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The official podcast from the team at BookFunnel, hosted by Jack Shilkaitis, Kelli Tanzi, and Emma Alisyn, featuring guest interviews, self-publishing industry discussions, and tips for using BookFunnel to build an author business.
Jack Shilkaitis (00:41)
Hey folks, welcome to the Book Funnel Podcast where authors get real world advice on writing, publishing, and growing a career on their own terms. Whether you're just starting out or you're deep into your author journey, we're here to help you build your readership, boost your book sales, and connect with your audience. Each episode we aim to bring you insights from authors, experts, and industry insiders who have been there, done that, and then some. My name is Jack. I'm our lead author support specialist.
here at Book Funnel. And normally, I am joined by my co-hosts, Emma Allison and Kelly Tansey. However, for today, we decided that the guests would outnumber the host. And I have three guests for you here today to talk about the topic of selling books at in-person events. In no particular order here, I want to introduce you to Katie Cross, Johnny B. Truant,
and Todd Fannistock.
You're here. We did it. We got everybody together. This took a little bit. It took a little bit of scheduling, but I appreciate you all being here. This is going to be a great episode where we can kind of dive in to this topic. And I don't want to waste any time. I know we could do introductions, but you guys have been introduced on podcasts before. The topic of in-person selling for people who need an introduction, who don't know what it is.
Katie Crosstar (01:38)
We did it!
Todd Fahnestock (01:42)
Thank
Jack Shilkaitis (02:00)
You're basically, you're at maybe a con, you're at some kind of event where there are people there that will buy books and you're selling them at a table, at a booth. It is face to face selling of books, which is maybe a little different than what a lot of authors are thinking these days, especially in like the indie space, but even in other spaces where we're focusing on online sales. So this is totally, totally different than what a lot of folks are thinking, but it's
big deal and there's there's money to be made here there's opportunities here. First I want to get from each of you maybe your own little experience and why you got started doing this why you started doing in-person sales. Katie let's let's kick it off with you if you don't mind. What what got you started doing in-person sales? How did how did you make that decision?
Katie Crosstar (02:44)
Yeah.
I think it was just a natural extension of like, hey, I just wrote a book and I should go sell it. And so I found some bookshops and I printed some copies and I went out and started selling, which was actually really good exposure for me to meet people, learn how to pitch a book and see on their faces what they got excited about and what they didn't. Cause you can know who your target audience is when they light up and they grab the book, right? So that was a really cool experience. And then I am an extrovert in an introvert world. And so it was a fun way.
Jack Shilkaitis (03:07)
Mm-hm. Yeah. Yeah.
Katie Crosstar (03:17)
for me to just be out in the world with my books instead of at my desk with my books. So I just looked for more opportunities and now it's a cornerstone of my company solely because of the connection it gives me to readers. So it's something I continue to prioritize to this day.
Jack Shilkaitis (03:22)
Right.
Excellent. Todd, how about you? What got you started doing this this crazy in person selling thing? Who can who's who sold you on this? Right?
Todd Fahnestock (03:36)
Yeah.
Yeah,
I did it because like I failed at everything else. Like that was how I.
Jack Shilkaitis (03:45)
Hmm. Hey, well,
I think that's that there might be some people in that boat. They've tried ads. They've tried, you know, rapid release and that sort of thing. I know you might be being a little tongue in cheek there, but I'm sure for some folks this, you know. Yeah.
Todd Fahnestock (03:58)
There's definitely some truth to it. am being
tongue-in-cheek. There's definitely some truth to it. So yeah, I mean, I've been traditionally published several times and each time I've been traditionally published, it was like a lot of hoopla and then it didn't sell to expectation. And then I tried to do the indie route where I was kind of following the 20 books to 50K kind of mentality and trying to do the rapid release, but I couldn't release rapidly enough. And I tried to do the advertising, but I spent $500 and made $300. I mean, like I didn't...
Jack Shilkaitis (04:16)
Yeah.
Todd Fahnestock (04:26)
you know, stay at it a lot. pretty much kind of like hit those walls and was like, that sucked. I do it once or twice. And in the background, while I was doing all of that, I went to a couple of Christmas, you know, events or whatever and sold a few books there. And so those are the things that was kind of working in the background. And I sort of figured it was it was a place that I could go make two, three, four or five hundred dollars. And it was never, ever going to take me anywhere. But in the meantime, while I was trying to struggle with, you know, either getting another trad
Johnny B. Truant (04:26)
Ha.
Jack Shilkaitis (04:40)
Mmm.
Todd Fahnestock (04:56)
contract or trying to make the online indie thing work I could do this and feel a little bit better about myself in the background and then after a year or so this I had a revelation when I hit $2,000 at a con and I was like if I can make $2,000 at a con I can make three and if I can make three I can probably make five and I started crunching the numbers on it and it's like wow well if I go to 20 cons in a year and I make $5,000 at a con
Jack Shilkaitis (05:03)
Yeah. Yeah.
Todd Fahnestock (05:23)
Bob's your uncle, like that's a hundred grand right there. That is actual real money. And that's when I started thinking, what would it look like if I started drilling down and really trying to make this work, polish it up, look at the places where I don't do so well and try and ramp them up. Anything that doesn't work, cut it out. I mean, I really started making a business out of it. That's kind of how it happened.
Jack Shilkaitis (05:24)
Yep.
Yeah.
Excellent. Johnny, what's your story?
Johnny B. Truant (05:45)
I have,
yeah, so I used to see the sad author in the corner of the Barnes and Noble with a table full of books and you're like, kind of like, you pity him, you go talk to him and if you don't, then you kind of have to avoid eye contact and like, you know, and so I had that picture in my head and I always thought, man, that looks miserable. I do not want to do that in any way, shape or form. And then fast forward to the
the first, it was the first author nation and they had what was still called Rave, the book signing event on the last day and I was a speaker and when you're a speaker they give you a free table. So I was like, why not, right? Like sure, I guess I'll give it a shot. So I didn't know what I was doing but I figured it out and I got up there and then on vendor day I talked to our mutual friend Mark LeFave and I told him what I just told you guys and I said, and I said, just, ooh, I just, makes me like,
that gives me cold sweats or it sounds like my nightmare. Something derogative like that. And Mark looked at me with such genuine Markness, right? Like, you know, he's just such a sweet Canadian guy. And he goes, why? And it was so sincere. It was so like he didn't understand it. And then he told me about how he was going back out on a book tour for a while. he said,
Katie Crosstar (06:50)
a great way to say it.
Jack Shilkaitis (06:53)
Mhmm.
Todd Fahnestock (06:55)
Hahaha!
Johnny B. Truant (07:06)
reminded me how much I missed it and seeing that genuine enthusiasm from somebody that I like and trust was enough to get me to that to do it. And then when I sold the first time, so I was going into with positive feelings and I grossed about a thousand dollars in a day at Reader Nation. And it was so encouraging because what it, number one, I have the same thing as Katie. Like I have a strong extrovert tendency that I don't.
I take for granted and I had kind of gone into a period where I was writing fairly exclusively, like that's kind of the main thing I was doing and I wasn't going to conferences and stuff. And I had starved that part of me. So that was really nice to like wake that up and it definitely scratches that itch for me, but it also is so you have control over it in a way. you...
We've all been to events where things don't work out and it's garbage and nobody buys and it's really frustrating. And Todd has been on the other end of some ranty text threads with me when that's happened. But those things aside, it's a way that the better than most, you can kind of make sales happen if you're decent at it. And that's so much more control. don't know if you got to have the multi picture here, but when Todd was talking about it, well, I spent $500 on Facebook ads and made back 300.
I made a face and it's because my numbers are significantly bigger and worse than that. So, and I'm not giving up, like, but you just, you have to kind of wait, like, is meta gonna be friendly to me today or whatever it is? And it's an out of control feeling. And so is just waiting for sales to come through your direct store or your Amazon or wherever. And you think you're doing things right, but you're at the mercy of what feels like luck.
Todd Fahnestock (08:24)
you
Jack Shilkaitis (08:30)
Yeah.
Right.
Johnny B. Truant (08:43)
Whereas I can, I just did one Saturday, I can haul out, I'm kind of early, I'm kind of grumbling about it, drag books up and set up in the town square of, you know, near me. And I made $1,600. So like that's a thing that I know I can make happen. And that empowerment is for somebody like me who doesn't like to be passive, it's huge.
Jack Shilkaitis (08:56)
Nice.
Yeah.
Yeah, I know for myself, full disclosure, I've started doing this too on a much smaller scale. It was, I think it was before, it was definitely before Last Author Nation. I think it was in October. And I went to the doctor's office, right? This is where the story is starting. And I walk in the door. This is just for a regular checkup, by the way. Nobody needs to be worried about my health. And somebody,
guy sitting in the lobby sees me and he goes, hey I've read all your books. And I'm just like okay like this doesn't happen to me like but I was wearing a book funnel shirt and I thought okay does he does he recognize book funnel is it one of those things like I'm getting does he think I'm Damon like I don't know because we both have beards and book funnel anyway I go pay my copay and I come back and I recognize him I read because I look him in the face now.
