J. After the Con
First, rest and eat some real food!
Deposit any checks you may have on the morning of the first business day after the con. Don’t spend the money without counting it up and calculating the sales tax you’ll need to pay, and making a record of the rest so you can claim it on your income tax reports. During the con, it’s quite tempting to reach into the cash box and grab money to buy food or pay for the hotel, but this is a bad habit, because it screws up your final tally. If you have to do so, make sure to write a small note with the amount of cash you took and for what reason, and put it in the cash box so you’ll have it at the end of the con and know exactly where all your money went.
Also do an inventory of your merchandise and see what sold, what sold out, and what didn’t sell. Combine that with the notes you took during the con of the items people asked for (because of course you made note of what people asked for, right?), and you’ll start getting an idea of what sort of things you want to focus on making for the next con.
Keep the records of all your sales. Don’t throw them away. You’ll want to refer back to them next year, and the year after, and so on, so you know what sorts of things sell well at this particular con, or in this region of the country.
Then sit back for a week or two and relax before swinging into work for the next con.
Congratulations! You’re now an Artist Alley Veteran!
I read the whole thing. It’s made of win and awesome. (You deserve a medal for putting it together!)
Thank you!
Awwww, thank *you*!
(and posting while logged out to see if it’ll pick up my new Gravatar from my email address… *edit* It did!)
I read the whole thing too and I’m not even an artist. If you weren’t a librarian, you would be a great teacher I’m sure. Much more polite than a lot of my observations about things. Also, much more attractively layed out and explained.
Very informative
I, too read through the entire thing and wow it’s helped a lot.
you brought up things i wouldn’t have thought of otherwise!
aiome boston 09 will be my first con to sell stuff at so im a bit nervous.
i’ve been drawing and etc for a while so i wont have any issues with prints and extras, it’s just the sales part.
thanks again! :]
Thank you! Good luck at the con!