Episode 336 - The Economics of Con Life with Todd Fahnestock
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Todd Fahnestock discusses THE ECONOMICS OF CON LIFE, including the real costs and revenue thresholds of selling books at cons, why five books is the minimum for a viable booth, how selling sets instead of singles and leaning into cover art and merch changed his income, the break-even math that determines whether a con is worth attending, how face-to-face interactions at cons became the foundation of a 4,000-person email list, and how that list became the launchpad for a Patreon that monetizes the work he's already doing.
Todd Fahnestock is an award-winning, #1 bestselling author of fantasy for all ages and winner of the New York Public Library’s Books for the Teen Age Award. Threadweavers and The Whisper Prince Trilogy are two of his bestselling epic fantasy series. He is a founder of Eldros Legacy—a multi-author, shared-world mega-epic fantasy series—three-time winner of the Colorado Authors League Award for Writing Excellence, and two-time finalist for the Colorado Book Award for Tower of the Four: The Champions Academy (2021) and Khyven the Unkillable (2022). His passions are great stories and his quirky, fun-loving family. When he’s not writing, he travels the country meeting fans, talks philosophy with his son, plays board games with his wife, dissects movies with his daughter, and plays to the point of bruises with Galahad the Weimaraner. Visit Todd at toddfahnestock.com
Episode Links
https://www.patreon.com/toddfahnestock
https://www.facebook.com/todd.fahnestock
https://www.youtube.com/@toddfahnestock7108
https://www.instagram.com/todd_fahnestock/
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/559958.Todd_Fahnestock
https://www.amazon.com/stores/Todd-Fahnestock/author/B004N1MILG
Todd’s other episode:
Episode 261 - Navigating Collaborative Storytelling with Todd Fahnestock
Episode 224 - Secrets of Maximizing In-person Sales with Todd Fahnestock
Summary & Transcript
Todd Fahnestock is an award-winning, number-one bestselling author of fantasy for all ages, winner of the New York Public Library’s Books for the Teen Age Award, and a three-time winner of the Colorado Authors League Award for Writing Excellence. THREADWEAVERS and THE WHISPER PRINCE TRILOGY are two of his bestselling epic fantasy series. Returning for his third appearance on the podcast, Todd moved past the how-to of in-person sales—covered in Episode 224—and into the real economics: what cons actually cost, where the revenue thresholds are, and whether this model can sustain a career.
WHY FACE-TO-FACE STILL MATTERS
Todd opened by contrasting the accountability of in-person interaction with the disposability of social media. Online, you can post something inflammatory and walk away. In person, you have to deal with the response in real time—which produces both more civility and more genuine exchange of ideas. He described a practice of taking selfies with returning fans and storing them by name and event, so he can greet them by name the next time their paths cross. The effort is small; the loyalty it builds is not.
THE REAL NUMBERS
Todd was unusually transparent about his finances. He reported roughly $100,000 in gross revenue from con sales last year, with a net of about $24,000—a figure he acknowledged is below the poverty line. But he framed the gap carefully: the difference covers travel he enjoys, meals on the road, lodging, inventory reinvestment, and a lifestyle that is effectively subsidized by the business. He keeps roughly $7,000 to $10,000 worth of inventory in his house at any given time, and most of his annual profit has gone back into the business—better banners, specialized posters with raised print and holographic foil, and bulk book orders that lower his per-unit cost.
His progression told a clear story. Year one: $525 in revenue, $495 in costs, $45 net. Three years later at Colorado Springs Comic-Con: $2,000 in a weekend. The following month at FanX: $2,600. That was the inflection point—the moment he started calculating break-even seriously. A single booth costs roughly $1,000; the books to fill it cost another $350–$400; add gas, food, and lodging, and the threshold to actually make money is $3,000 to $3,500 per event. His current target: ten cons at $10,000 each, with $50,000 net. He has not hit it yet—he came within $400 at Dragonsteel—but the trajectory is upward, with gross revenue exceeding $50,000 in each of the last three years.
FIVE BOOKS IS THE MINIMUM
Todd’s advice for authors considering their first solo booth: do not do it with fewer than five books. With one book, the math does not work—a single sale is $25, and you need dozens of those to cover a $1,000 booth. With five or more titles, you can sell sets at a discount ($150 for a set versus $25 per book), which dramatically changes the per-customer revenue. His highest-value customers are what he calls unicorns—fans who discover him at a con and buy everything on the table, sometimes $400 to $500 in a single transaction. Those unicorns only exist because he has 25 titles to sell them.
LEANING INTO YOUR STRENGTHS
Todd described how his undergraduate art degree shaped his booth strategy. He works closely with his illustrator to produce cover art that translates into posters—some priced at $200 for specialized prints with raised brushstrokes and holographic foil—which diversify his revenue beyond books alone. He cited Matthew Wolf’s approach as a complementary model: fewer titles but multiple editions (leather-bound, sprayed-edge, case-bound) plus cards, maps, and mouse pads at different price points. The principle is the same: lean into whatever strength you have—art, cosplay, performance, special editions—and let it draw people to the booth.
On booth investment, Todd was practical. He started with $125 retractable banners and used them for years before graduating to $1,000 stretch fabric displays. The upgrade happened only when revenue justified it. For authors just starting out, the retractable banner is enough—and doubles as a Zoom background if you decide cons are not for you.
FROM CONS TO PATREON
The most strategic section of the conversation covered how Todd converted con interactions into a subscription business. Every fan who lights up during a pitch gets an invitation to sign up on his iPad for his email list. After seven years, that list has grown to roughly 4,000 names, at least half are people he has met face to face, which produces a nearly 30 percent open rate. When he launched his Patreon to serialize THE 12 KINGDOMS (a six-volume epic he is writing before releasing), he had a warm, engaged audience ready to subscribe at $4 to $12 per month.