I see he's the guy from the gym and I gave him my links on Amazon. So he's serious. He's read all of my books. Now granted he got my books on Amazon, but having that face-to-face interaction with a reader, I was in like a downward spiral before that. was like, ⁓ man, this is... I was down on myself, at my author self, and that, just that experience lifted me up, right?
And so I knew, okay, there's something to this. And then I had been thinking about trying some of these. So I started doing some small business events at my local mall. And that's exactly what it's been. It hasn't been hugely profitable, but it's like a way to get my feet wet, get in front of readers, very low barrier to entry, low cost, that sort of thing. And then I've been talking to Katie and I've been talking to Johnny a little bit here.
about it as well and your guys' input is kind of what led me to bring this panel together. So other authors are gonna have similar experiences to each of you and I like that you came from different places. What I kind of want to get out of the way is for those who haven't done this before, like what are the basics that you need to know? Like what are, it could be something like that you wish you knew ahead of time, whatever you think that somebody who's seriously considering this,
Katie Crosstar (10:53)
Thank
you
Jack Shilkaitis (11:02)
needs to know before they dive into it because we're giving advice to a lot of people here on the internet who are coming or who are at different places and coming from different places in their author career.
Todd Fahnestock (11:13)
I've got one actually, I can. sorry. Go, Katie.
Katie Crosstar (11:16)
before it finally suck, might have the same one.
Todd Fahnestock (11:18)
So I was just going to dovetail on what you were saying, Jack, that like for people who are trying to get into this, I know a lot of authors, especially ones that are frustrated with trying to market their books and get them out there, they want the easy button. They want like someone to tell them this is the trick and here's what you do and you can go and make two thousand dollars at a con. But honestly, for me at least, and I think both Johnny and Katie will corroborate this, it's it's a stacking of things like I mean, you you like going to those low barrier
Jack Shilkaitis (11:32)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Todd Fahnestock (11:45)
Small events you should definitely start there unless you feel real confident about your selling ability about your you know pitch ability about your ability to set up and do all that stuff Go and make your mistakes at places where it's not gonna cost you a lot of money like hone your pitch I mean the pitch the pitches that I do I mean they have been honed over seven years of doing this and I still change them to this day where I just keep like I notice that people are reacting a certain different way to certain things and To do that and also have to pay
Jack Shilkaitis (11:58)
Yeah.
Todd Fahnestock (12:13)
$1,900 for a booth do not do that to yourself right out of the gate don't do it go to a place where it's 50 bucks and you get to sit down and you get to make all of your mistakes on a bunch of people that aren't buying your books and you walk away and say okay I lost $50 but I learned blah blah blah that would be my first out of the gate advice
Jack Shilkaitis (12:15)
Yeah.
Right. I should
say, I haven't lost money. I've done three of them. It would have been four, I had to skip one because I moved. We were talking about that before the podcast. It was an ordeal. Yes. But each one of them, I made my money back and then some. So it was just fine. Katie, you had something to share on this for the newbies in the room.
Katie Crosstar (12:34)
Nice.
Johnny B. Truant (12:38)
in depth.
Todd Fahnestock (12:46)
.
Katie Crosstar (12:49)
Yeah,
yeah, so this is applicable to me, but Johnny might not agree with us. can't remember because Todd and Johnny and I have, I've hashed this out a bit. I think for me, the money is in the bundling of your offer. So if you are in a physical location, the, don't necessarily think more is better, but I think it's in the quote unquote deal that you give. So you can sell $20 standalones, like a single book for $20 all day.
But if you can start moving a single sale to like $50, then every single transaction has a higher average order value and you make more money off the bat right away. So the more like you can make per transaction, the faster you make your money back and the better, which is why I say bundles is for my experience. Bundles is where it actually became a profitable entity instead of focusing on a single book offering a bundle. Now, for those of you that have one book,
Jack Shilkaitis (13:17)
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Katie Crosstar (13:40)
and you don't have a bundle or whatever and you're just getting out there, don't let that stop you. But I think there's really something to be said for setting yourself up for success from the beginning with like offers, whatever those bundles are. I have different bundle options, I almost exclusively sell bundles when it's in person.
Jack Shilkaitis (13:52)
Yeah.
Now, let's tease that out a little bit here, because I know I did want each of you to answer that kind of beginner's question. But on this issue of bundling, and you mentioned the disagreement with Johnny, you two are also kind of different authors in a sense, right? This is my observation. Let me know if I'm wrong. But Katie, I know you have a couple of long running series. And Johnny, you you have do have some series that are longer, but you also have some you have standalones.
Katie Crosstar (14:12)
Mm-hmm.
Jack Shilkaitis (14:25)
You have different genres and they're not always directly connected. And so maybe that's part of the element of coming from different places. Am I reading that right? Johnny, what's your take on that? Yeah. Yes. Okay.
Johnny B. Truant (14:34)
Let me bang my gavel here and say I do not disagree with Katie on that. No, as a matter of
fact, that was something, Katie, that you said in one of our little talks that made me go out and like immediately, because there's a mindset thing here too. I think a lot of authors are gonna go out there they're gonna be like, will you please buy my book? I mean, not saying that, but their body language is probably saying it. And after you do this enough, you kind of gain, at least from the people I've talked to, a certain degree of not just confidence in yourself,
belief that there are people out there who still buy physical books and and are excited when they see an author out there and the bundling thing is just one more aspect of like You have to believe people would be interested in multiple books before you have the guts to offer them multiple books But after i'd been doing it for a while was like, yeah Why am I not doing that? Because here's the thing like you start to think so I do if people get three books They get 10 off any three books or if they get a complete series of five or more they get 20 off and
Jack Shilkaitis (15:18)
Yeah.
Johnny B. Truant (15:32)
The mentality of discounting when it's advantageous is kind of a weird epiphany that shouldn't have been an epiphany because what your brain's probably gonna think is, I wanna sell book one, book two, book three at full price. But the chances are you're not actually going to ever sell book two or book three. So to most people, like most people aren't going to then find you. So there's an aspect of striking while the iron's hot and the books aren't limited.
So if you make $4 less on a sale or whatever it is, if it's still above the production cost, then who cares? Like it's a sale you aren't going to make anyway. No, ⁓ I totally agree with Katie on that. And I even do like upsells and hey, do you want this bonus book? And in the same idea, I will say that in my experience, different kinds of markets, different kinds of selling opportunities,
attract to different kinds of buyers. And I think that, and I have limited experience here, the con buyer seems to be much more bundle and full series than sometimes something like a market fair or whatever. And I also do this kind of like I was making little notes here. So it was like speed round, but I mentioned some numbers when I was introducing this and I probably should not have done that because I know that authors always like people are gonna, well, I wanna make that much. No, forget what I said.
Jack Shilkaitis (16:30)
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Johnny B. Truant (16:49)
Like I am where I am, I am who I am. Everybody's a little different. And the idea of like putting a too high number or whatever is just gonna shoot you in the foot. The second event that I did when I kind of caught the bug and went back, it was a little farmer's market. I paid $35 and I maybe made, I don't know, 200 or something, which was pretty good, but it's still $200, you know? And you have to factor it. have to take out your book costs and all of that. But...
Jack Shilkaitis (16:53)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Johnny B. Truant (17:16)
but there are different selling styles. You mentioned that Katie and I are different. I personally find that variety is a great thing for selling live. It does not put me in a box, but the conventional wisdom with selling on Amazon or wherever is you're gonna confuse the algorithm if you have multiple genres. So it's just kind of different places, different situations.
Jack Shilkaitis (17:34)
Yeah,
yeah, no exactly.
Todd Fahnestock (17:36)
That's the beauty of selling in person is there's no algorithm. You find your audience, you know, and at a con you're going to have people that love horror books as well as people that love sci-fi books as well as people that love, you know what mean? Like you're going to find all those people there and maybe they didn't come there for that reason, but they do have that leaning. yeah, that's one of the I do like about sales.
Jack Shilkaitis (17:41)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Right.
One thing that Johnny touched on there a little bit was that different events have different audiences. And so like you're going there's an audience that's going to go to a con, there's a particular buyer that's going to be there at like a convention like a comic con or something like that.
right? Somebody who's already predisposed to being like a fan of sci-fi, fantasy, whatever the case might be, and probably going there to spend money, may have even spent money on a ticket to go to that event versus like what I was doing even, just putting up a table at my local mall where literally, you know, you have anybody, I'm sitting out there in front of Old Navy and families are walking in and getting clothes for their kids and nobody's paid to be there. You know, people are walking by and
deliberately ignoring me. All right. So it's a different setting. What experience do you guys have with that and how do you adjust to that or do you just find what is the best fit for you?
Johnny B. Truant (18:51)
Do you guys do different kinds, Katie and Todd, or have you mainly done cons?
Katie Crosstar (18:55)
I do almost exclusively cons or bookstores now. When I started out, I would do coffee shops, I just, I would rather pay for access to a specific audience than spend time with a questionable audience because at some point time is money, right? So I would rather pay for that access. But Fauna Stock does a lot more than I do.
Jack Shilkaitis (18:58)
Okay.
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Right.
