Little blog post here, on how we did at the market, and some marketing thoughts for the future.
Went along to Meanwood Market today, which runs on the third Saturday of the month in Meanwood in Leeds, and had a nice time. It was a wonderfully run market, and as a seller in the Leeds area, I absolutely recommend it – really friendly and helpful organisers, very organised and put-together, and in a nice sheltered area from the wind and rain!
And as well as my thanks to Leah at Meanwood Market for organising the event and taking some of the photos of Lorenzo and I above, a shout-out to Ez, who was another queer creator at the event! He’s an illustrator – you can check out their Instagram at WhiskersWares.
We did operate at a loss today – the market plot is normally £40, but we had a £10 discount because it was our first time trading, and we also rented a table for the day for £2.50.
We made £25 in card sales, plus £4 in cash, but £29 back of the £32.50 isn’t so bad, in my opinion, and I definitely feel that we learned a lot about doing the open air market, as well as just having a nice time.
The following is some rough thoughts and analysis on how our day went and my thoughts on the demographics we were talking with, so it might be a bit more interesting if you do markets yourself or are interested in this sort of marketing as an author.
Meanwood is a a bit of an up-market area – the market we did today was literally across from a Waitrose – and the market ran from 10:30am until 2:30pm, although we left half an hour early because it was so wet and rainy.
We went to a vintage sex education event last month in Meanwood, and I’d not been in the area before, but I noted that it was quite gentrified and had lots of fancy coffee shops and so on – a lot of parents with young kids live in the area, a good amount of students, and then older people. We saw lots of fancy rain gear and posh hiking clothes, lots of fancy vintage wear, custom wellington boots and galoshes, designer labels, and the like; it was a mostly white area, and while I saw some people with sunflower lanyards, there were far fewer visibly disabled people than I normally see at events.
But, listen. I’m a disabled person who went to this event and I am now in bed and expect to be for at least the next two days, so there’s absolutely no judgement on that, haha.
Initially in the morning I was a little nervous about the young kids tottering around, although through the course of the day parents generally steered their kids away from our table – one guy did wander over and was like, “Ah. I was actually looking for a fantasy book as a gift for a twelve-year-old, but I’m guessing none of your work isn’t really…?”
Apologetically, I said, “Not really, no.”
“Maybe when she’s older!”
Which was cute!
Initially, I only put post-it notes saying 18+ on my books that are either erotica or include more in-depth sex scenes, but Lorenzo actually picked up this lovely little leather case that had all the different post-its in different sizes, which is when I put the keywords up on the books.
Obviously, because there were things that said 18+ and you could see the word “erotica” on some of my posters, a few people through the course of the day walked past whilst staring intently or shot us faintly aggrieved glances, but my response to such behaviour is always a cheerful “Good morning!” or “Good afternoon!” and to invite people to come and chat, which they very rarely do.
Lorenzo and I have only ever done specifically queer maker’s markets in the past as well as selling books at literary and sci-fi and fantasy conventions, and it was definitely a significant difference.
We were talking a little bit about why we felt people acted so differently – at every kind of market, people in the UK and Ireland are often quite nervous of talking too much to you if they’re not already pretty certain they’re interested in buying something.
There’s an anxiety that if you talk too much to the seller you’re creating an obligation to then buy something from them, or worse, leading them on to make them believe you’re about to buy something when really, you’re not going to, and that would be a terrible faux pas.
This fear of being trapped by social nicety can also make people very suspicious of small talk or conversation, questions about what people are interested in, or information you as a seller are volunteering , such as prices or product information. When a seller goes away for a moment to chat to someone or look at another stall, you’ll sometimes see customers beeline over to their stall to look closely at their wares without being acknowledged or talked to.
None of this is new to me or to Lorenzo – they used to sell phones and phone plans and now mostly sell bubble tea, I’ve done everything from sell antique books to browsers and collectors in a nice bookshop in the Welsh valleys to selling home security systems door-to-door – but some things about this market were different to ones we’ve done before.