The Patreon model appeals to Todd because it monetizes work he is already doing. Writing the chapters takes the same amount of time whether or not anyone reads them early; posting them to Patreon adds fifteen minutes. Sharing cover art sketches and behind-the-scenes creative decisions adds minimal effort. The result is an additional revenue stream that does not require additional logistics.
DEFINING SUCCESS
Todd closed with a characteristically honest assessment. He does not consider himself fully successful yet—not by his own definition, which requires $50,000 in take-home income from cons alone. But he framed the pursuit in terms that went beyond money: every success he has had is built on a pyramid of failures, and the phrase “fail faster” is not a cliché but a literal description of how the business works. The authors who succeed at con life are the ones who keep showing up, keep refining their pitch, and keep investing in the infrastructure that compounds over time.
This transcript was created by Descript and cleaned up by Claude; I don’t review these transcripts in detail, so consider the actual interview to be the authoritative source for this information.
[00:00:00] Matty: Hello and welcome to the Indy Author Podcast. Today my guest is Todd Fahnestock. Hey, Todd, how are you doing?
[00:00:05] Todd: Good. Thanks for having me again.
[00:00:07] Matty: It is lovely to have you back, and just to give our listeners and viewers a little bit of background on you, Todd Fahnestock is an award-winning number one bestselling author of Fantasy for all ages, and the winner of the New York Public library’s books for the Teen Age Award THREADWEAVERS and THE WHISPER PRINCE TRILOGY, or two of his
He’s the founder of Eldros Legacy, a Multi author Shared World mega Epic Fantasy Series, A three-time winner of the Colorado Authors League Award for Writing Excellence and a two-time finalist for the Colorado Book Award for the TOWER OF THE FOUR: THE CHAMPIONS ACADEMY and Kai the
And, Todd has been a guest twice before on podcast, once in episode 261, navigating collaborative storytelling. And, appropriately enough for this episode, he was also a guest in episode 224. Secrets of Maximizing In-Person Sales. And, I think that I invited you on the podcast after hearing you, talk about that at Author Nation.
And then just a couple of months ago, we were both at Superstars Writing Seminars and I got to hear you talk about the economics of Con Life. And I thought this was great because in our previous episode we sort of talked about, the, like how to interact with people and things like that, which was great.
and this is going to be more the nitty gritty, the nitty gritty of how do you decide if this is something you want to pursue, going to conferences
[00:01:27] Matty: But before we get to that, Todd and I were just chatting before I hit record and we were sort of talking about this draw of seeing people in person, seeing people face to face, getting to
And so I kind of want to tap into that before we get into the nitty gritty of the, economics of, I think that’s one of the big draws of people wanting to go to conferences and sell books in person to have that kind of experience. So let’s talk about that a little bit first, just to set the context for, when we start talking about the, the numbers.
[00:01:57] Todd: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think it’s just like anything,whatever is at a, at a rare premium becomes the thing that
I, I, we, you and I were talking about social media and about, the way that information comes at us and conversely, how we can affect the world
And I do think that maybe in the beginning there was an extreme ability to affect other people through putting your opinions on social media and that sort of thing. But now I just feel like there’s so much stimulus and so many different opinions and, people don’t tend to go on social
They tend to go on social media to find the people that think like them and affirm whatever their vision of what’s going on is. They don’t, they don’t go there too, too. Change their mind. They go there to entrench what they’ve already, what they already believe. But I don’t
Like, talking to you right now on a Zoom call or talking to people face to face, I think there’s sort of an accountability when you’re looking in somebody’s eyes, there are things that you won’t say because you’re going to have to deal with what the repercussions are. Whereas on online, as we all know, you can put the most vitriolic, nasty things up there, and then you just run away.
And if people get angry about it and you don’t want to deal with it, you just don’t look at what their comments are. You just don’t go to social media for a few days and then it blows over. Then you go back and be just as vile and mean as you were before. You know what I mean? But if I, if I were to do that to you face to face right now.
You’d have something to say about it, and then I’d have to deal with it right now. Right. So I think the level of civility in personal interaction is much higher, as well as the accountability as well as the exchange of ideas and the ability to have your own mind changed. Right? I mean, if you’re looking at me and you’re saying, well, this is my experience of dah, dah, dah da da, and mine was the opposite experience, I would be like, Hmm, okay, well I like Matty.
I trust her, so I’m going to try and put myself in her shoes and see what it is that she’s seeing from there. And I wonder if I can add that to my, you know what I mean? Like, it’s not a us versus them instantly think because we’ve had,a one-on-one interaction and have the ability
And it’s hard to empathize with the computer screen. I think it is for me anyways, so I, I, I was just, I think, before we kind of started the recording, I was just saying that I think that. Those of us that want to make an impact. I think making an impact one-on-one is actually becoming the rarer thing and therefore becoming something that people are wanting more and more and more, which actually flows quite naturally into the notion of selling your books face-to-face with people at a con or a
You know,
[00:04:45] Todd: when I talk to a super fan at, Planet Comic-Con, which was just recently for me, or Albuquerque Comic-Con, or Seattle Comic-Con or whatever, I remember their face. I’m, I’m one of those people that remembers faces but not names. so I remember their face and as I’m, you know, struggling to these days, what I do, you come by my booth, if you’ve.
Bought a few books for me and I remember your face these days. I’m like, okay, let’s take a selfie. And then I take a selfie and I store it in my phone. I’m like, this is Lauren, or this is, chase or whatever. So that, the next time I go there I’m like, okay, Emerald City Comic-Con, what are the photos that I took?