Todd Fahnestock (19:18)
In the beginning,
I would do like Christmas fairs and things like that. I did one event outside, didn't like that just because I'm in Colorado and so you never know which way the weather is going to go and you got books and if it gets rained on, you can ruin a lot of product really quickly if you're in an area that's prone to rain. But I think, I mean,
Jack Shilkaitis (19:22)
Yeah.
⁓ yeah.
Katie Crosstar (19:27)
You never know.
Jack Shilkaitis (19:33)
Yeah.
Todd Fahnestock (19:38)
And every business model is different. ⁓ My current business model is go big to make big. So every chance I get to level up, to increase the size of my booth, to increase the size of my footprint, I'm still experimenting with that. I mean, there may be a threshold where I get to where I'm like, OK, the cost of this is not outweighed by the amount of books that I sell. But I haven't reached that yet. So I'll let you know when I get there.
Jack Shilkaitis (20:00)
I'm good.
Gotcha.
Johnny B. Truant (20:02)
I mean, kind of. Go ahead, Katie.
Katie Crosstar (20:02)
Can I?
I think you're probably on point with Todd. So you keep going and then Jack, there's just something I want to mention that can kind of tie some of this together when Johnny's done.
Jack Shilkaitis (20:08)
Yeah, sure, Johnny, go ahead.
Johnny B. Truant (20:11)
Yeah, so I mean, I think, so I totally agree about the outdoor events. They are a unique challenge. It's where I started because in Texas, I'm in Austin, Texas, that's where they are, right? Like they don't do a lot of indoor. There are some, but usually it's like, you know, in the parking lot of a PetSmart or something for like the little ones, right? And ⁓ I've mostly graduated kind of out of those. ⁓
Katie Crosstar (20:29)
Yeah
Johnny B. Truant (20:34)
And I want multi-day. Ideally, I want multi-day because multi-day, whether it's inside or outside, you don't have to set up twice entirely. Ideally multi-day inside because then you don't have to bring a tent and cinder blocks and worry about the rain and the wind. But that said, there's a certain degree of kind of, well, so the first thing I'll say is that there are four events. This is five, four, four events that I don't think I'm going to be giving up.
Jack Shilkaitis (20:54)
hahahahah
Johnny B. Truant (20:58)
because they're just kind of unique to my area. So I live in Austin and there's this big festival called the Pecan Street Festival, which is, don't want to give numbers, but I want to give you an idea of scope. So I guess I'm going to. that's at least, okay, I just don't want people to like, okay, I guess, but I have a history of people like, how many pages are in your books and what, you know, well, anyway, I'll move along. But yes, those are all at least $5,000 events for me, the Pecan Street.
Katie Crosstar (21:08)
I think you should give numbers, give numbers. think they're here for information. They're, they're adults. They can, I think it's good.
Jack Shilkaitis (21:10)
Yeah, that's fair.
Todd Fahnestock (21:14)
They can scale. They
Jack Shilkaitis (21:14)
Yeah, this, this,
Todd Fahnestock (21:15)
can scale. I plan to get numbers.
Jack Shilkaitis (21:15)
yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Katie Crosstar (21:19)
Yeah.
Johnny B. Truant (21:25)
and they do it twice a year. There's ⁓ two big events in a very close nearby town where I sleep at home at night and go home at the end of every day, which are also $5,000 events. So like, I wanna keep those four, they're close. I don't need a hotel room. I don't have to fly. And that's 20 grand right there. It's gross. I need to pull out my cost of goods sold and the cost to attend. But I'm kind of moving into trying to do more of the cons too, because...
Jack Shilkaitis (21:46)
Sure.
Johnny B. Truant (21:51)
man, it's nice to walk away from your booth at the con and then just come back. It's like, oh, it starts at 10, I'll be there at 9.55. You you walk in and you don't have to worry about wind or people stealing it or whatever. But the pivoting, when I started to say was I applied for one of those events and didn't get in this year, which is a bummer, but I was kind of like, well, that sucks. Okay, so I'm gonna do three one-day events and that's one of the ones that I mentioned. So I was hoping for a $5,000 event that I didn't get into.
Jack Shilkaitis (21:58)
Mm-hmm.
Johnny B. Truant (22:20)
but I just made 1600 at a one day event that I'm gonna do three of. So it's like, okay, you can pivot like that. And I'll just add quickly before I hand back to Katie that that is kind of a cool aspect of this is especially with the small markets, can't do this with Comic Cons. If you're like, man, I want to justify some purchase that's like a few hundred dollars or something and you just kind of can't quite justify it. There's like...
Jack Shilkaitis (22:39)
Ahem.
Johnny B. Truant (22:46)
book math that you can do where you're like, okay, well there's this market and I can call them and be there tomorrow and make a few hundred dollars. Like that's kind of cool. It's almost like a weird author's ATM that you can do.
Jack Shilkaitis (22:52)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, author math, right? Like, I could just sell some books and then I can buy this this new thing. Yeah, no, I love I love that Katie. Yes, no, go for it.
Johnny B. Truant (23:04)
Well, what, so one quick anecdote, anecdote, sorry, I'm just going to keep hogging the mic is that when you do
things that aren't events where people expect like at Comic-Con, people do expect authors. Certainly at a book event, people expect authors. The most common thing I overhear from people who don't stop, or sometimes people who do is they just say what you're, they just name, they give the unknown books and then they walk on. And it's like, well, thank you for identifying what I'm selling, but it does point to like, well, why there's an author here.
Jack Shilkaitis (23:14)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
It goes back to the hunter gatherer days when you'd walk by with your, and you'd be like, berries! Yes, exactly, exactly. That's what that is. It's an artifact of an older age. But Katie, I think you had something to point out there too.
Johnny B. Truant (23:32)
but that's an advantage in my mind.
Mastodon!
Katie Crosstar (23:40)
That's a done.
Todd Fahnestock (23:41)
Yeah.
Katie Crosstar (23:48)
Yeah.
So I kind of want to offer a way to think about this for your audience, especially as we continue to talk maybe more about details or whatever. And both Todd and Johnny have leaned into this. So it's why I kind of want to wrap it in. There's different ways to think about in-person selling, right? And that's kind of what we opened with. Like this is why we do it, whatever. But I want to emphasize it, that there is a choice here where the numbers are very important. I always focus on numbers.
Jack Shilkaitis (23:54)
Mm-hmm.
Katie Crosstar (24:15)
Johnny, know Todd and Johnny and I all have serious Excel spreadsheets where we keep track of everything. All of that's very important. But another way to think about this is there's the money side, but there's also so much about this that you can choose to draw from it. So I take my pitches and I use them in my ads. I take words that my readers have said and I put that in my back cover copy.
Jack Shilkaitis (24:36)
Mm-hmm.
Katie Crosstar (24:39)
People will say, well, does it have this? Does it have to? And when I start to notice a trend, I start to use that when I talk to my readers, because this is literally what people ask me for. and it's also networking opportunities. It's, it's so much more than that. like, it's an opportunity to get pictures that I share on social media. So this is actually so much bigger than that. So even if you don't make back what you put into it with cost of goods sold, you may be just extended your brand like so much farther and you're networking and your opportunities. And maybe you're going to be on
Jack Shilkaitis (25:02)
Raid.
Katie Crosstar (25:06)
Like podcasts now, right? So there's a, the bigger way to think about this is you're inserting yourself into a position for greater opportunity. And also you're trying to sell books and data mine in the meantime, because I've certainly had situations where I'm like, well, that didn't go the way I wanted, but other opportunities arise. and that's a mindset like to choose that. think, I think Johnny said something about the sad author that looks insecure and is like, please buy my book.
Jack Shilkaitis (25:08)
Yep.
yeah.
Katie Crosstar (25:33)
There's a choice for all of us to choose to be excited, to take it in regardless of what the revenue is and to learn and to talk and to grow and to see. And when you look at selling books in person that way, as an opportunity, as an expander, everything, I think it just changes the way you stand. It changes the way you present and it makes everything better. And everyone's nodding because the way you present is everything with in-person selling. So I just want to mention that.
Jack Shilkaitis (25:59)
Thank you for pointing out Todd and I are both here nodding. But I was going to say Todd, you are nodding along with Katie. Do have any insight on that?
Todd Fahnestock (26:03)
.
Absolutely.
No, I mean, I could expand upon that very easily. I think that that it's very, very easy to get wrapped up in the amount and I am as guilty and more guilty than anybody else of doing that. But when I teach, I have a class called conquering the con that I teach at various writing workshops. And one of the things that I say is you got to set your priorities, choose three, choose five, whatever it is. I have three. My top priority when I go to a con and I have these listed
Jack Shilkaitis (26:25)
Mmm.
Todd Fahnestock (26:35)
because I want to remind myself when I get too wrapped up in the numbers and the top priority is making super fans like Katie's saying. Going there to talk to them face to face because you know there's one thing that in-person sales has all over Amazon or anybody else and that is that human face to face contact. You can't get it any other way, right? So having that is huge. Somebody who's met you face to face and all things being equal, your book and somebody else's book in the exact same genre, they're gonna buy your book because they met you, right?
Jack Shilkaitis (26:52)
All
Katie Crosstar (27:04)
Mm-hmm.
