Convention Table set up

So, with Vcon past, we had the opportunity to test out how different table displays were successful or unsuccessful. Each day of the convention we changed the table display. I'll go ever each day and what worked, and what didn't.
Day 1:

Okay, here we are. as an overview, we tried to make the centre of the table the focus. Our highest priced item #3 was a one of a kind sculpture of tasirt. We put him in the middle thinking he's the focus there. but as you can see, he's totally not. in fact there IS no focus to this table layout. the main project, Daqueran comics #1 are way off to the side, and yes they have lights around them but it doesn't make them have any impact at all. Our prints #4 are in closed black books, and look like nothing. The business cards, notebooks, and mini comics blend together #5, and the sketch cards are just floating in their little folder #7. #2 and #9 are signage advertising ghost tales pre order, and sketch card commissions. those are the only things that stand out on the table, with good reason - bright colour! Same as our price signage. They're bright blue, and stand out like crazy. I've always been an advocate of clear price signage. No one is going to ask you how much something is. you have to have it displayed. They are aloof until they decide for sure they're going to buy. #10 is our rack of charms. It's stuffed in the corner with some puzzles underneath #11, but you cant even see them. they're non existent. #6 our banner, is not visible in the front of the table. not much we can do about it now. vertical banners are in our future.
So day 1: entire layout, is bad. Signage and price tags are good.

Day 2:

Day 2 did little to improve the layout. We added some canvas prints #1, moved the lights to the ghost tales display, and propped the pendants on a necklace display.Things overall looked more clean and simplified, and sales did improve quite a bit. Dopey looking Guru probably didn't help that much, HA!
Tasirt in his plastic case didn't work too well. He's still invisible. Why are the prints books still closed?! We just forgot to fuss with them.

Day 3:

day 3 was a winning day! I mean, it did have the benefit of being the most traffic day, and in general the last day of a con is the best, but we learned some valuable things.
Clarity! This table is clean, there is space between each item and each thing stands out of its own.#1 ghost tales was moved to the side, and we included a ghost tales mini comic right next to it. This made it easier to promote the Anthology. we could mention the mini comic showing them an example from the anthology, then also show them that a pre-order is available. It was great. We moved the charm rack to the centre, and put the lights on it. this worked best! The rack was black, set against the yellow wall, so it stood out, and the lights really enhanced it against the black. This is the only day of the 3 that we sold charms at all! #3 the canvas prints are together, and once we sold one we moved the sketch card sign down onto the stand from the wall. #4 the Daqueran comics are with the New reader pack instead of being separated. Same situation as the Ghost tales. It allowed us to streamline our customer interactions, thus getting better results. Last but not least #5 , the prints! finally they're folded out!the price sign was on the table above them, and just about everyone who stopped flipped through. we sold several of them as a result. We actually got compliments on our table display from several people on this day. This was clearly successful.
Sometimes talking to people it scares them off, but when you're not selling a product people know about (like fanart) and you're promoting your own work, you need to sell it verbally!
Talk to your customers, and tell them about your project. come up with a streamlined little description for each of your projects, and spew it out at everyone who stops by and shows an interest. We had a little tagline for Daqueran that was just working so well. Ya, its hard to muster the courage to talk to strangers sometimes, but it's the difference between selling your stuff, or sitting around frustrated that your stuff isn't selling.
So I hope this was a little useful for fellow con goers out there. We're getting pretty experienced at the little cons! As a side note, on the Gurukitty website now on that side ---> there is a little widget that shows our upcoming convention appearances! check it out often.

We also got the proof for the Ghost Tales comic today! you can check out some photos of it on our facebook page!

Vcon Report

Well we survived Vcon which was our first 3 day convention. We think we did okay considering it was our first time in that convention, and we didn't know what the traffic and stuff was going to be like. There was some good and some bad parts of it; but in the end we pre-registered and paid for the con next year already. (So yes, We'll be at Vcon Next year September 28, 29 &30th.
So lets do a little review of Vcon for those of you thinking of taking a chance on the artist alley.
I'l going to start with the Cons so that the blog ends on a high Note.