Okay, these guys, okay, I’m going to try to memorize those because I just struggle with that so, so hard. But you know, they know that I see lots and lots and lots of people, so if I can actually pull their name outta my, outta my memory or from my phone, it makes ’em feel really special.
It would be nice to give even just a little bit of that back to them. So I want to strive to do that. That is something that is very important to
[00:05:41] Matty: Well, I think that going to a conference, and selling your books is sort of an interesting combination of, finding the people who are maybe different and finding the people who are the same. Because, a benefit of of going through the Comic-Con conference is obviously you’re, you’ve got a concentration of people who are interested in the kind of thing that you want to share, and at the same time, you’re going to be introduced to ideas that are maybe different.
I mean, maybe not contradictory to what you’re thinking, but you might see things saying like, oh, I see that there’s a lot of interest in my neighbor’s booth. And, and that person’s has a lot of,Kittens in their pictures or like, whatever it is, it would be both a, an idea of connecting with the people that you’re already, that you want to be connected, you know you want to be connected with, and also seeing the
[00:06:26] Todd: Exactly. I
[00:06:29] Todd: mean, taking that to a business side of things, as opposed to more of like the, the human side of things, which is the most valuable, but let’s just say straight business. So for example, at Emerald City Comic-Con that I was just talking about, I was right next to, in-person salesman extraordinaire and fantastic author Matthew Wolf.
there are three people that jump to mind when I think about people who do, the in-person sales really well. And it’s Matthew Wolf. It’s Ben Wolf. Interestingly enough, no relation between the two of those. And me and me. Those are the three that tend to come to my mind, when people
but just sitting next to him and seeing where he’s leveled up his game, I was like. I think I’m going to steal that. I think I want to steal that. And he came over to my booth and he’s like, I love your action meters. He’s like, I said, feel free to steal ’em. feel free to feel free to use ’em,you know, do it with your flavor and your flair.
But that’s, that’s what we’re here to do, right? We absorb from other people and we build, and I think the, the. Salespeople. The, the, the authors that are selling their books, that’s what they do. They’re constantly thinking and polishing and upping their game, the ones that are good at it, and there’s a lot of them that are good at it.
So, for example, when I do a pitch, like I am always, I. thinking about better ways to pitch. And at this point I’ve got like three or four or five different versions and I can riff in the middle of a pitch. If I see somebody who’s really interested in strong female characters, all of a sudden the male character shrinks in the pitch and the female
If I see somebody that looks like they want to know the nitty gritty really fast, I will cut pieces out of the pitch and just move forward. And it’s smooth as can be because I’ve done it a million times. I mean, there is no replacement for repeating something over and over and over again to find the places that bore you and cut them out to find the places that never fail to excite you and to, illuminate those as you’re
So I, I guess one of the things I would say to people who are interested in this, don’t let one or two or even five events determine what you think about this. I mean. If you know you hate it and every aspect of it in the first event, that’s fine. Don’t do it. But if like you feel like you’re a failure because you’ve gone to three events and you didn’t make $5,000 at any of them, you know what?
Sometimes it takes a while to really hit your stride and you just got to constantly be thinking about, what is the, what’s the thing that I can
[00:08:44] Matty: Well, I think that there are, the people who, know they want to go to, in-person events and, do it and love it. And then there are the people who, could be good at it and aren’t giving
[00:09:05] Matty: But then I think they’re the people who go either because they feel like it’s just necessary or they get a charge out of it in some way without fully understanding the, the economics of
And so, For the people who just want to go because they enjoy that experience. And if, if they have the money to do it, especially if you’re thinking of this from the point of view of a hobbyist writer. If you’re kind of a, a hobbyist writer and you have the money to spend to go to a conference, sure, why not?
I’m not going to argue against it, but if you’re trying to make a business out of it, just that idea of like, oh yeah, I love going to conferences and it’s what all the real authors do is probably not the best, the best business decision to make.
[00:09:35] Todd: I mean any more than during the, the heyday of the 20Books to 50K, movement where it’s like, write a book, every three months, every other month, every month. Keep up with the algorithms, do the advertising with Amazon, that sort of thing. Clearly it works. There are a lot of people that we’re making lots of money
however, I think there were people that were making a lot of money doing that, but also spending a lot of money, you know, making like a hundred thousand dollars and spending $95,000 on all the stuff that you need to do with it. Right. And going to Cons is similar. I mean, there are a lot
And to me, I would not say that I have yet hit the success stride that I want. I mean, what I’d love to do is have, after all the expenses are paid, I’d love to be making a hundred thousand dollars above and beyond that. I’m not anywhere close to that. I came close to making a hundred thousand dollars gross last year, but you know, the, the net was like.
23, 20 $4,000. So I mean, like, that’s below poverty line. I mean, but that, but then again, you also have to think I’m traveling and I love to travel. I’m meeting all these people and I’m love to, I love to meet people, especially people who love what I love, and I’m putting
So there’s intrinsic value to it. And there is a lifestyle of mine that is being, subsidized by this. All of my hotel costs, all of my food costs, all of my gas costs, everything is included in that. And of course, when I’m away for half a month, not living at home, I’m not
So, I mean, there are intrinsic and sort of, undercurrent values to that, but like, just straight money, straight off the top, bringing home $20,000 is like, yeah, I’d like that to be five times. That is what I would like that to be. And I’m not sure it’s possible yet. If there’s anybody that is doing it at that level, I don’t know them.