Todd Fahnestock (27:04)
Like that's that's gonna give you an advantage But ⁓ so it's making super fans and then the second one is marketing my books getting books out into the world so it's great for that and and having somebody have a Physical copy of your book as opposed to an ebook sitting on their coffee table. Somebody comes over. They're like, what's that? Boom, you've got marketing happening for you You don't you're not even there, right? And then the third is making money because if you don't make the money, you can't keep doing it, right? You got to have something to turn the wheels forward, but I also wanted to piggyback on
Jack Shilkaitis (27:24)
Yeah.
Yeah, we gotta justify it.
Todd Fahnestock (27:33)
What Johnny was talking about with different events and and you know doing a one-day event versus multiple day events Don't be too quick to dismiss the local events So for example, I go to a local event called Genghis Khan here and it's not even a comic-con It's a gaming con which means it doesn't have forty thousand fifty thousand a hundred thousand people. It has two to three thousand people but
Jack Shilkaitis (27:38)
Right.
You don't know?
Todd Fahnestock (27:54)
and I make maybe $2600, $2700 there. I take home about $1500.
Now I just went to Emerald City Comic Con and I made well over $5,000 and I took home negative $100. That's how expensive it was for me to drive two days out there, stay in hotels, stay in hotel I was out there, the parking was outrageously high, eating meals, the booth was super expensive, all of those things count. you know, mean, but I got to put a whole new footprint in Seattle where I don't have a huge footprint. So it's advantageous there, made lots of great contacts with fellow authors,
Jack Shilkaitis (28:08)
Yeah.
Ahem.
meals. Yes.
Sure.
Todd Fahnestock (28:30)
fans so all of that stuff was premium and the money I mean it's now one of my most high grossing cons and it didn't net me anything it cost me so so looking at it that way is it a failure no it's not a failure it's a huge success in a lot of ways but it's not a financial success
Jack Shilkaitis (28:41)
Yeah, right.
Exactly. No,
I like the mindset on that. I was going to say on the meals, because I was doing these events at the mall, my wife is very pregnant and has been for all three of those events. And let me just say, maybe if you're going to do one at the mall where there's lots of fast food options around, your wife, maybe your wife, I love you, honey, by the way, should stay home because there's like
Todd Fahnestock (29:06)
you
Johnny B. Truant (29:10)
Yeah.
Jack Shilkaitis (29:14)
five guys
Katie Crosstar (29:13)
Damn!
Jack Shilkaitis (29:14)
over there, I'm going to go get pizza. What do want for lunch? And you're stuck at the booth selling books. And maybe we ate all the books, basically. We turned the books into money and then we spent the money on food. We basically ate the books. But no complaints. But you learn from it either way. If you're new to it, it's a learning experience, even if you don't make money on a small scale. But even at the
Todd Fahnestock (29:22)
Hahaha!
Katie Crosstar (29:24)
It's a good day. It's a good day.
Jack Shilkaitis (29:36)
at the scale that you guys are doing things at. It's nice to know you're still able to find the silver lining and glean something from it. ⁓
Todd Fahnestock (29:44)
Yeah, when I, when I
Katie Crosstar (29:44)
Well, to...
Todd Fahnestock (29:45)
take Laura to a con, I have to do a different spreadsheet because like, you know, she brings in this much because she's working the booth, but then she spends this much because she goes around. Do you see this rock that they painted? It's really cool. She'd check out this rock. I'm like, how much, how much was that rock? Well, it's only $50.
Jack Shilkaitis (29:52)
Hmm.
Sell some books and then you can get it, right? Right,
Katie Crosstar (30:01)
Yeah.
Johnny B. Truant (30:01)
dude, I won't
Jack Shilkaitis (30:02)
exactly.
Johnny B. Truant (30:02)
even eat lunch because I'm so full. like, well, I don't. That's money I'm spending. I don't want to spend money to be here. I have some crackers back in the hotel.
Jack Shilkaitis (30:05)
Yeah!
Yeah.
Todd Fahnestock (30:09)
I got my
little Ziploc bag of cold chicken nuggets from Costco that I'm like munching on like a rat in the back of my...
Katie Crosstar (30:15)
⁓
You guys need to like live it up a bit more and enjoy it. you'd be like sad booth mates. Yeah.
Jack Shilkaitis (30:19)
Hahaha! ⁓
Johnny B. Truant (30:20)
Well, I don't like to leave the booth either. Like if I have to go to the bathroom, that's
Jack Shilkaitis (30:22)
Yeah.
Johnny B. Truant (30:23)
a failure. I'm like, was the big buyer is going to come by when I'm at the bathroom.
Katie Crosstar (30:27)
my gosh, you guys are ridiculous. Well, I want to reiterate, I want to reiterate with Todd though. So I sell at DragonCon every year. It's a huge con. It's literally the other side of the country, both North and South and East and West for me. And it like, by the time I pay for airfare dinners with readers, books, booths, hotel.
Jack Shilkaitis (30:29)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Johnny B. Truant (30:29)
I'm a maximizer.
Jack Shilkaitis (30:35)
Hmm?
Katie Crosstar (30:47)
everything. It's a wash. So I'll make almost $9,000 in sales and it'll be about $8,000 to do it. But it is a raving success to me. And I go back every year because the networking, I've closed deals, like made friends, got podcast opportunities, got visibility, got other cons. I got guest of honor slot to other cons. Like the networking and presence in that world year after year after year, and then the panels and all that totally worth the
Jack Shilkaitis (30:49)
Mmm.
Yeah,
Katie Crosstar (31:14)
price tag, right? I just assume that I'm selling books to
Jack Shilkaitis (31:14)
right.
Katie Crosstar (31:16)
afford to go there. like, right. Like, so it's that mindset like it, and Todd does that too. Like I think Emerald City Comic Con was probably, was a fabulous initial year to do $5,000 on your first year, get a feel for it. You are negative a hundred. That's a bummer. But I also would probably do that con again and see what the next two years brings before I decided whether it was worth it or not. Right. So there's some number, some author math.
Jack Shilkaitis (31:18)
Yeah.
Todd Fahnestock (31:30)
Yep.
Jack Shilkaitis (31:36)
Right.
Katie Crosstar (31:41)
If you're thinking about this in a more financial way, that's, think how a lot of us on this call think about that. Well, like, does it at least make itself back? Do I feel good enough about it to give it another shot? Or was it such a raving failure that we're not even gonna go back next year? That's when we really look at numbers.
Jack Shilkaitis (31:54)
Yeah, right.
Todd Fahnestock (31:57)
I love that Katie has this unconscious brilliance where she coins these terms that she doesn't even realize are amazing like author math that I'm going to keep that one author. Oh, did they? Oh, okay. See, I'm trying to give Jack's credit to you.
Katie Crosstar (32:05)
Well, someone else said it earlier in the call. It was Johnny.
Jack Shilkaitis (32:09)
Johnny said book math. I said author math. So either way,
Johnny B. Truant (32:11)
that's true,
Jack Shilkaitis (32:12)
yeah,
Johnny B. Truant (32:12)
that's true. Synergizing.
Jack Shilkaitis (32:12)
yeah, no You're well, maybe that's all Katie's been doing she's just been stealing these terms from everybody else. You just haven't heard him before Todd So the pitch the pitch is a big deal here. I want to talk about that pitching I want to talk about extra virgin versus introversion here a little bit. I'm gonna throw this to I am I want to throw this to John
Katie Crosstar (32:13)
I was like, that wasn't me, but thank you.
Johnny B. Truant (32:18)
Yeah.
Katie Crosstar (32:21)
You me, you found me.
Todd Fahnestock (32:31)
Get ready for the fur to fly.
Katie Crosstar (32:33)
I love pitching.
Todd Fahnestock (32:34)
Every single one us does bitches differently, I think.
Jack Shilkaitis (32:37)
I want throw this to Johnny first. When it comes to pitching, know you and I, when you sat down with me for an hour, gave me an hour of your time to talk to me about this before I did my first in-person event. I got to sit at the feet of the master and ⁓ pitching was, and marketing and how you're pitching informs your marketing and all that was a big piece of what you shared. So how do you approach your pitches when you're at these events? Tell everybody.
Tell us about this, because I know some people might sign up for their first event and not even know, like, I'm supposed to pitch my book? What is that?
Johnny B. Truant (33:09)
Yeah, and I think that there's some of that is unavoidable and necessary, honestly. ⁓ I think that you maybe have to kind of stumble through your pitches. I think that if you like really hone a pitch, like you think you really have the 100 % version, I don't know, man. I think there's something to be said for having a rough idea where you're gonna say and figure out what works because there's always pivots. I mean, I will say that I'm a bit more mercenary than my friends here. I do look at the bottom line dollars.
Jack Shilkaitis (33:14)
Mm-hmm.
Johnny B. Truant (33:35)
more than some authors because that, I don't know, it's how I keep score. But the benefit of, like you're saying, that kind of that focus group approach is huge. So let me give you a few examples. So ⁓ I have so consistently gotten positive compliments on my covers that I'm like, I don't have to worry about my covers. Like they're drawing people over. I've had people like they're looking and I'm like, hey, are you a reader? And they're like, no, I just wanted to check out these covers. They're really cool.
