Pounding the Pavement

Four days to Final Order Cutoff, the last day that comic retailers can order copies of Nonplayer #1 (which hits the stands in less than a month).

It turns out that the work of making a comic doesn't stop when you send the finished pages off to the printer. There's this whole other magical, impenetrable thing called "promotion." I don't have much experience to inform my decision-making in this area, so I've opted for the blunt-force approach: I'm contacting individual retailers and reviewers one-by-one via email. I'm sure there are useful force-multipliers that I'm overlooking (for example, a shout-out from somebody like Patton Oswalt, Chris Hardwick, or Felicia Day would probably quadruple my sales, but I don't really know how to make it across their fan-moats). If anybody has any good ideas, I'm putty in your hands.

So far, I've focused on Twitter, the Nonplayer website, this blog, DeviantArt, and the Project Waldo Facebook page. A word to the wise about DeviantArt: when you open your account, pick a username that relates in some way to your real name (or which is at least relevant to your interests). I chose "hughferriss" out of habit (many years ago, it was the only numeral-free name I could find for a Yahoo account). Now I've got thousands of people out there who think Nonplayer was written by a guy named Hugh Ferriss. I am not Hugh Ferriss. Hugh Ferriss was an extremely talented architectural renderer of the art deco era, and I certainly wouldn't mind being him, but sadly I am not him. This is enough of a problem that I'm considering opening a new DeviantArt account, even though I've already got a couple thousand people following the hughferriss account. It'll take many hours to get everything set up again, and I'll lose a lot of followers. Don't do what I did. (Edit: I went ahead and set up a new account -- one with the word "Nate" right there in the username. That's two hours I'll never get back.)

One weird thing about promotion is that it requires constant bragging. It's awkward in the same way that writing a resumé is awkward. I've decided to treat the Nonplayer website as the rah-rah outside voice and let this blog be my inside voice. Also, I'll be posting new art here soon.

Anyway, I've been sending personalized emails to comic shops, websites, blogs, podcasts, and magazines. I'm seeing about a 30% response rate, which is a little better than I expected to get through the unsolicited email approach. If you do something similar, I recommend finding out the name of your key contact and using it in the greeting, and then working the name of the store or website into the first couple of sentences. This is your way of saying "this is not spam." The other thing I try to do is keep it short. My story synopsis is one sentence long, and then I toss out four positive one-sentence reviews. I try to keep in mind that retailers and reviewers probably get thousands of unsolicited emails, and they're not likely in the mood to follow me on a wondrous journey through the labyrinthine backstory of Nonplayer.

By far the biggest promotional boost has come from you guys -- many of the shops I've contacted have told me that preorders have been coming in, and they've upped their orders as a result of customer interest. One good example is Comics Heaven in Stockholm, Sweden. When I first contacted them, they wrote back to tell me they didn't plan on stocking Nonplayer until it came out in trade paperback. A week later, I got an email from Dan Cooper at DICE, who said he'd gone around his office talking up Nonplayer and then gone into Comics Heaven to order fifteen copies. And a week after that, the shop contacted me again to report they'd upped their orders. That was a great feeling, knowing that somebody was excited enough about the comic to go to bat for it like that.

If you're interested in helping out, please swing by your local comic shop this weekend and remind them about Nonplayer. Tell the owner that if he/she contacts me at nonplayercomic [at] gmail [dot] com, I'll send them a signed poster. I've listed the shops that haven't gotten back to me below -- if you see your favorite shop on this list, please hit them up for a copy! And if you don't see your favorite shop on any of these lists, now's the time to drop them a line. After Monday, it'll be too late.