[00:11:22] Matty: Well, I think that, one of the, the battle cries of indie authors, or I think it should be, is multiple streams of. Income. And depending on what those multiple streams of income are, they’re very adjustable. So like I’m making multiple streams of income from my fiction books, my nonfiction books, consulting, services, writing articles,I have five or six or seven or eight things that I am
And if one month I find that, oh, this consulting thing is, is doing great, I think that I’ll just spend a little less time next month on writing nonfiction articles and, and lean into the consulting. It’s very flexible in a way that going to conferences is not like, first of all, there’s the whole advanced planning aspect of it, but also it just takes a long time, the, the travel, the, the logistical effort of
And so it’s, it’s not, it’s not an easily swap, outable, multiple, stream of income in the way that some of those other examples I was
[00:12:15] Todd: Right. Right. And I, I mean the, it’s interesting, I’m trying to think of how I look at that. , because it definitely has grown to take up quite a bit of space in the time that I have. but I, I mean maybe at some point I’m going to get sick of hauling boxes and looking at, hundreds of my own books. But at this point I get
Like, looking at all the books laid out and all these boxes of books that is, that makes me happy. This, that I am perpetuating this machine that is putting my stuff out into the world. So at one point, let, let’s say it wasn’t exciting to me, let’s say none of that was exciting, I don’t know that it would be worth it to be driving days at a time to be, hauling books in and out, that sort of thing.
I don’t know, but like you say, that’s when you pivot. And I actually have done a little bit of pivoting , because I’ve, I’ve wanted to diversify my income. I don’t do a lot of sales online. I mean, I, I, I take that back. I do about as many sales on my website, like as far as money goes, as I do on Amazon. Like those, those are at a level, but it’s hundreds of dollars a month, not thousands like I’m doing at
It is, uh, a different aspect and draws a different crowd, which is good. It’s diversity in a lot of ways, right?
[00:13:29] Matty: when you did that first event, and, maybe there is, there was a, a, a small fee for the table, let’s just say for the purposes of our conversation and, you, you sold some number of, of books and you might have gone home and, and either said, oh look, it was 50 bucks and I sold, three $20 books.
So like, look, I’m in the black. that was a good, a good way to spend your day. As I know from hearing her talk at Superstars writing seminars, that you became much, much more sophisticated over time about assessing the true dollars and cents business benefits of investing your
So talk a little bit about, like some of the ahas you had as you became more sophisticated about this, it, you became brought like a more, business focused, perspective to your decision to continue going to
[00:14:18] Todd: Absolutely. So yeah, so I worked a couple of, those, holiday markets because they were cheap, right? 50 bucks. That’s easy to do. And I sold 33 books that weekend, by the way, so it was almost $500 worth of money that came in. So I was like, wow, that’s awesome. But I was living on somebody else’s coattails and $500
And at a certain point, you’re going to have to go it alone. And so the first time that I went it alone where I was like, I’m going to an actual Comic-Con and I’m going to get my own booth, it was like, I think it was like $450 for a table, for like an artist alley table. Maybe it was, maybe it was 350, doesn’t matter.
I went out and I sold about the same amount of books that I did at the holiday fair where I paid $50 for a booth and now I paid $450 for a booth. And I remember calculating, my gas, my food. I was staying with my, my father-in-law. So I didn’t have any lodging costs for that. and I didn’t have much food costs , because I just brought a bag of almonds
Right. It was just really cutting costs. And my whole thought about it was like, I’m not going out there to make money. No way am I going to make money. But this is a way for me to get books out into the world. This is a way for me to connect with people and get my stories. And I believed then, and I believe now that if I can get my book in front of you, if you like Epic fantasy, if I can get my story in front of you, you’re
You’re just going to love it. And all of it stands between me and the success that I want is getting to those readers who love it. And the more I’ve found them, the more I realize there are more out there. And it’s, I mean, I, I keep waiting for this tipping point where all of a
At this point, I’ve seen some increases, but it’s, one step at a time where you find your fans and they love what you do and then they’re going to buy everything that you have. Right? But that first year, I. Hit $525 was how much I made, and it cost me, I think, $495 to do the whole trip. So like, I made like $45 or whatever it was, like, it was,
and, but I, I didn’t care. I was like, okay, this is better than sitting at home going, oh, woe is me. I don’t know how to do the Amazon algorithm thing, and I’m not making any money. it’s like I can dig my teeth into this. I, I know how to drive a car. I know how to unload boxes. I know how to, talk about my books so I can do this.
I’m going to do this, but I never expected to make money about it. So fast forward. three years to, , because I think that was, it’d be 20 18, 20 19, 20 20, 20 21. So three years, 2021. I was in Colorado Springs doing the Colorado Springs Comic-Con for the first time ever. I had $2,000 at my booth. And I was like, wow, okay.
, because the year before a thousand dollars was great. It’s like, wow, I hit a thousand dollars. Like I haven’t hit a thousand dollars at Amazon in a month, ever. Right? So I think the most I ever did at that point was like $600 in a month. So I’m like, this is awesome. And then I went to FanX the next month and I hit, I hit like $2,600 and that’s when the next light bulb went on where it was like, okay, I had been telling myself that I was doing this because I didn’t have anything else to do and it couldn’t hurt to get my books out in the world,
but that was the moment where I was like, if I can hit $2,000 two months ago and I can hit $2,600 now. When does it start to get to the point where the income leaves, the set expenses behind? where it’s like a booth is a thousand dollars and if you sell a thousand dollars worth of books, it’s about 350 to $400 of cost.
Right? So you have to sell 1500 to $1,600 worth of books to pay for the books and the booth. And then you start adding in, the gas expense or lodging or food or whatever. So my threshold was like about 3000 to $3,500 is where you actually start making money no matter, the, the booth costs for a single booth, right?
