Promotional Material

[TL]

I am going to Baltimore next month for the Comic-con and I want to bring some promotional material with me.  Business Cards and maybe some flyers and such to promote the site.  Has anyone else printed up physical advertisements?  If so did you print your own or contract out?  Any suggestions as to the best stuff to bring?

[tom_racine]

I guarantee there are guys out there with a ton more promotional background...pretty much any of the Tall Tales boys and girl...but it would seem to me in this day and digital age, you can get like 1,000 postcards made up for around $75-100 bucks...maybe even less. I've seen all sorts of great "$19.99" deals out there, and at a con, handing out postcards is great giveaway.  People LOVE buttons, too...they collect them like they're faberge eggs or something.  I saw of ton of postcards and buttons at San Diego, and they'd easily be your cheapest bet.

Or, you could be like Lucas and have your very cool book printed up and delivered just in time for the con, and then get a horrible head cold and stay home.  I don't recommend this course of action.

[Sean C]

Sample strips. Print out some of your favorite strips - as big as you can on simple computer printer paper. It's cheap, and surprisingly effective. When I did Connecticon a few years ago to promote my now-dead comic Cute Ninja Girls, my comicking partner and I did that, and I prepared a "limited edition" set of sketches, or at least that's what I called them. Get out the lightboard, and do some sketches in ink - a marker works well enough for this - and then number them. (1/20, 1/40, however many you make) Slap the url on everything, and it's a dirt cheap, quick way to get people to not only check out your comic right there and then, but to give them something to remember it, too.

[TL]

Wow, those are great ideas I never thought of.  Thanks for the posts guys.  Absolutely trying those.

[Brian]

My most successful promotional item was bookmarks. Went like hotcakes and people use them, which means it's in front of their eyes a lot. Next time I'm planning on putting strips on the bookmarks.

[Mickel]

Saw a pic from Comic-Con where an artist was doing sketches for people and his website was already printed on the paper. I thought that was smart.

[Brian]

Very good idea. Try to get your URL on everything!

[Wit]

Bookmarks are a brilliant idea if you ask me.