• The venue was pretty easy for me to find because I had been there before, but some outdoor signage would have been a huge help! 
• In the area where Vcon actually was there was absolutely no garbages! Turns out there were a couple small bins under the water service on each end, but there really should have been a big bin in the hallway somewhere. We had to keep going into the bathroom to throw garbage out.
• Most cons I've been to had major enforcement when it came to blocking walkways and doors for photos but the people in the booth beside us basically kept our aisle blocked off from people the entire weekend. I saw many people avoid the alley all together because of it. We also had people really blocking the way into the Vendor area getting photos of the GhostBusters. also not cool. 
• We were against the wall in a new table set up and god it was cramped! we couldn't get out of our area without having to get everyone in the table beside us to move out of the way, and they have huge cameras blocking the path sometimes. We also were very close to the wall making everything awkward. If you can ever help it, get an outside table! We did talk to the host of Vcon about it, and she agreed and said maybe next time 2 tables per section. then people won't have the problem next year. 

Now, onto the pros!

• The attention from the staff of Vcon was awesome. They'd come check on you now and then and see if everything was ok. That was Nice!
• Water service! There were 2 tubs of water with cups in the vendors room! a godsend! It was quite dry and I'm always thirsty! 
• There was a hospitality room with food that was free (technically by donation). I never got to take advantage because every time I went up there was a technical issue! HAHA! Lot's of people did take advantage of it though, and it's a great service!
• In the end the traffic was worth the effort, and they gave us a bit of a discount for pre registering on the spot! That's nice too!

There was a fair amount of traffic on the Sunday, but a lot of people just wizz by the tables without looking down. If you're going to have a table at Vcon the best thing you can do is engage with your customers. explain your story to them and sell them on your idea. People who just stroll by without getting talked to, don't generally buy. We had to basically pitch Daqueran to everyone and the ones we pitched to, bought the new reader pack. If you're the type of person that just sits by and does nothing to engage with customers you'll do badly at Vcon. There were lots of cos players and lots of the vendors were dressed up in fantasy and medieval clothing. It was good, and in the future we're thinking that dressing up wouldn't hurt us at all.

As far as sales, what sold well was the New Reader pack, Prints (surprising!) and  Charms (our ghosts, and tiks). Like I said though, we had to engage with any of the customers who were going to purchase anything. Stuff just doesn't sell itself there, and it's a very specific audience.

Come to a con like that prepared with a cash float. Everyone paid with $20 bills. I saw lots of my table mates struggling with trying to make change from their wallets.

Friday's traffic was so slow, we barely sold anything that day, until the last person of the day made it worth our while. Saturday was a bit better but not much and we were ready to give up on the con at that point but then sunday was the main traffic day. that was the spending day for sure!

I went around and collected the business cards of all the people that were in the artist Alley so I'll post a list of them all here! check them out! they're all great!

Queen Bee Luxuries

Trashbaggs by jayme

Astra Crompton

Red-Wolf-ink

Daniel Tibbits

Sleepless StoryTeller's Bits and Baubles

Rock Paper Cynic

Nells Embroidery

Kage productions

Chelsey 'Mysti' Bueckert

Marie Tary (Evil Space Cat Productions)

EchoesLight -Amanda Rose (my table neighbour!)

Albert Art - across the aisle neighbour!

Well that's about it. The next convention we'll be at is Vancouver Comic Con at heritage hall in Vancouver. November 13th!

Shop is back up!

Our shop is temporarily down. We're working to fix it but no ETA on it's return. All orders are backed up automatically so we didn't lose any of your orders in this, so no worries.
We'll let you know when it's back. In the mean time if there is something you absolutely MUST have right now, by all means send us an email hello@gurukitty.com

 :) The shop is back up! Please resume pre ordering Ghost tales and buying our cute stuff! If you notice any issues with something either not working, or countries not being available to ship (I have to manually add all country codes AHHHH!) please email us and let us know - hello@gurukitty.com
Thank you for your patience! We had to re install the whole shop, HA!

Ghost Tales is Complete!

Finally, after a lot of work (and a lot of patience) Ghost Tales is at the printers right now!

The results of the polls (various online and offline) for the cover was that Option #2 will be the cover!
It is a wrap around too, which is nice! We really like this cover, and we think it will serve us well!
So, Thank you L.M. Silva for this amazing cover!
Thanks also to everyone who submitted one!

Cover Art by L.M. Silva

So,whats going to happen next? Well we have to wait for our hardcopy proof to arrive, we will go over it, and make sure everything looks good and then we will be doing the orders for the free copies all the artists get and all pre-orders!