And then I thought, if I could make $5,000 per con, then you start making actual money, then I could start making, 20, $30,000 a year above and beyond the cost of the, the. The, the selling, right? The, the getting out into the world and selling. And so that became my, my dragon that I was chasing back in, I think it was like 2023, I think I was
And I hit a couple of $5,000 cons. And then I’ve been chasing the $10,000 con ever since then. My dream is, 10 cons, $10,000, a hundred thousand dollars in a year, and 50,000 of it is mine. Right? That would be like, yay. I have not hit that yet. I haven’t even hit a $10,000 con yet, but I got within $400 at Dragonsteel.
[00:19:06] Matty: Well, I want to ask a couple of details. Which is, or make it also make a couple of comments, which is that, I have to bring a similar, well, it’s a little bit different, but I’ve tried to be more diligent about, not having, my speaking engagements be something that always cost me money. And so, I see the benefits.
There are lots of benefits to doing a speaking engagement beyond the money you earn. but I also have found that even if you look into an organizer who’s paying, your registration to the event, paying your transportation, paying the hotel there, it there, it just always costs more than you’re going to get paid through those kinds of official
And so there’s this sort of buffer that says, well, all these things are getting paid. Plus you always have to add a little bit because there’s always something else. There’s always something you’re not thinking about. but I’m realizing that, The scenario you’re describing where it could be a good business decision to pay a hundred dollars to, to ha to incur a hundred dollars worth of expenses and sell a hundred
So I think that the calculus is much different if you can lead people to
[00:20:14] Todd: For sure.
[00:20:21] Todd: So anytime somebody asks me, okay, so when should I start doing booths on my own? I tell them, You got to have at least five books to start making it worthwhile. I mean, like, you could probably do it with three books and maybe some people who are really,
But I just don’t think it’s worth the money to pay for a booth if you have only one thing to sell. Because here’s, like, as I’ve gone through this, I’ve had different thresholds of where my income has increased. Like the first year that I hit $9,000 in a year, I was like, yay. because the first year that I was a full-time writer, I hit $1,200
And here’s, here’s something to think about. The last, book that I sold to a, a big publisher to tour, I only got a $7,000 advance. and I’m sure that people who are well established get much bigger advances than that. But if you’re not all of a sudden, like the next big thing, that’s probably what you can expect, 5,000 to 10,000 at the most.
for an advance for a new author or an unproven author. Right? I make that in a weekend easily, in gross, right? and I don’t give away the rights to my book either. So that’s, that’s the other advantage is I can do whatever I want with these intellectual properties that I have. I can produce art for them and sell the art, all that stuff.
So like each threshold that I’ve hit, one of the first thresholds was. Getting my own booth, right? Not having to sell right next to somebody else who might be selling exactly what I’m selling, right? So getting my own booth and getting to decorate it exactly the way that I want. Having a full six feet in the beginning, having a full 10 by 10, in the
And now I’m doing 10 by twenties at some events where I just lay out all of my stuff, right? So in those cases, I’ve got 25 titles to choose from. And if you get somebody who comes by and they never knew about you, and they’re go off for what you do, they may be what I call a unicorn, which is to say, we don’t often see unicorns in the wild or anywhere, and these are the people that buy everything on the table.
I call ’em unicorns. So, you get a unicorn and that’s four or $500 for me right there. Boom. I mean, like, that’s as much as I made an entire weekend when I first started selling in one sale. And the only reason that happens is because I have 25 books to sell them. Right? and then. Getting to the the point where you push sets instead of singles.
I mean, always defer to the customer what they want, but sometimes people will step up and buy the set if you give them the opportunity to say, Hey look, if you buy the set, you get $15 off the entire set. So if you’re the type that wants the whole story, and I guarantee you once you get done with Book one, you are going to want book two.
This is the cheapest way to get it. I don’t sell this discount on my
[00:23:09] Todd: And they’ll be like, okay, yeah, done. Do it. Right. And it is, it’s a great deal for them, especially if they’re super readers and they’re going to blow through those books really, really
And they’ll do it. And then boom, you’re selling sets instead of singles. So instead of $25 for a book, you’re selling $150 for a set. Boom, your income level’s up. But you can’t do that if you only have two or even three books, right?
[00:23:28] Todd: next thing for me, and this is where we start leaning into our strengths, everybody’s got strengths.
and my, one of my strengths is I got a degree in art that was my undergrad degree. And so I have a good eye for what I like and all of the images that I have chosen for my covers. Not only did I get lucky and have a fantastic artist to work with, illustrator to work with, but
So I’ve got phenomenal amounts of art, really good art for all of my characters. So what do you do? you turn it into posters and you start selling those posters alongside your books. So now you’ve got 25 books and you’ve got 30 different posters. So now you’ve got more product to sell. and, and that’s how it builds and builds and builds.
But. Not everybody has fantastic art for their covers. Maybe they leaned into something else, so that wouldn’t really work for them. But there are other strengths that people have that they can lean into.
[00:24:19] Todd: Let’s take, Matthew Wolf for example. Like when I was looking at his booth, a lot of the things that I was taking from his, his, setup was, I think he’s got only five or six or seven books that he sells, but he’s got different versions of those books.
He’s got like the leather bound sprayed edge, he’s got the hardback with the, the cover, he’s got the case bind with the cover. He’s got cards that he’s made that are with the characters. He’s got, other bells and whistles and maps and, and mouse pads and things like that,
And he cleans up, and there’s all and, and all different levels of price point for people. So, I mean, there’s different things that you can do. When you’re leaning into the business side, I mean, like, clearly there’s that part of us, us writers that all we want to do is just create and we wish that somebody else would do all that other
But you can make a viable lifestyle out of doing this. Like you said, speaking engagements over here, non fiction books over here, fiction books over here. Those are your strengths, and everybody can lean into
[00:25:26] Matty: Like a challenge with in-person events is that there’s this sort of chicken and egg situation where, I mean, I’ve seen your setup, it’s gorgeous. You have the giant like popup things. I don’t even, I can’t even describe the, how elaborate and beautiful your, booths are. And that’s obviously took a big investment in something that, that, you built over time.