So I know, and I have a book called Pretty Killer, I don't have it right here, that like sells on the cover alone. I've had so many people pick that book up and I'll be like, it's a mystery. And they'll be like, okay, here. And I'll be like, do you wanna read the back? Do you wanna know anything about it? And they're like, nope, nope, I'm good. But you learn what works and it may not be what you expect. So like I have a series called The Beam that I would, it's my big sci-fi world, Sean's in mine. And I would have thought that that would be like,
Jack Shilkaitis (34:01)
Mm-hmm.
Todd Fahnestock (34:15)
Take my money!
Katie Crosstar (34:16)
No. ⁓
They don't need it.
Johnny B. Truant (34:29)
one of the big sellers and it's not because I don't know how to pitch it succinctly and I've kind of figured that out but I didn't know that I was like it'll sell itself. Now one of my biggest sellers I'm gonna hold this one up so this is Unicorn Western for those of you who don't know so I don't give ready to get a gander at this enormous tone but also the cover art so a reader told me that like in a review told me that this was like if Stephen King was on acid when he wrote the Dark Tower and I started using that in my pitch
Jack Shilkaitis (34:35)
Thank
Katie Crosstar (34:42)
Mm-hmm.
Jack Shilkaitis (34:44)
Hehehehehe
Johnny B. Truant (34:55)
And there have been three people who haven't laughed at that in the history of my using it. And anybody who's teetering on the edge, they're immediately like, my God, I have to have that. So kind of pressure testing what works is a really big deal. Another example is I have a book, a demon fighters book that I sometimes call Backdraft with Demons. And I thought that was a great hook. Turns out a lot of people haven't seen Backdraft.
And when you say it's like backdraft and they say, don't know, you've introduced friction that you now have to back up and overcome. It's not like, like taking that shot is not neutral. Like it's actually a negative. ⁓ so, so that's a really big deal, but like, like the dark tower on acid is something that I use in my ads now. that's a big deal. And so that, but that to me, it's like the money and the, kind of like, that, that, that
Jack Shilkaitis (35:24)
Yeah.
Mmm, that's a point.
Yeah.
Johnny B. Truant (35:43)
focus group testing and seeing what works and validating ideas, those are the really big wins for me. If I have a con that like I lose $100, I'm gonna be maybe more bummed out than these two. Like I'm gonna be like, damn it, what's going on there? But it's validating to know like, okay, that cover is good or that cover isn't converting. But as far as, I mean, your actual question was pitching.
Todd Fahnestock (35:58)
pretty bummed out.
Jack Shilkaitis (36:00)
Yeah.
Right.
Johnny B. Truant (36:11)
I started out just kind of describing like what the book was about, but I ended up discovering that for me, and I know that Todd is a little different about this, I like a quick hook. I like to be able to say something. It's Downton Abbey with robots. It's how Michael Crichton would have written The Walking Dead is often how I describe Dead City. And then I'll usually have some sort of a follow-up and I'll give them the hook. like, so just so people have an example for Dead City, I don't know how long this is, maybe 15 seconds, I say,
⁓ So there was you know a zombie outbreak like 15 years ago And then a drug was invented called necrophage that stops the disease from getting worse, but they they also don't get better So we have a mixed society of zombies and then when the drug starts to lose its efficacy Then it's like an instant plague so I rushed that a little bit, but like that's the size that I'm using I use a hook first and Then if they're interested, then I will move into that short pitch and usually I stop there. I don't usually elaborate
beyond that, we're all different. mean, Todd has a storytelling approach and yeah.
Jack Shilkaitis (37:06)
Yeah, Todd, tell us your approach then.
Todd Fahnestock (37:08)
Yeah, so actually, mean, this is one of the things that's really good about this group is when I talked to Johnny about his pitching, like mine is on the other side of the spectrum. Like he's short, succinct, he's using comps to describe something and attaching into what people know. And I'm like the entertainer mode. if I can get people in with my voice, with the verbiage that I do and pull them into my world, that's my goal.
And I think someone who wants a really quick buy, they're like, don't tell me anymore, I'm buying it, then I'll stop the pitch, right? But if they don't, then I will take a minute, even two minutes sometimes to do a pitch, which doesn't sound very long. It's an eternity when you're talking to somebody who's wanting to move on, right? It's a very long pitch that I use. However, I'm extraordinarily successful with it. Yeah. And so...
Jack Shilkaitis (37:41)
Yeah.
Katie Crosstar (37:49)
⁓ it's so long.
Jack Shilkaitis (37:50)
Yeah.
We've got time, we've got time. I'm kidding, I'm kidding.
Todd Fahnestock (37:59)
So, yeah, so mean, it's it's ⁓ it has it has proven to be very successful. And actually, like there have been some people who afterwards would tell me I was not going to buy a fantasy book. after listening to you tell the story, I want to I want to give it a try. Right. That's my goal every single time. And and I think that sometimes I'm like there have become there have been cons every now and then where I've got so many people that are coming to the table and the killer for anybody working a table all by themselves.
Jack Shilkaitis (38:13)
Yeah.
Todd Fahnestock (38:28)
is to have somebody come up while you're engaged with somebody else, flutter around for a second, and before you can turn it and talk to them, they walk away. And you're like, Because most of the time, like I at least, am looping people that weren't even looking at my table. I'm like, hey, want to hear about a book? And they turn their eyes my way, and then I try and hook them, right? If they're walking up to the table and looking at something, that is like, that's easy money, right? That's the way that I'm feeling. And have somebody walk up, look, and then walk away while you're engaged with somebody else. So that is the deficiency in my style of picking.
Jack Shilkaitis (38:55)
Hmm.
Todd Fahnestock (38:57)
where if I'm spending a minute over here I might lose somebody over there. ⁓ Do you even with the short pitches?
Johnny B. Truant (39:01)
You get it too,
Jack Shilkaitis (39:03)
Yeah.
Katie Crosstar (39:03)
Yeah, we all do. yeah, we're all there.
Johnny B. Truant (39:04)
100 % and the worst
is when the person you're talking to is an author who has no desire to buy a book They just want to chit chat and you're like dude. I'm selling here and you watch somebody come up Yeah, well I I do eventually but I'm like it's the same thing what Todd's alluding to and I Katie I don't know if you've had this experience too is I am the magic ingredient me
Jack Shilkaitis (39:12)
Mmm.
Katie Crosstar (39:15)
you got to set boundaries. Yeah.
Todd Fahnestock (39:18)
Katie!
you
Johnny B. Truant (39:27)
Like the books are not gonna sell themselves, and if I don't talk to somebody, they're like, ⁓ their interest just wasn't enough. But if I talk to them, I can close half of those people or more.
Katie Crosstar (39:35)
It's interesting because I think I'm a mix between both of you. when I pitch, pitching is my favorite part of this process because I tailor my pitch based on their facial expression. Well, yeah, I'm an extrovert too, but I like to tailor the pitch based on their responses. So I have short, quick punchy. And then once I get the cues that they're interested, I have a longer story to tell. And Johnny, you might kind of do the same. Like all of us might kind of do the same, but I sort of have both in my mind, but everything pivots on
Todd Fahnestock (39:43)
and extroverts.
Jack Shilkaitis (39:46)
Hahaha.
Katie Crosstar (40:04)
the context of that individual reader. So if I have that person coming up and someone else wandering over, I'll actually be like, Hey, do you want to hear about this? And if they say yes, I'll go, Hey, why don't you listen to, since you're looking, we'll just talk really quick. Like you can kind of loop them in. And there have been so many authors that have stopped and said, Hey, like, want to talk about this. And I will stop them and say, give me just a sec, like just stand right here next to me behind the booth and I'll talk to you in a minute, but I want to talk to this reader. And so that's how I'll set boundaries with them. I'll like,
Johnny B. Truant (40:15)
That's good.
Katie Crosstar (40:32)
them back or I'll be like, hey, give me a second. Sometimes they're fine. But the pitching, it's entirely based. Well, sometimes too, I don't always pitch the same thing to the same people. So I might say, I might start a pitch and based on the way they act or respond to questions they ask, I will completely change the offer. So if I have someone that I'm chatting with and I'll start feeling them out, like I'll give them the basic like elevator pitch. And if they're like,
Todd Fahnestock (40:36)
I'm using sometimes.
Jack Shilkaitis (40:49)
Right.
Katie Crosstar (40:57)
Okay, I'm like, or I got dragons or I got high seas, Romance, which is drawing to you. So I'll give like really small pitches and then watch their eyes. And then I'll just start expanding, even if they haven't said anything, especially if they pick a book up, right. And then I tell you that. And then if they kind of like aren't holding the paperback or they're eyeing the free eBooks I have, I'll be like, by the way, I have like an eBook bundle or an audio book bundle. And then I, and then I only give them the price for those. So
The whole pitch process I love because it's dynamic and it's unpredictable and it fails, but it also succeeds more than it fails for the most part. So I get why, especially for new people, that's the scariest part of this is because it is unpredictable. It's unlike, it's not in your control. You don't know how someone's going to react. Like you kind of flub it. You start babbling. Yeah. All of that. Like to this day, I still do it. Right. Like, so I wanted to say that like we all.