If you want to be first to get a copy then pre-ordering is the way to do it. Pre-ordering is actually quite important, as they help up pay for the printing costs involved.
If you'd like to pre-order, now is the time!  All pre-orders will be signed by Gurukitty Studios owners Jeri and Jayleen Weaver
Pre- Order now: http://gurukitty.com/magento/ghosttales.html

Ghost Tales Cover - Public Vote

Hello!
Ghost Tales is nearing completion and so we need to decide on a cover. We have some submissions sent to us by contributing artists that we are going to allow the public to vote on.

We ask that you please vote for the one that you think would make the best cover for a Ghost Story Anthology and not just because you or your friend drew it.

This cover is going to be the face of this book for it's lifetime and it needs to be something that people will see on a convention table and want to pick up and look through and hopefully buy!


So without further ado, here are the candidates:
There is a poll at the bottom to cast your vote, please note that these poll results will be combined with other online and offline poll results.

Option 1 

Option 2
This cover has a wrap around  (Back and front)

Option 3

Option 4

Voting has ended, these poll results will be combined with other online poll results and offline polling. The Official Ghost Tales cover will be announced soon.

Ghost Tales Pre Order special

For today only you can order a Ghost Tales Graphic Novel for a special introductory price of $10. After Today the price will go back up to the suggested retail price of $15.
Pre orders help us cover the cost of initial printing so please promote this as much as possible.
There is no purchase limit.
Order Online, or come to Heritage hall in Vancouver 11am-5pm today and purchase it in person at Comix And Stories.

Ghost Tales is a graphic novel Anthology published by Gurukitty Studios that includes comic shorts from 4 - 15 pages by comic artists all over the world. 

This graphic novel contains the following artists:
def
Crystal Jayme
Christopher Cirillo
Lindsy Silva & Aileen Balucanag
Kate Hayward
Scott Smith
Timothy Sparvero
Kris Sayer
Reetta Linjama
Owen Heitmann
Liz Young & Matt Jordan
Bevan Thomas,Jayleen Weaver & Dianne Esson
Jeri Weaver
Amy Sloan
Kim Glennie
Chev Kamie


note to Contributing artists: Please don't purchase any copies through the shop here, you get copies at cost.

Thank you everyone, for your support!

Ghost Tales Submissions Closed

We've already emailed a few people we've accepted and we'll be going over what we have left and emailing people very soon.
If you Contacted us about an extension you're still OK.

IF you DIDN'T contact us to extend your deadline, you're in trouble because we aren't granting extensions unless you've contacted us and shown us something.
submissions@gurukitty.com
If you only need a day or 2 more, this is your last chance to get an extension. if you don't email us by the end of the day today, you're hooped.
Thank you to all who submitted work! we had a great turn out! we'll do this again!

Bad Kitties - #2

Here's another instalment of Bad Kitties - my intermittent Blog only web comic!

This is a common scenario with our kitties. Harass and dash. Enjoy my goofy colouring.

Click to view larger version.

New Site!

We have just finished updating the Gurukitty.com site to a new layout and new way of doing things.
We are stuck in the 90's when it comes to web design and we thought it was time we started using a content management system and clean up some of the old useless content.
So bare with us as we clean up and add redirects on all the old pages. if you notice anything amiss please do let us know!

Also, we are raising money to get our butts to Calgary Expo! We have an indieGOGO campaign and there are lots of nifty prizes and perks for donaters.

Fund Raising for Calgary Expo

We are taking a big leap in our Comic Convention adventures. This time we're diving into Calgary Expo. We've heard great things from other people who've attended the Expo, and we're really excited to take our comics there! By the time the expo is here we should have ghost tales and maybe even Hello Albertosaurus at least available for Pre-order! Excite!

Now there is a small issue of funding. It costs a lot to travel these days. especially by plane and with lots of Luggage. To sell for 3 days, thats a Lot of merchandise. We need 2 plane tickets, hotels, and other costs. We live rather simple lives so we don't need much. Please take a look at our campaign below:

It would be really amazing if you could help us by donating some money, or even just promoting it for us! If you have Twitter, facebook, google+, Tumblr, blogs, or websites or anything (your dA journal for example)! if you could just promote our cause, and get the word out we'd be forever in your debt!

We have a campaign goal we're trying to meet.