But the people who are starting out, you don’t necessarily want to spend hundreds of dollars on, some nice banner until this is something you want to do. And on the other hand, you might decide it’s something you don’t want to do because you have a boring booth and nobody’s stopping. Because if you just had a little bit more like flash, you would, how do
whether you should make the investment in order to see if it’s
[00:26:11] Todd: So it’s hard to know, like somebody who wants to kind of do a shake and bake thing where it’s like, okay, it’s just already all at once. I want to do this and I want to go from, not knowing how to do this, to making, 50 grand a year by the end of the year. I
I’m not sure if it’s possible. it may be possible. Let’s say you’ve already got, 50 books that you’ve written, so you’ve got plenty of products. So that’s an advantage and but if you don’t have the money to , because like those eight by eight foot by eight foot stretch fabric banners that you mentioned, those are my like popup ones that are like
those are like a thousand dollars a piece, right? So you kind of got to commit to doing this to do that. Otherwise, oh my gosh, why would you spend a thousand dollars on something that you could only use at cons, right? But I bought both of those. I think I’ve got, I’ve got three of them, but I got two of them that I use regularly three years ago.
So those expenses way in the past, and every time I used them, knock another $25 or $50 off of that price because, it’s been stretched out over all these different events. And that happened over the course of seven years. Seven years I’ve been doing this seriously. Right. And now,I’m making, I’ve made over $50,000 a year for the last three
And that’s, that’s the reason why is because I’m building on what I’ve done before. And, kind of following that phrase, say yes to everything, keep your mind. Open, feel free to jettison things that
You can find great ideas from different sellers around you, and they don’t even have to be authors. just keep your mind open to what would work for those strengths and it’s all around you. I mean, that’s what’s wonderful about cons, right?
Everybody is there expressing themselves. this, this woman that used to work with me in my booth, she really got into cosplay. She’d never done cosplay before. She went to a couple of cons with me and she just loved all the different cosplays that she saw. And she started doing cosplays. And for a while, because she was working my booth, boy that benefited my booth a lot, you’ve got this cosplay behind the booth.
So like, I, I don’t cosplay. That is not my thing. but but while she was working the booth, I benefited from that because she would draw people over because of her cool cosplay and they would ask her about it. And anything that makes people walk up to you at your booth is a way for then you to, for you to segue into the story and start selling the
So if you’re a cos player. You can use that to your advantage. That could be a strength of yours. If you are a, I don’t know, performance artist, you could do something in front of the booth that’s, I had, I knew this one guy that would dance in front of his booth and, it looked really uncomfortable to me, but he was having fun dancing, and he would get people to notice him, and then he’d tell him about the book.
I was just like, okay, that, that is cringey to me, but what’s cringey
[00:28:55] Matty: Well, and I think that there are, there are two ways to approach decorating One’s booth. One is that, I can walk into an auditorium and if I see, if I see your, your, Banner across the room. Like, I’m like, oh, there’s Todd. which is great, but I think it’s not necessarily a requirement. And one of the benefits of K is people
They’re two feet from your table, and you can probably make a very nice looking table, a very inviting looking table, very inexpensively. and really the only investment I’ve made for the, the times that I’ve done in-person events were one of those like seven foot retractable banners, which are, are,maybe, I don’t know, they were like $125 or something
[00:29:38] Todd: Yeah, those are more reasonable for sure.
[00:29:39] Matty: yeah. And the nice thing about that is even if I decided I was never going to do another in-person event, you could use them like as a backdrop for, for a, a virtual meeting. Like I could put one
[00:29:50] Todd: yeah. Yeah. I
[00:29:51] Matty: a good way of using it.
[00:29:53] Todd: it’s not a bad backdrop for Zoom calls for sure. I mean, if eight by eights weren’t such a pain in the butt to put up inside, , because most. Ceilings are not even eight feet tall. I would use them all the time. I just put ’em in the background all the time. yeah, no, absolutely.
[00:30:06] Todd: And I would like to say, because at this point, like you say, I’ve got this posh set up that I’ve worked on over the years. I used to carry those three foot by seven foot retractable banners. That was my bread and butter for years. Like in the first two, three years in the beginning, before I could even could afford something that was, an eight foot by eight foot stretch fabric banner.
That’s what I used. I used them everywhere and I see lots of authors getting into this using those. It’s perfect. Do that until, I mean, I was bootstrapping it all along the way. I could not buy a stretch fabric banner until I made enough money to afford a stretch fabric banner. And like I was saying about, Getting to the end of the year, and how much money, do you have left over after you pay for everything? Most of the money that I have made went back into the business to buy those bigger, better things to buy those posters. Some of the posters that I sell, I sell for $200 a piece piece because they are expensive for me to buy.
They’re very specialized. They’ve got raised print, almost like brush strokes. They’ve got hollow foil glimmers in the background. And the the colors are just gorgeous. So, I mean, like, it is expensive. The inventory, I probably keep about seven to $10,000 worth of inventory in my house all the time. So if I were to stop doing this lifestyle and just sell everything that I have, I would’ve a huge net at the end of
Right? so, so part of the advantage of growing this, if you know you want to do it for the long term, is increasing your buying power for the business, right? Because if you buy a hundred of one kind of book. It’s going to cost you 50 cents to a dollar less per book. Right? So you’re
and,I mean, but you can’t do that right out of, out of the gate buying a hundred of one of your copies of books. That’s, that’s a lot of an investment. You know, that’s thousands of dollars to, to start out with. So it is a growing thing. And I just wanted to to mention that,
I used to use those all the time. That’s where I started. I started
[00:31:59] Matty: Yeah, and the, the idea of how much inventory you have made me think of another idea, which is that people should probably have a backup plan for, you know, if now they’re making the investment in, in a large quantity of expensive books. And just knowing that if something happens and you can no longer be on the road, that
Maybe that just means you pivot to. you know, a Shopify store, uh, selling on Curios or whatever it might be because,you’re going to have to build a different set of skills and different outreach and things like that. But you’ve already proven that there are people who want these products, and you just have to find another way to, to reach them and
[00:32:34] Todd: Yep. And I, I ship out, hundreds of dollars worth of,books every single. Every single month. Right. So, I mean, having them in the house, I can just ship them up, box ’em up, mail ’em out. I, I know an author, that I met at Author Nation and she like, that’s what she does. She’s got like a whole warehouse in her garage and she ships, we like her con is her house.