North American shops that have not confirmed interest in Nonplayer, in alphabetical order:

8th Street Comics, Saskatoon

A-1 Comics, Sacramento, CA

Alternate Worlds, Cockeysville, MD

Amazing Stories, Shrewsbury, NJ

Atomic Comics, AZ

Bedrock City Comics, Houston, TX

Books, Comics, and Things, Ft Wayne, IN

Bridge City Comics, Portland, OR

Captain Nemo Comics, San Luis Obispo, CA

Chicago Comic Vault, Chicago, IL

Chicago Comics, Chicago, IL

Comic Heaven, Willoughby, OH

Comic Smash, Los Angeles, CA

Comic Stop, Redmond/Lynwood/Greater Seattle, WA

Comic Store West, York, PA

The Comics Keep, Bremerton, WA

The Comics Place, Bellingham, WA

Comix Connection, York, PA

Comix Experience, San Francisco, CA

Corner Comics, Totem Lake, WA

Cosmic Comics, Bellingham, WA

Cosmic Monkey Comics, Portland, OR

Danter Room, Olympia, WA

Dark Tower Comics, Chicago, IL

Desert Island, Brooklyn, NY

Dr Comics and Mr Games, Oakland, CA

Dreamworld, Culver City, CA

Earth 2 Comics, Sherman Oaks, CA

Excalibur comics, Portland, OR

Fantasy Shop Inc., Saint Louis, MO

Forbidden Planet, New York, NY (note: Forbidden Planet UK is fully on board)

Golden Age Collectables, Seattle, WA and Vancouver, BC

Golden Apple Comics, Los Angeles, CA

Heroes Comics, Fresno, CA

Isotope Comics, San Francisco, CA

Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash, Red Bank, NJ

Karen's Comics, Portland, OR

Lone Star Comics, Dallas, TX

Lost World of Wonders, Milwaukee, WE

Meltdown Comics, Los Angeles, CA

Midtown Comics, New York, NY

Mile High Comics, Denver, CO

New England Comics, MA

Olympic Cards and Comics, Lacey, WA

On Comic Ground, San Diego, CA

Phantom of the Attic Comics, Pittsburgh, PA

Purple Earth Comics, Huntington, WV

Ron's Coin and Book, Yakima, WA

RX Comics, Vancouver, BC

Silver Snail Comics, Toronto

Source Comics and Games, MN

The Secret Headquarters, Los Angeles, CA

Things From Another World, Milwaukie, OR

Third Coast Comics, Chicago, IL

Universe of Superheroes, Jacksonville, FL

And stores outside the United States that have yet to respond:

The 3rd Place, Dublin

The 4th Dimension, Dublin

Album Comics, Paris

Alternate Worlds, Windsor Victoria

Comics Etc., Brisbane

Comikaza, Israel

Comix, Brazil

Dynamic Duo Comics, Adelaide

Good Fellows, Helsinki

HQ Mix, Brazil

Pep Comics, Netherlands

Pulp's Comics, Paris

Story, Dublin

Sub City, Dublin

T3 Terminal Entertainment, Frankfurt

But let's end on a high note! These are the North American stores that HAVE shown interest in Nonplayer:

A Comic Shop, Orlando, FL

Alakazam Comics, Irvine, CA

Arcane Comics, Seattle, WA

The Beguiling, Toronto, ON

Challengers Comics, Chicago, IL

The Comic Bug, Manhattan Beach, CA

Comic Oasis, Las Vegas, NV

Comicopolis, Santa Cruz, CA

ComicReaders, Regina, SK

Comics Conspiracy, Sunnyvale, CA

Comics Dungeon, Seattle, WA

Cosmix, Montreal, Quebec

Downtown Comics, Indianapolis, IN

Dreamstrands, Seattle, WA

First Aid Comics, Chicago, IL

Floating World Comics, Portland, OR

Graham Crackers Comics, Chicago, IL

Heroes Aren't Hard to Find, Charlotte, NC

Newbury Comics, MA

Planet X Comics, York, PA

Strange Adventures, Halifax, NS

Third Eye Comics, Annapolis, MD

Titan Gaming, White Horse, YT

Unreal City, Saskatoon, SK

Vault of Midnight, Ann Arbor, MI

Westfield Comics, Madison, WI

Zanadu Comics, Seattle, WA

And the fine stores abroad that have shown interest:

Comics Heaven, Stockholm

Dave's Comics, Brighton, UK

Forbidden Planet UK (in a big way, at 16 stores -- all but Edinburgh, the manager of which reportedly isn't all that into the comic)

Gosh!, London

Kings Comics, Sydney

Mega City Comics, Camden, UK

OK Comics, Leeds, UK

Paradox, Poole, UK

Travelling Man Comics, Manchester, UK

Thanks for all your help, guys. None of this would have happened without your support.