We all flub the pitches. all lose the sales. We all feel awkward at first. It takes me a good four to five people to kind of get back into my groove. And if you asked me to give you my pitch right now, I couldn't cause it's out of context. But if I was standing by the table,
Jack Shilkaitis (41:54)
Alright.
⁓
Katie, Katie,
I was just about to ask you to give us your pitch. How did you know? I was just about to ask you.
Todd Fahnestock (42:09)
out.
Katie Crosstar (42:15)
I can't, I can't, I have to be in context and it will come back to me.
Jack Shilkaitis (42:18)
But that totally
makes sense. I experienced the same kind of thing. Like the morning of, I go to the mall at 8 a.m. and it's always like, I was telling Emma and Kelly this in our Slack channel over the weekend. like, every time I go to one of these things, I'm like, why the hell am I doing this? Why the hell am I doing this? ⁓ What was I thinking? And then I get there and I set up and I see all my books on the table and people walk by and go, what? And I'm like,
Todd Fahnestock (42:29)
you
Yeah
Jack Shilkaitis (42:44)
That's why I'm here. And then you start talking to people and it warm. It's like, it's like, that's almost dormant until you're like in that setting on that note. And I don't want to steer the conversation here too much because this was, this was great. This back and forth. love it. Especially when you guys say something and you respond to each other and I don't even have to say anything. I just sit back and watch the podcast as it happens. But one of the biggest objections that I've heard from authors, cause I'll, I'll pitch this to them as an idea and our webinars and things like that.
Katie Crosstar (43:02)
haha
Jack Shilkaitis (43:11)
is like, well, I'm an introvert, I can't do that. Or it's way too time consuming. Or I don't want to travel. Multiple different objections there that I just threw out, obviously, but on the introvert, extrovert thing in particular, let's touch on that one. Right? Is this something where you've got to have the personality for this? Or can you kind of like come out of your shell? If you're normally an introverted person with enough practice, do you think you can figure this thing out?
Johnny B. Truant (43:37)
I feel like I want to kick the introvert question to Todd, but I just want to address globally. Yeah. Because, ⁓ because Katie and I are extroverts and it's, it's, it's fun. It's fun to read the person. by the way, a hundred percent on that you have it, your pitch has to be dynamic. You have to respond to what you're seeing. just a quick anecdote. I saw this, this one girl, the woman, she was maybe in her twenties came by my booth and, she was, she was buying for a boyfriend. And so on the spot, I'm like, profiling her.
Katie Crosstar (43:41)
Mm-hmm, me too.
Jack Shilkaitis (43:45)
Mm-hmm.
Katie Crosstar (43:46)
For sure.
Johnny B. Truant (44:04)
Right? I'm like, okay, what is her boyfriend probably like? And I said, I have a book that's John Wick meets Fight Club. And she's like, all the yeses. So she bought that. But the comment that I was going to make was that you're saying, it takes too much. I don't want to travel. And if you feel that way, legit, and you feel strongly about it, then don't do it. Don't do it. There's no magic answers in this. There's no one thing that anybody should do. There's no one thing that works for everybody. And I hate social media.
Todd Fahnestock (44:12)
one.
Jack Shilkaitis (44:20)
Yes. Right.
Katie Crosstar (44:22)
Yeah,
there's no gun to your head.
Jack Shilkaitis (44:24)
Right. Yes.
Johnny B. Truant (44:30)
And people tell me all the time, you need to do social media. And I say, screw you, I'm driving to cons. Like, are you driving to cons? That's what I'm gonna spend my time.
Jack Shilkaitis (44:33)
Johnny, what are you gonna get on TikTok? Johnny,
what are you gonna get on TikTok, Johnny? What are you gonna? I'm kidding. No, yeah.
Johnny B. Truant (44:41)
I do not have any interest in it.
Todd Fahnestock (44:44)
you
So yeah, I think, I mean, I.
Jack Shilkaitis (44:45)
Todd!
Todd Fahnestock (44:48)
I sort of waved the introvert flag, I'm on the Myers-Briggs like out of 15 on one side, 15 on another with zero in the middle. If this is extrovert, I am one notch toward extrovert. So I'm pretty much right bed smack in the middle. I can do the extrovert thing for a while and then I got to recharge my batteries. But I will say at one point I worked very closely with someone who was definitely an introvert. And this is where my style of pitch actually works in favor of that.
Jack Shilkaitis (45:01)
Uh-huh.
Mm-hmm.
Todd Fahnestock (45:18)
because I wrote the pitch down and I Muscled it around and tried to make it as good for what the purpose was You know to engage people face to face and so if you have a strong pitch like that and you give it to an introvert or if the Introvert who is selling their books Makes that strong pitch where it's got really good strong Evocative language and that sort of thing and you can repeat it over and over and over and over again and have the same effect that can mitigate some of that but
Jack Shilkaitis (45:18)
Mmm.
Todd Fahnestock (45:45)
Katie and Johnny both said having that be that ability to like turn on the fly to connect into your potential customer It's invaluable and if you don't want to interface with people at all This is not the place for you to go if you're an introvert and you want to do it You can do it. There are steps that you can take Like I said make a really strong pitch written down first Memorize it so you have something I mean like unlike Katie I can do this pitch in my sleep because I've done it a gazillion million times and I just
Katie Crosstar (46:00)
Yeah.
Jack Shilkaitis (46:00)
Right.
Todd Fahnestock (46:15)
just did it a week and a half ago, like a hundred thousand times to a bunch of people, and these things are burned into my brain. I mean, I can just right off the deck start going into a pitch. And so if you have that, if you have that thing memorized and down, it is the strength, right? I mean, you should put emotion into your voice as much as you can, and I know that's hard for a lot of introverts, but if you have that...
backbone of good strong copy it can it can mitigate some of that difficulty because I mean I imagine both Katie and Johnny they're they're sort of changing their pitch every single time based on who they talk to and it's just this sort of thing right no is it the same okay ⁓
Jack Shilkaitis (46:44)
Yeah.
Katie Crosstar (46:51)
don't know. Same. Yeah.
Jack Shilkaitis (46:54)
Yeah.
Katie Crosstar (46:55)
It's the...
Johnny B. Truant (46:56)
Todd, that,
I'm sorry. Well, was, was, okay. I was going to say, tell that story that you told in falling to fly between the two days of your first, like that Christmas event that you did, where you did terrible the first day. That's the story I was digging for.
Katie Crosstar (46:57)
No, go ahead, Johnny, and then I have a few thoughts.
Jack Shilkaitis (47:06)
Yeah, stories. I did want some of those stories.
Todd Fahnestock (47:09)
Yeah,
oh sorry, okay, well you should have just said that. You know I can talk forever about anything.
Johnny B. Truant (47:11)
I was trying to leave you there naturally.
Katie Crosstar (47:12)
Gosh, Johnny.
Jack Shilkaitis (47:12)
you
Todd Fahnestock (47:15)
Yeah, so in falling to fly which is a book that I wrote specifically for new writers young writers coming into the industry When I decided to do sales, I went to this Christmas market like I mentioned and they I didn't want to do it Essentially my wife when I when I got to rock bottom I wasn't making any money and I said what do I do? I'm gonna have to go back and get a day job This is like towards the end of the first year of me going full-time as an author. She said say yes to everything and I got this newsletter
from the Colorado Authors League and said come do the holiday booth and I called up the president who I knew and I was like okay so what is this holiday booth thing and she was like you know 180 years old and she's like well what you do is you come to the thing and you buy a part of the booth for $50 and then you know you can sell your books to the public and she's like do you want to do it and in my mind I was like no I'd rather go that a dentist really because that sounds horrible to me but I was like yes and I said yes and then I went to this event and the first day I was of course watching
everybody there who obviously knew so much better how to sell books than me right and they're like come on over it's Colorado authors want a book from a Colorado author come on over here and I'm just like like the goose pimples all over my body of of of revulsion like I just didn't want to do that it sounded so contrived and used car sales many but I tried that first day I mimicked them and tried to do that and I sold zero books
Jack Shilkaitis (48:16)
Good.
Hmm
Todd Fahnestock (48:37)
And I
went home completely dejected. And my wife was like, so how did it go? And I was like, absolutely worse than I imagined. Like, and I was imagining it was going to be really bad, right? She's like, well, what are you going to do? Are you going to go back? I'm like, yeah, I'll go back the next day. I said I would go, so I'm going to go. So I went the next day. I sat down. I was just like, I'm not going to do it their way, though. I'm going to sit here and I'm going to just imagine stories, you know, because that makes me happy. So sitting there imagining stories and smiling. And all of a sudden I look up and across the aisle at some Reese booth.
There was a mother buying a wreath and a little girl who was probably seven years old. she, know, mom was facing this way and she was facing this way looking right at my wishing world banner. And she was like, and I caught her eye and she went and like looked away, right? Turned away from me. And I just laughed and went back to imagining story. 30 minutes later, I look up and there she is like seven feet away from the booth, right? All by herself looking at that banner. And I said, Hey, do you like stories like that? And she's like,
I'm like, do you want me to tell you about that story? She's like, and I just started telling the story, right? And by the end of the day, I had like a half dozen kids gathered around for story time and I was like, aha.