Like she, she does really well, with, going to schools and, and the, her type of book is like for middle grade, gymnasts and she sells lots of books about gymnasts. the, the stories are all about these young gymnasts and what they’re, what they’re going through, these coming of
And, and that’s, that’s her, that’s her business. That’s the way that she does it. So yeah, having the inventory, you can pivot and do it
[00:33:23] Matty: Well, I wanted to get back to something you had mentioned before that, that I promised I’d return to, and that is that
[00:33:30] Todd: Yeah. So this is my latest excitement.
[00:33:32] Matty: yeah. Talk a little bit specifically about how you are applying lessons that you learned in your K experiences to the
[00:33:40] Todd: Perfect. Perfect. So one of the greatest values of doing con sales is, so you’ve probably heard, let me, I backed up now I’m going to back up even further. So, one of the most valuable things that an author can have is a good list, right? A good email list where you have direct access to your audience. One of the biggest frustrations I had with being a traditionally published author is that you have none
You don’t have that list. All of the people that, that are fans of yours that go through the publishing house to get to you, the publishing house keeps that information. You don’t get to have it, right? same thing with Amazon. They, you have like an Amazon page. Everybody who’s subscribed to your Amazon page, you don’t get that list.
They have that list. So you don’t know who these people are, unless they email you directly, somehow through your website, right? But you go to a con. When I go to a con, I have my iPad, I take it with me and I’ve got a little signup form. And when I’m talking to somebody whose eyes have just sparkled at the story that I told them, I’m like, Hey, you know, I do some cool things for fans.
And I tell them about my, my Discord channel. I tell them about my newsletter. I tell them about my once a quarter, super fan call, which is really fun. Now that’s one of my favorite things, right? And so this is how I engage these fans. And I build my list, which I have a really, really good list of about 4,000 fans at this point.
Now, it is not a 50,000 fan list, but at least half, if not more of the people on this list are people that I have met face to face. So they have had an interaction with me, and if they love my stuff, they’re going to be there for. So like I get close to 30% open rate every time I send out, an email, which is good.
I think, I think having somewhere close to 20 is a good open rate for, for this kind of thing. And so I’ve, I’ve got in mid twenties to, to the thirties every single time because this is a very targeted cold list that I’ve created. And so this is the list that I talked to when I started my Patreon. So this is how the, the.
Con sales dovetailed into this project where now I, I’m corresponding with these super fans. I’m talking to them when I go to their city and when they get done with a book, they text me or they email me or whatever. and then I told ’em about this. I was like, Hey, I’m going to
This is my next project because it’s been a long time between the last time I published a book. And now usually I do about two or three books published a year. But I’m doing this huge epic thing called THE 12 KINGDOMS. And I don’t want to put it out until it’s done. And it’s probably going to be about six volumes at this point, right?
And I’m about three volumes into it, and I want to finish it, and then I’m going to do a Kickstarter. Then I’m going to,release it staggered to Amazon and on my website and I’m going to release it early to fans that come to me at my booth. so I get to do this, I get to roll this out however I want, but in the meantime.
I get to put this up on Patreon and people can come and they can pay me $4 a month. There’s like, it’s like $4 to $12 a month. If you do $12, you get everything in advance, you get special other things, you get a special thank you from me, I’m definitely going to be giving you special attention. and you get chapters that nobody else gets, right.
Then the next level down is you get four chapters for the month, all at the beginning of the month, right? Everything happens at the beginning. You get four chapters at the beginning of the month. And and then the, the $4 a month is you get a chapter a week starting at the beginning of the month, and then it starts over at the beginning of the next month,
so that’s how I started doing that. And then of course, as I’m working with my artist to get the cover, I’ll show the sketches and I’ll show the progression of the sketches and then the final piece, and they get to see everything ahead of time, and just be a part of my creative
It’s like, oh, this was the sketch they sent me. I wanted it to be a little bit different. So I said this, and then they did this, and then, if that is of interest, it’s, it’s such a fun, such a fun thing to do. So that’s how I ended up doing the Patreon. And the idea was because I am maxed at my limit at this point, like the number of places I can be in a year and the number of books that I can create in a year is
I’m one person, right? but. I can be working hard on my book and then take 15 minutes to put it up on Patreon. I’m already doing this and an extra 15 minutes isn’t going to kill me. So ma maximizing what I’m naturally doing at any given time became necessary. It’s like if I’m going to monetize what I do, why not try and monetize what I’m already
As opposed to saying, if I did this whole other separate thing over here, it’s like, yeah, I just like quail at the notion of adding more logistics to my shoulders at this point, just because of how much I’m already doing. But it’s like, I want people to see these chapters ahead
I’m like, I’m the most, the time that I’m the most excited about a chapter is when I just finished writing it. My wife, my poor wife, she does so much to support me, but it’s like she just is she cringes when I come boiling out of my office and I’m like, I just wrote this. She’s like, yes.
