! This episode all stems from one very long question from…
ZOË RICHARDS, author of Tell it to the Bees and Garden of her Heart (not an author of fantasy or science fiction, but she sells at craft markets)
Zoë asks: What do you class as a good day/event?
I’m not after sales figures, rather the formula you use. This is what I’m using, and I’d love to know if it aligns with yours.
• Costs for debit card sales (each sale incurs a small fee)
• cost of books ordered (like me, she gets author copies from her publisher at 50% RRP)
Then Zoë tallies that against her:
• targeted sales
• actual sales
• income from sales
And the final result is:
• Total income from sales
• Minus total costs
Zoë continues: Is this the right approach? I find myself wondering if I’m doing well or wasting my time. I don’t have opportunities for comic con events as I write the wrong kind of books so mine are craft markets, which don’t always attract readers.
Thanks Zoë and that’s pretty much the approach that I take: I tot up my costs, then estimate how many books I need to sell to cover those costs and target myself accordingly. You can tell I was a sales rep, can’t you?
I keep a spreadsheet with how much the table costs me and the estimated petrol expenses (I use the RAC calculator).
So I can tell you now that in 2025, I sold 1974 books, with a turnover of just over £20k, spent nearly £2.5 on petrol, and nearly £3k booking the events.
What I don’t track are those depreciative costs: the banners, the tablecloths, the bookmarks (and I’ll talk more about them when I do a tour of my table in the next episode)…
And I don’t track my biggest expense: stock (£6.4k in 2025),… because it’s the expense that never stops and presents its own issue: cashflow.
Now if you’re just starting out, and only have one or two books to sell, go and fetch the smallest of your violins because this is where I complain about the expense of having to regularly stock up on 9-10 published books. It ain’t cheap…
Like Zoë, I get my Witches of Woodville books from my publisher, Simon & Schuster, at a 50% discount. And I get my self-published books from Bookvault and they cost between £5-6 per copy.
What am I complaining about? That sounds like a good markup… Well, I’ve realised that in order to have the stock arrive in time, I have to place the stock order two weeks ahead of the event.
So if I’m coming off the back of two smaller, quiet events and then have to order for one of the bigger comic cons, and if I’m doing this every weekend, then I’m often out of pocket. Big time.
Yes, there’s a good chance that I’ll make my money back in a couple of weeks at the bigger event, but it means that I often end up overdrawn and it gets a bit squeaky bum time… and that’s why I’m not doing this for the money. Because, by the time you’ve totted up your expenses (I’m also paying for editors and artists and other expenses through my company, including two salaries) and paid your taxes and your VAT bill every quarter, there sort of isn’t any left.
What I get instead are readers. 1974 books that I personally signed and handed directly to readers. That’s a much stronger connection than selling something on Kindle for 99p to someone in Buttmunch, Indiana… That’s what I keep telling myself anyway. And no offence to the good people of Buttmunch. Go, Buttmunchers!
But hey, in 2026 the plan is to sell even more books! I’ve got a 5 book series, and now a completed trilogy, and more books on the way. So in the next episode, we’re going to talk about sales, and how to sell, and the tools for selling. I’ll even take you on a tour of my table. Ooh! Exciting, eh?
Join me and Caimh McDonnell! Top bloke and bestselling author of the Bunny McGarry series and the Stranger Times series, of which RING THE BELLS is the latest (and I loved it!) He even looks like Santa! It’s going to be a very special live show…
Jeevani Charika writes award nominated romantic women’s fiction and romcoms. She’s written books on how to write romcoms, and sustaining a career as a writer and she also has an amazing YouTube channel teaching authors how to use Canva to make marketing graphics. Her latest book How Can I Resist You is out now!
We Discuss:
What she’s learned from her love of Korean dramas
How ‘writing tighter’ has been good for her prose style
How oversleeping led to a breakthrough in her career
Why she enjoys doing funky things with Canva and much more…
It’s here! It’s done! The End of Gods is ready to read… sort of.