I don't have to be a salesman. I have to be a storyteller. And guess what? I am a storyteller. And that's how I sort of got into that pitch. And by the end of that weekend, I had sold 33 books, which doesn't seem like a lot now. And it was all the world back then. I was like the single highest selling author at that booth. And they were all coming up to me asking me what my sales trick was. And the trick was nothing. It was just doing something that I loved and telling a story. So that's the story you were looking for, Johnny.
Jack Shilkaitis (49:44)
Hello.
Yeah.
I love that.
ahem
Katie Crosstar (50:11)
So I actually have, I have more thoughts on this than you think, but I'll keep them succinct. So number one, I'm an extrovert and it is really hard for me to sit in my house all day in the quiet by myself and just dream up stories But I figure it out, right? So like I figure it out. So it's not just an introvert world problem. Like,
Jack Shilkaitis (50:11)
That's a good story.
Todd Fahnestock (50:11)
Hahaha
Katie Crosstar (50:32)
Yeah, I know introverts really struggle with this, I don't know. Johnny and I probably really struggle with the social seclusion that comes from this, but we want it enough that we figure it out. So I feel like if you want physical sales enough, if you want this, you're going to figure it out. You guys got this. But because I'm such an extrovert, one of my best friends is GS Jensen. She writes science fiction and she is the world's greatest introvert. She says this herself. She's probably going to laugh if she hears this, but because of her, I have very practical tips for you introverts. Number one, find an extrovert author friend.
and make friends with them and send them out first. So I will go do a con and then I'll report back to GS Jensen and say, Hey, I think it's worth it. Let's try and do it together. That's how we did DragonCon. We ended up doing it together and we would throw ideas back and forth. And then she, she had written pitches. She like wrote them down. Just like Todd was saying, she would kind of go off that and she would like listen to me and we would talk about it and be like, well, maybe try this in your pitch or, I noticed this. And we would just kind of talk back and forth.
You can't always get your extrovert friend in the booth next to you, but it does help to have one there and just even to start attending cons. If you're an introvert, I start tending cons and just talk to people, but don't be the jerk that ties the authors up when people are coming, right? Like go around, listen to pitches, see what people are doing, see what you like, expose yourself to it and you know, make your plan, but no, in the end, if you want it enough, you're going to figure it out. Also.
Jack Shilkaitis (51:42)
Yeah.
Katie Crosstar (51:52)
just have your boundaries around your recharge time. So at the end of selling, so I'll sell at Dragon from nine in the morning to seven o'clock at night. I'll do panels after I'll like it's, it's 16 hours a day for five days. And at the end of the day, I will go to do bar con. So I'll be on my feet for 18 hours. I won't even go to my hotel room. And that's great. Like it's totally fine, but she has chance and she will be done at selling. She will go into her hotel room. She'll take a break. She'll check out. have boundaries around her.
expectations and she'll choose a night that she'll go out and do bar con, right? So you can put boundaries around this and get friends that help you support it so that you can like find your recharge spaces. And then she just doesn't talk to anyone for like a month after. So, so there are ways to make this work and, you can do it. Like if you want it enough, you're going to figure it out.
Johnny B. Truant (52:40)
I would just add that we've thrown around a lot of big numbers and big intimidating events. don't just shot Todd said this earlier, don't dismiss the little ones. I mentioned that my first real one was a farmer's market. And pressure is so much less you guys like, I sell two books, unprofitable and even if I sell zero, it doesn't matter. It's like nobody's judging you at the farmer's market. So like don't think that you need to, as a matter of would say do not.
Jack Shilkaitis (52:40)
Right.
Yeah.
Johnny B. Truant (53:05)
jump in with both feet no matter how confident you are. You need to start small. would recommend, even if small is like, yeah, for sure. Yes, for sure. And there's no substitute for time in my experience.
Todd Fahnestock (53:10)
There are things you don't know you don't know. Yeah, for sure.
Jack Shilkaitis (53:13)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. No, I mean, I've I've seen that myself just in the little little bit that I've done. Nobody judges you at the mall either in particular. Although although sometimes I've been wondering lately.
Just some of the other booths that it's a small business event. Some of the other booths that are there. It's a little. It's one of those things like do I do I really like like some folks will have their kids there with them and you know I get it. I get it and you're selling 3D printed this that and the other and that's neat and I stand out though is the nice thing in that context but. So. Before we wrap things up here I wanted to know.
What is a direction that, and maybe I'm reaching at something that's not there, but what's something new that you're trying in this realm of in-person sales that you haven't tried before, or you haven't heard somebody talk about before? Like, I want to get like the inside scoop here. What's the latest thing you're trying or experimenting with that you haven't done before, you haven't seen somebody else do before? Because there's a lot of opportunities here to
to try different things in this sort of setting. Or is it more one of those things where you you figured it out, you've got the formula, you're iterating your pitch, you're optimizing at this point, but you're kind of leaving it alone.
Todd Fahnestock (54:30)
Thank
Johnny B. Truant (54:32)
I'm experimenting more and more with upsells. I actually, so I have, mentioned this briefly before, every one of my series, most of my series anyway, have, we called them originally book zeros, Sean and I did. And they were meant as like feeders, right? So like to get, the idea was make them free on Amazon or whatever. And I don't even know if that's set up that way now, but now it's like, you want fries with that, right?
So if somebody buys the Dead City trilogy, then it's like, know, hey, here's the book, the like side story in the world, it normally sells for 16 bucks, you can have it for eight. Because again, it cost me like 250 to print, that's profit. So that sort of thing upsells, upselling from a single book to a series, like some of the stuff Katie was talking about where, you know, you're interested in Dead City and be like, well, you can get the whole trilogy for 10 % off or whatever you decide.
Jack Shilkaitis (55:12)
Mm-hmm.
Johnny B. Truant (55:25)
So that's been my biggest lever.
Todd Fahnestock (55:26)
And I would like to say on that note, is counterintuitive of buyers mentality, especially for authors. Like somebody who buys a series, believe it or not, is more likely to buy a second series from you right then and there than somebody else coming up to the booth is to buy a series at all. That blows my mind because like, my gosh, I just sold them my biggest series. that's a good sale. And then I quit, right? And there was this one author across from me at the Colorado Springs
Jack Shilkaitis (55:41)
Mm-hmm.
Todd Fahnestock (55:53)
Comic-Con and he's like man, that's the best opportunity to say hey do you want me to tell you about this series? Most of them are gonna say no, but maybe a quarter of them or a fifth of them say yeah tell me about this other season they're walking away with two or three right? Yeah that's it's it's seems counterintuitive but yeah but that's that's when they're you know if they've already spent money with you they're likely to spend more.
Jack Shilkaitis (55:56)
Yeah.
Katie Crosstar (56:06)
Mm-hmm.
Jack Shilkaitis (56:07)
yeah.
Johnny B. Truant (56:08)
That's a good tip, I haven't tried that.
Jack Shilkaitis (56:11)
Yeah.
I
believe it. I know my own buying behavior, not around books, but other things, and that's exactly what it is. And if we're at a particular store, and I'm like, hey, I'm gonna get this thing, and my wife's like, well, we could also get that thing. I'm like, well, what about that other $200 thing on the shelf over there? Let's get all three of them, let's do it. And before you know it, so I totally get it.
Katie Crosstar (56:37)
And I'm not doing anything groundbreaking. My friend, GS Jensen, she will not be going back to DragonCon and I was able to get her table. So I will have two tables this year and I'm going to sell special editions on one of them. So I'm going to have a young adult fantasy table and a romantic table with special editions. That'll be new for me. And then my assistant was able to come the whole time. So she will be running one table. I'll be running the other and we're going to try out. I'm probably not going to do panels since we'll have two tables.
Jack Shilkaitis (56:48)
Mmm.
Katie Crosstar (57:04)
So that'll be new for me to test out much higher price point books in a audience that's always unpredictable. Like there's always people that know me there, but how many of them, you know, it's a guess. So that'll be fun to try out and just see what my special editions and a Romanesci only table. And there will be new bundle bundles there. Like I'm gonna try a hundred dollar bundle and I'm gonna try like 150 to $200 bundle.
Jack Shilkaitis (57:18)
Yeah.
Katie Crosstar (57:31)
So it'll, be good. to Todd's point, there have been times where I can tell a reader is like, they're picking up the books and they're like really interested. I will give them a whole table like, or you can buy the whole table for $125. And that happens more often than you would ever think. So you just never know.
Jack Shilkaitis (57:43)
Yeah.
I believe it.
I believe it. Alright, one thing I have to... If anybody has something to comment on that, go ahead. I'm gonna grab a prop and I'm gonna be right back.
Todd Fahnestock (57:52)
gonna say, did you want me to?
Katie Crosstar (57:53)
Yeah
Todd Fahnestock (57:53)
Yeah, so I guess I'll wait for him to come back. there's, okay, there's a lot of new stuff. I try and find one new thing every year or a couple of new things to push forward to see if I can keep going higher and higher on the.