[00:38:35] Matty: Why not?
[00:38:37] Todd: And she’s like doing her own job on her computer. She’s like, sure, honey, I’ll stop what I’m doing here. Right. so, so now I have this whole outlet where I can go get excited at people who are really excited to hear about it, and make some money as well, you know?
[00:38:52] Todd: Well, I think in the spirit of, of understanding the economics, we’ve been talking about the economics of cons, and I think it’s just sometimes not something that creators really think carefully about. I think the, the comment you had made earlier about, you hear people say they’re, they’re six figure authors.
[00:39:11] Matty: Yeah, exactly. If they, if they spent six figures, if they spent a hundred thousand dollars to make a hundred thousand dollars, that’s really not the business model you want to be
[00:39:19] Todd: Right. Right. Exactly. And so for me, that’s, that’s important, which is why I say I’m not even sure I’m exactly successful at this yet. I mean, certainly I am. The, the, the thing that gets me is that, I just put out, $60,000 worth of my books into the world. That’s awesome. Right? But ideally, I want to put $60,000 in my books out into the world and also get, or I want to put $120,000 worth of my books out in the world and, make a hundred thousand dollars above and
That would be awesome. But I, I think that, that defining that success is, is important as far as I want to get, I want to get back to the economics because I know that’s what you, what you want, the information about. And, and I think that it’s just, you have to
Because if you want to make a hundred thousand dollars. In the first year that you’re doing this, you got to do stuff that I haven’t thought of yet. , because I haven’t hit that yet. Like I, I haven’t done that where it’s like, I made 200 and took home 100. Right. I haven’t done that yet, but it keeps scaling up every year.
[00:40:17] Todd: And the cool thing that happens is you make more fans every year. And I think that is really, that, that’s the key right there. Like. The more people you can have that’s interested, that are interested in reading, the things that you put out there, the more
Whether they buy from Amazon, whether they buy from, I mean, one of the people that jumps to my mind immediately when I think about that is Matt Dinniman and Dungeon Crawler Carl or Carl, right? Like when I met Matt years ago, he, he had had some success with Dungeon Crawler Carlo Carl and was making good money online, but he had not hit that explosive threshold where now he’s like, he’s going to become a household name.
He’s already a household name for lots of nerds out there, myself included. but, but maybe not across the country yet, but he will be. I mean, like he’s, he’s hit that threshold where because he has so many fans, they’re telling other fans, which makes it go, up and up and up and up and up. and so to me, that’s.
The real goal is to expand those fans and having more fans, I think starts with having quality fans. Not to make a judgment about their personality, but to make a judgment about whether they are engaged with me. Like it is somebody who’s actually engaged with me with the product. And I don’t think there’s a better way to do that than
And that’s, you know, that is the, the goal is to just be that person that, um, your work and your presence.
Helps somebody, makes them smile, makes them, puts a little spring in their step, makes them excited to go to the worlds that you’re, that you’re at, right? So the more of those that you have, the more success you’re going to have. The money will flow, but that’s at the core of it, right? And you could go in and you can grab a hundred thousand dollars a year by, twisting this thing and, maximizing that algorithm or whatever.
But if, if the fans aren’t there, you’re going to do that for one year, maybe two years, and then it’s going to fall off. Whereas I think if you treat your fans right, if you try and interact with them and try and, cultivate a relationship with them, it just, it can’t go anywhere but up. as long as you keep producing, as long as you keep producing stuff,
[00:42:30] Matty: Yeah. Well, I love the idea. It, even a conversation about economics comes back as well. It should to the relationship you build with your readers. So, um, I love talking about all the,
[00:42:47] Matty: Well, Todd, it is always lovely to talk to you and, I especially appreciate the fact that you’re willing to be, so open about the details of, of where you’ve succeeded and where you’ve,
So I especially appreciate that. that’s not something that, that all creators are willing to do, and I think it’s such valuable information for listeners. so please let everyone know of where they can go to find out more about you and everything you do online or in person.
[00:43:07] Todd: if I can say first, like, every success I’ve ever had is built on a pyramid of, of, of failures, for lack of a better word, of things that I tried that didn’t work out, that, I’m like all these layers of the pyramid before you get to the peak. Like, that’s what builds it, I mean, that, that phrase fail faster is.
That is, fail faster so you can fail more often so that you can get to the point where you know what to do and start succeeding. Right. I mean, it’s true. It’s so true. Okay, so where can you find me? Best place to find me is on my website, ToddFahnestock.com. If you can spell Todd Fahnestock, which is T-O-D-D-F-A-H-N-E-S-T-O-C-K.
You can. Absolutely find me on Patreon. there isn’t another Todd Fahnestock on there that I know about. and it’ll have my face on it so you’ll be able to see it if you want to get in on the behind the scenes of what I’m doing, which is just so much fun. It’s the thing that I’m
So you’re likely to get that Todd Fahnestock Enthusiasm. if you sign up for my Patreon, I’ll be throwing stuff up there and I interact with it a lot because it’s almost like, it’s like become the surrogate for my wife. She doesn’t have to listen to me read the chapters ever after
and actually speaking of that, a friend of mine just recently suggested that I do just exactly that, that when I get done with a chapter, even if it’s not ready for the audiobook to just read it and post that on Patreon. So I’m going to start doing that soon as well, which is fun. Anyway, so ToddFahnestock.com is my website.
And then, like I said. Find me on Patreon. I’m also on Facebook, and I try to get on Instagram as much as I can, but I, I’m not a huge social media guy, so every now and then I’ll put on some really cool stuff on social media, but I do not post every single day.
[00:44:42] Matty: Sounds great. Thank you so much.
[00:44:44] Todd: Yeah, absolutely.