{"id":2724,"date":"2015-05-26T03:04:43","date_gmt":"2015-05-26T10:04:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dresan.com\/blog\/?p=2724"},"modified":"2017-04-08T20:52:57","modified_gmt":"2017-04-09T03:52:57","slug":"taking-stock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/2015\/05\/26\/taking-stock\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking Stock"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.dresan.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/20150525_193114.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" alt=\"20150525_193114.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>What you see above are (almost) all the author&#8217;s copies I have of all the published fiction I&#8217;ve written. Why am I taking stock of all this now? Well, at Clockwork Alchemy, this happened:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.dresan.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/clockwork-alchemy-sales-2015.png\" width=\"600\" height=\"638\" alt=\"clockwork-alchemy-sales-2015.png\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I sold many, many other copies of my books and a solid dozen copies of FROST MOON &#8211; nearly cleaning out my stock of my first novel. I&#8217;d ordered twenty when LIQUID FIRE came out, but between that dozen, a few for a shelf at work, and a box that I sent to BayCon, I was left with just two of them. Time to order more.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.dresan.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/20150526_005306.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"800\" alt=\"20150526_005306.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m in the writing game for the long haul, so I generally order 20-30 copies of any book or anthology that my work is published in (less or more if the publisher has a deal on sending a specific amount). Generally, north of 20 is a good number &#8211; I just sold out of 20 FROST MOON, but it can take a few years to sell out of 30 copies of an anthology. Your mileage may vary.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.dresan.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/20150526_005353.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"800\" alt=\"20150526_005353.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Along with the books are piles of swag, postcards, t-shirts and various display materials which I organize into boxes so they can easily be taken to conventions. After several iterations of this, I&#8217;ve grown to keeping the stock in one big box, the swag in another box, keeping an empty &#8220;useful box&#8221; for extra copies on the first day of a convention (or a few copies for a smaller event like a signing) and all the oversized books and display materials needed at a full table in another box.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.dresan.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/oversize-displays.png\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" alt=\"oversize-displays.png\" \/><\/p>\n<p>This way if I want to go to a con, I can just grab a couple boxes and go. If I want to go to a con where I&#8217;ve got a table, everything I need is in just a couple more boxes, all of which fit in a couple shelves (more or less) in one bookcase.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.dresan.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/ready-to-go.png\" width=\"600\" height=\"799\" alt=\"ready-to-go.png\" \/><\/p>\n<p>For a local con where I have a table, like Clockwork Alchemy, I go all out, so I need a couple more boxes of props, a display stand, and some tablecloths and an antique easel on loan from my wife. But the results, I think, are impressive.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.dresan.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/20150523_1325531.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"337\" alt=\"20150523_132553.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>At least, thanks to my helpful assistants (thanks!) &#8230;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.dresan.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/20150523_1557391.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"337\" alt=\"20150523_155739.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\u2026 it helped me sell a lot of books, and hopefully, make a lot of new fans.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.dresan.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/20150523_165738-copy.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"518\" alt=\"20150523_165738 copy.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Time to order more FROST MOON \u2026<\/p>\n<p>-the Centaur<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What you see above are (almost) all the author&#8217;s copies I have of all the published fiction I&#8217;ve written. Why am I taking stock of all this now? Well, at&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[197,199,1],"tags":[133,6,4,5],"class_list":["post-2724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-steampunk","category-uncategorized","tag-clockwork-alchemy","tag-dakota-frost","tag-dragon-writers","tag-we-call-it-living","ratio-2-1","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2724"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3800,"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2724\/revisions\/3800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}