The Dream

The Interzone mission to the 66th World SF Convention in Denver began with Pete Bullock booking the dealer’s table for the princely sum of $250 in January. What to ship over, where to send it and how were the nest questions. Luckily Pete’s friend Pete Bartell, brother of author David, volunteered to receive and store the incoming material for us in their garage, so our thanks go to Pete & Sonya Bartell of Parker, CO.

Jetse – remembering 640 lb (300 kg) unsold stock in California in 2006 – was cautious but, with 3 of us to do the selling, I felt we should be brave. Problems were cost and unsold material - I hate throwing it out - and return shipping is prohibitive. So we sent 140 kilo (308 lb) of magazines and books at a cost of £410. ($820?)

Jason Stoddard had stored the TTA material left over from the 2006 Worldcon (including the last box of Third Alternative 42s) at his place in California (what a star) so eventually we decided to spend a further $540 (£270) shipping this to the Bartells.

Add another £40 for the power points to run the Fix and Podcast demonstrations on Pete’s computers. So before starting Denvention 3 cost £840 of TTA’s hard won cash on shipping and space. But selling 70% at $8 should near double that.

The Plan

Selling techniques vary but we used, chocolates, (I took a box, or maybe two, and Jetse brought 3 more) guilt, reassurance and desperation; but not necessarily in that order. If an author appears while a potential buyer is around we might suggest a signed copy.
Offering a European chocolate starts a conversation. Those who take the bait usually stay to unwrap and hear about Interzone and, if they start eating, can’t talk back as we bend their ears. If they’ve had a chocolate and not bought anything maybe there’s a smidgen of guilt for us to exploit before they leave.

Some conventioneers wander round the dealers room wanting to buy something but, with so much on display, not sure what. Our job is too reassure them they are making the right choice once we make eye contact. Desperation; see later.

Hailing likely prospects as they pass. I use “Have you heard of Intergnome…â€� if they look at the stand and “Have a European Chocolate,â€� if they don’t. Pete ‘s “Hi y’allâ€� in his Carolinan accent worked well but I couldn’t copy that.

The Reality

Between my leaving Manchester on August 5th and return on 13th the exchange rate dropped from about $2 to about $1.85 per £1. Luckily Andy is the publisher and I don’t need to worry about such but it does make international sales a gamble. We priced everything in US$ and, unaware of the crashing pound, used that $2 exchange rate for the duration. That probably worked in our favour when someone actually bought something for cash but high prices are a definite deterrent in the US so did it balance overall? Maybe. Credit card customers were, mostly, warned that rates, and price, might have varied by time their purchase went through.

The Colorado Convention Centre in Denver is huge and TTA Press were stuck about as far away from the action as you could get. The upper level exhibit hall is 13% of a mile long and 16% of a mile wide. Needless to say TTA’s stand was at the far wall of this vast area ensuring anyone entering the convention centre from the front entrance had walked, or scootered - electric wheelchairs were ubiquitous, more than a quarter mile by the time they reached us. Relatively few, compared with our expectations, completed that journey.

I wanted to use images from the MidAmerican Fan Photo Archive to show the dealers’ room and art show which filled one side of the upper level exhibit hall. Our location on aisle 200 was about as far as possible from this “busy end�. They have not responded to requests for permission so here are thumbnails and you can visit the site.

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To sell anything at Denvention 3 we needed Colorado State and Denver City special event sales licenses so these authorities could claim the sales taxes on our efforts for TTA. Luckily such taxes didn’t apply to subscriptions but they did mean roughly 8% of everything else we took was Denver/Colorado’s.

So on Wednesday 6th August Jetse de Vries, Pete Bullock, myself, and several boxes of European chocolates, opened for business with stacks of Interzones, Black Statics, Crimewaves, Successes etc.

This photo was taken whilst the display was reasonably neat and tidy. The gnome was part of the garage sale run by our neighbours. Don’t ask “which gnome?� thank you We noticed it early on but pretty soon it faded into the background and only later, back home, I realised the gnome was on almost every photograph taken at the stand.

About 11:30 Wednesday 6th our first potential customer arrived. She made an excuse and left when I asked $9 for an Interzone. I probably should have said “$9 tax paid�. (I was trying to recoup the tax and the shipping costs. Other dealers were adding tax at purchase but we included them in the price and paid up out of the final take. It was much easier that way.) A slow morning; we quickly dropped the price to $8.
At the end of the first day we had $205 for our pains and the piles of magazines looked as big as ever.

Will we sell any magazines? Will business improve? What about the Hugos? Will the photographs get interesting? Coming soon in the next exciting instalment.

Tags: Conventions • Denvention 3