First of all, my apologies for the lack of news and delays. If you follow me on social media, you’ll know that I’ve had an odd few months. My mum died suddenly and my daughter got married in close succession. My life was a low-budget Richard Curtis romcom (one wedding, one funeral) and it created what Faye Bright might call, ‘A right bloody palaver!’
But the good news is that The End of Gods is ready!
The bad news is that it’s Christmas.
Does that make me Scrooge? Not exactly, but it does mean that the Royal Mail is struggling to deliver parcels on time, and book printers are rushing to get books from major publishers into the bookshops. There could not be a worse time to publish a paperback novel. I would not want to publish it now and promise delivery for Christmas. It’s just too stressful for all concerned.
So here’s what I’m going to do…
The paperback of The End of Gods will be officially published on 8th January.
‘Boo!’ I hear you cry. ‘Hiss! Down with this sort of thing!’
Hang on a minute, because here’s the good bit…
The eBook version is available right now.
‘Hmm, okay,’ you say, narrowing your eyes. ‘But I really wanted a paperback.’
So, here’s the deal…
If you pre-order the paperback of The End of Gods from me, you will receive the eBook version for FREE!
‘Ooh, how does that work?’ you might ask, not unreasonably.
Simply pre-order the paperback edition of The End of Gods (or the whole trilogy) from my online store, and you will receive a link to download the eBook version. You will be able to choose from a Kindle version, an ePub version (for Kobo, Apple etc) or a print PDF version.
Here are the terms and conditions, it might help if you say it in that sped-up voice that they use on podcast and radio ads…
Offer only applies to orders for The End of Gods paperback (or the End of Magic trilogy paperback bundle) – either signed and unsigned editions – made via the Witches of Woodville online store only. Not applicable to orders made via any other retailers. The customer will be sent a link to download an ebook file of The End of Gods (or the whole trilogy if they order the paperback bundle). They will be able to select from Kindle, ePub (Apple, Kobo, Google etc) or a print-ready PDF.
Offer expires at 23:59 GMT, 1st January 2026.
How does that sound? There are buttons below that will take you directly to my store where you can pre-order the books. From me. Exclusively (I’m not putting anything up on Amazon etc till January because they don’t like authors giving stuff away for free unless they can, too).
Hope that all makes sense and thank you all for your patience.
Happy reading,
Mark Stay
Readers in the USA🇺🇸 and Europe🇪🇺: because of Trump’s tariffs and Brexit (neither of which I voted for!) shipping physical products is challenging. If you’re desperate for a signed copy, please reply to this email and I’ll see if we can figure something out.
Gavin Smith is the author and co/author of 14 books, a couple of novellas and multiple short stories. His books include (but are not limited to) Veteran and its sequel War in Heaven, the Age of Scorpio Trilogy, the Bastard Legion Series and Spec Ops Z. As well as having written for Black Library, Gavin wrote the novelisation of the Sony Pictures Bloodshot movie and Marvel’s Original Sin series.
Within the games industry he has worked with Yoozoo, Ubisoft, DPS Games and CCP. In addition, he has optioned several film scripts.
And his new book ALIEN CULT is murder mystery noir set in the ALIENS universe and I can’t wait to discuss it with him!
Jeevani Charika (‘Jeev’) writes award nominated romantic women’s fiction and romcoms. She also writes under the name Rhoda Baxter. She is a ‘resting’ microbiologist – she used to study Rhodabacter species, which is why her other pen name is Rhoda Baxter. She lives in Yorkshire in the UK, where she enjoys eating cake, playing with Lego and, when she’s run out of excuses, writing. She has a YouTube channel teaching authors how to use Canva to make marketing graphics and her latest book How Can I Resist You is out now!
Pernille Hughes is the author of TEN YEARS, PROBABLY THE BEST KISS IN THE WORLD and PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE; novels brimming with warmth, wit and unforgettable characters. And now she’s back with her new novel A COPENHAGEN SNOWMANCE, which is here to herald in Christmas. Yes, I said the C-word! What of it?? Join the conversation LIVE on Thursday 9th October at 8PM BST for what promises to be another cracking episode of the podcast that dares to shop early for Christmas.
Mark Stay Writes 