Report on the St Nicholas Church Craft Fair.
Not good. Not good at all.
The first day I managed to sell three postcards and that was it. After one o'clock it just died, we had no new people come in through the doors after that point. The only good thing was that I was able to use the time to work on some manga fan art that I have been meaning to work on for ages. The manga and anime shop in Norwich on Westlegate has a board on which local fans can display fan art, through which you can be contacted about a commission if you leave your details.
In that respect, I'd say the Japanese are much more sensible about fanfiction and fan art than we are. Apparently in Japan you can make and sell fan art as long as you do not make more than something like £1500 a year at it. It seems to me that the Japanese recognise that fanfiction and fan art only happens when your fans love your work that much, that simply consuming it is not enough, they actually have to engage with the world they love.
Second day did not look to be much better. I managed to sell two postcards and then I didn't sell a thing for four hours! Oh, I had people aplenty wishing me 'best of luck' but not giving me any luck because they refused to buy anything. I was very close to putting my head down on the table and sobbing at more than one point.
As it is, one lady saved my day and probably the state of my mental health. She asked me, 'Do you have any paintings of anything local'. I replied, 'well that one is of Swanton Morley church'. To which she said, 'really?' so I said, 'yes, that's pretty much the view I have out of my back garden early in the morning'. To which she replied, 'O.K. I'll have half a dozen'. To say I very nearly gaped at her is putting it mildly. Thankfully I retained my wits and counted out the postcards.
However, even with that wonderful, wonderful lady I still only sold eleven postcards and one T-shirt so I am recalculating all of my prices. I know the advise is that people value more expensive stuff more and think that its worth more but at the moment I can't get them to buy pretty much anything. Therefore I am dropping my prices of what I sell in person with only the books remaining at the same price. I apologise to anyone who cannot come to my events and therefore have to buy my stuff over the Internet, if Internet buying is more expensive. I cannot afford the monthly payments necessary to have the Premium packages and therefore the websites set the prices.
I am also drawing up a 'sales' poster as that apparently brings people in. It means cutting my profit and therefore my wage, to an absolute minimum but if it gets the sales then ultimately I might actually make more than I am currently.
I also have yet more work to do, on top of rehashing all my prices and therefore posters. The only lady that made any real money there was the lady to my left who makes handmade cards, all of them individual and sells them for £1 each. Having watched her do a brisk trade all weekend, I've decided that I might as well try it. Now I just need some card, some pencils, some little envelopes and some time.
What is this weird thing called free time? I'd like to meet it some time.
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