Jack Shilkaitis (57:56)
Hold up, you can go. You can go.
Todd Fahnestock (58:08)
revenue side of things. And one of the things that I did last year was posters. So I'm blessed with having phenomenal illustrations for my books, some real like artistic illustrations. And I blew them up and did like a really expensive print with raised print and hollow foil gleam behind. And I sell those things for $200 a piece and people buy them. And you sell one thing, you know, that is a 200. I'm like my largest
Katie Crosstar (58:13)
So yeah.
you
Todd Fahnestock (58:37)
hardback series is five books and it sells for 160. So one of those posters is more than, you know, my largest series and some people can't buy them and that's okay. It's okay to have something that is financially beyond the reach of some of the people that come to your booth. If they want to buy something and they only have $25, I got things for them. But if somebody comes by that has
Vast financial capability and money is not really an object at this level, you know Like buying something for $200 is not even a single thought for them. I want to have something for them, too and Something that is worth that, you know that has the visual that that proves that it's worth that That was a big kicker like last year heard a lot of people that were selling in person their Profits went down mine went up and I went back and I separated out the posters from the books and my books went down about five percent, but my post
Jack Shilkaitis (59:15)
Yeah.
Todd Fahnestock (59:30)
I actually worked at Emerald City Comic Con right next to Matthew Wolf. This guy has
Jack Shilkaitis (59:31)
Are you...
Todd Fahnestock (59:36)
has got it down. Like he's got gaming pads of his map, he's got playing cards, he's got coins, he's got all kinds of cool stuff on his table that he sells and I think at all various price points, know. So.
Jack Shilkaitis (59:44)
yeah.
Now,
you, Todd, you have posters, but do you have one of these? A giant version of your book that you made out of poster board.
Todd Fahnestock (59:57)
Wow, I do not have that. I do not have that.
Johnny B. Truant (59:59)
god.
Katie Crosstar (1:00:02)
That is hilarious.
Johnny B. Truant (1:00:03)
You guys
who are on audio only are missing out.
Jack Shilkaitis (1:00:06)
I have to go check
Katie Crosstar (1:00:06)
It's bigger than
Jack Shilkaitis (1:00:06)
it
Katie Crosstar (1:00:07)
Jack. It's huge.
Jack Shilkaitis (1:00:07)
out on YouTube. No, it's not bigger than Jack. Thank you though, Katie. no. And it actually, it's kind of hard to see, but it actually is like the pages of a book on this end. And it even opens up. We were talking about how I should actually put the content of the book inside one of these in a future version of it. So you could literally walk up to the booth.
Todd Fahnestock (1:00:10)
Hahaha!
my god!
Johnny B. Truant (1:00:20)
my god.
Todd Fahnestock (1:00:30)
Wow.
Jack Shilkaitis (1:00:32)
And this is more like a prototype to be honest with you. Like this is.
Todd Fahnestock (1:00:35)
Can they buy
that? Is that for sale? Like, can you sell that at a booth?
Jack Shilkaitis (1:00:37)
When I
have one to replace this one, I would sell it, yes. If somebody walked up to the booth and was like, I'll buy that for you, I'll be like, okay, 200 bucks, it's yours. You know what I mean? Because 200 bucks because number one, there's a poster on top of this. And then I had to do a binding and everything. Anyway, I had to show off.
Todd Fahnestock (1:00:56)
It's really cool. Yeah. I like the idea
Johnny B. Truant (1:00:57)
Jeez, that thing's bigger than a tomahawk steak.
Todd Fahnestock (1:01:02)
of having things at the booth that are super high ticket. Ooh, that's a cool one too.
Jack Shilkaitis (1:01:06)
Yep.
Todd Fahnestock (1:01:07)
And like when I go to San Diego Comic Con there are these booths like big extensive booths that have figurines that are like this tall or even taller exquisitely carved right exquisitely painted and it's like Wolverine as detailed as you've ever seen him right or Wonder Woman or whoever you're into and they cost a pretty penny I'm not thinking you're getting away with less than a thousand dollars like with those things but if it's something that people want they're gonna buy it so I've
Jack Shilkaitis (1:01:10)
We're good.
I've got one of those too. Yeah.
Yeah.
No.
Todd Fahnestock (1:01:36)
thinking about doing something like that with Kaeven, the Unkillable, or Wild Main, or something like that of these fantastic pieces of art translating them into sculptures. Of course I got to talk with somebody and it's it's pretty expensive to get into and you have to you have to sell them for a lot to to do it but that's that's on my my table to do.
Jack Shilkaitis (1:01:41)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah,
I'll say those those giant books, what they do for me at the mall is people walk by and they maybe don't see the books that are on the table right away, but they see that and they're like, that's a giant book. You you you do the books. Yes, I do the books. I do. So I'll make one for you guys if you want. It's just going to you know.
Todd Fahnestock (1:02:04)
They see that.
Katie Crosstar (1:02:11)
you
Todd Fahnestock (1:02:12)
That's really cool. I love that idea.
Katie Crosstar (1:02:18)
I wouldn't even know
how to get that anywhere.
Jack Shilkaitis (1:02:20)
It's one of those, I could start a business making them to be quite honest with you. Anyway.
Todd Fahnestock (1:02:24)
you
Jack Shilkaitis (1:02:24)
We're going to have to wrap up here, folks. I want to thank each of you for being here. It took a little bit to get this panel going, but it was a blast. This was fun. Thank you to each of you, not only for your time here on the podcast, but for the time that I know Johnny and Katie have each spent with me individually. Todd, this was our first chance getting to meet virtually. So I appreciate that. And if anybody gets the chance to go to any cons that these folks are at or any events that they're
Katie Crosstar (1:02:44)
Hmm
Jack Shilkaitis (1:02:50)
I suggest you do just don't bug them be respectful in their time, but you can go see it and see it in person any closing Right Watch and observe watch and observe from the corner, right? But I do want to just give it any anybody the chance to say any last words here before we wrap up anybody have anything any last things to share
Katie Crosstar (1:02:56)
Hmm.
Todd Fahnestock (1:02:56)
feel
like I'd say it for rude and tell you to wait, please listen.
Johnny B. Truant (1:02:59)
We love you authors,
but don't talk to us while we're selling very much. Unless you're buying. Yeah.
What I would say is that we've gotten really used to in the author community of thinking that a buyer is a certain thing. You know, they're the people who we think in eBooks and so forth. Just there are people out there who want physical books and buy them from people. there are people who are not on Amazon or don't necessarily even go to Barnes and Noble. it's, you just, think you have to believe that first and going out and doing a few events is the way that you prove it. But believe it, all of our experience says,
Katie Crosstar (1:03:15)
You got this.
Johnny B. Truant (1:03:43)
there is a different book buyer out there than we've all been courting.
Jack Shilkaitis (1:03:46)
Right. For sure. For sure.
Todd Fahnestock (1:03:48)
I would just like to say thanks, Jack, for having us. This was really fun. I appreciate your time. I appreciate you inviting us.
Jack Shilkaitis (1:03:51)
Yeah, anytime, anytime,
Katie Crosstar (1:03:51)
Absolutely, it was great.
Johnny B. Truant (1:03:51)
Yeah.
Jack Shilkaitis (1:03:54)
And Book Funnel loves you.
Katie Crosstar (1:03:54)
We love Buck Funnel. Go Buck Funnel.
Todd Fahnestock (1:03:56)
Yes. Book Funnel is great. Yeah,
Johnny B. Truant (1:03:59)
Yes.
Todd Fahnestock (1:03:59)
if
there are any people watching this that don't know Book Funnel and all the fantastic functionality it has for authors, ⁓ my god, get thee to Book Funnel and find out because it is, I lean on it every single day.
Jack Shilkaitis (1:04:09)
This happens every podcast.
Johnny B. Truant (1:04:10)
and,
and
Katie Crosstar (1:04:11)
I
would literally not have a business without you.
Todd Fahnestock (1:04:13)
Yep, true.
Johnny B. Truant (1:04:14)
If you're listening to the book
funnel podcast and you don't know what book funnel is, I'd like to know how the hell you got here. Let's also do that.
Jack Shilkaitis (1:04:19)
It's possible. You never
Todd Fahnestock (1:04:19)
Right?
Katie Crosstar (1:04:20)
Name.
Jack Shilkaitis (1:04:20)
know.
You never know. ⁓ yes. All right. Well, thank you, Katie, Johnny and Todd for joining me today for this episode of the Book Funnel Podcast. And thank you to you, our viewers. If you're watching here on YouTube, make sure you subscribe to the channel, like this video and leave a comment with your number one, two or three takeaways.
Katie Crosstar (1:04:21)
Name. They could be listening, but not use it. And that's a travesty.
Todd Fahnestock (1:04:22)
I was just saying, just in case.
Johnny B. Truant (1:04:24)
Yeah.
Jack Shilkaitis (1:04:44)
I'm sure there's plenty you could have taken away from this conversation. If you're listening to the podcast on Apple podcast, Spotify, or anywhere else, please follow us there and leave a review. It really does help from all of us here at book funnel. want to thank you for watching and listening and we will see you all in the next one.