Firstly, all the markets we’ve done selling books and badges before have been indoors in hotels, convention centres, or indoor market spaces, and obviously, being outdoors impacts a lot of things – how much you might be talking to one another, how much space there is, how quickly a customer might want to move on rather than linger and browse for longer; there’s a natural anxiety about picking things up in case you get them wet.
With that said, I was really surprised by how few customers picked books up to page through them or read the blurbs on the back.
At conventions and SFF events, people are obviously seeing dozens if not hundreds of other tables with people selling books, whereas we were the only people selling books today.
A lot of people were juggling kids or dogs or food and it was wet and cold, so many people were wearing gloves or mittens or juggling their umbrella with whatever else: for any and all of those reasons, they might have felt less comfortable touching things or picking things up to have a look at.
There’s a natural anxiety, of course, given the social niceties that I mentioned, that picking stuff up might mean you feel obligated to buy it – but also, at this market, there were obviously lots of people selling far more fragile things than books, like ceramics, glassware, candles, jewellery, so they’re used to not picking stuff up to look at it more carefully.
And also, like…
At queer-specific markets, and to a much more significant extent, at fantasy and science fiction conventions, there’s a much higher rate of neurodivergence and more familiarity with autistic and ADHD social norms and standards than those of mainstream society. People may still feel bound by certain anxieties like looking too closely in case they lead the seller on, but it’s a very different sort of patter.
Firstly, there’s already a shared community between us as sellers and browsers as potential customers – we know that we’re both queer or trans or LGBTQ, or that we’re both into sci-fi and fantasy, or that there’s a high likelihood that we’re both obsessive or fixated on x or y topic.
We don’t have to talk about the weather: we can jump straight into whether Buffy the Vampire Slayer is in the feminist or anti-feminist TV show column or how great Adrian Tchaikovsky’s hair looks today or the specific length that dangly earrings have to be in order to satisfy our desire for a dangling earring without getting caught on our scarves or in our hair or being a sensory hell because they’re slightly too heavy and/or make too much noise.
And if I say, “Feel free to pick up books and read the blurbs, or ask any questions, no pressure!” people generally take that sentence as expressed rather than scanning it for some sort of psychological warfare.
Especially when SEX is brought into the equation – even if I wasn’t selling books that had 18+ stickers or erotica labels on, I am an openly homosexual transgender man who is visibly disabled, and there was a table of things in front of me that referenced being gay, being transgender, being disabled, and having sex.
All of these are topics that many people in the UK and Ireland are very uncomfortable discussing and/or think of as potentially rude or upsetting for many audiences, ESPECIALLY when those topics cross over with each other. For the middle classes and aspiring middle classes, where assimilation and appearances are more important, this is doubly true.
This was also an open air market where a lot of these mostly middle class people were in their local area rather than having travelled to the event, and I have no doubt that as much as we were getting a few judgemental glances, at least a few people wanted to come and have a look through the books or badges or chat to us, but there would have been a background consideration about their hairdresser or their neighbour or their mother-in-law or Sandra across the road seeing them talking to us, or buying books from us, and that might lead to further judgement or anxiety or conversations.
Especially for a lot of straight cis people who don’t live in close community with queer-dominated groups, there’s a lot more anxiety about discussing sex and sexuality particularly. It’s a very behind closed-doors topic, one that you only have with people you know rather than strangers, and also, one that’s often encoded rather than spoken about with frank language.
One more thing I was surprised by, apart from the nervousness people had about approaching or talking to us, or obviously picking stuff up to look – all day long, not a single person took a picture of one of our posters or flyers, or any of the badges or books.
I’ve done, I think, maybe 8 in-person sales events like this since I started out doing this, and that’s never happened.
Part of that will have been that it was wet and miserable, so you’re less likely to want to be handling your phone, sure, or it’s just a hassle to get it out of your pocket and get your glove off to take a picture or whatever – part of it was also the generational difference to our usual. Part of it was also that because a lot more of the people around us were selling bigger crafts, food, and the like, they were less likely to be selling paper goods (like stickers) or handing out flyers or similar.
At conventions and at queer markets, some people love to pick up a huge variety of business cards and bits of paper so they can go through them later, and others are like, well, I’ve already got so many bits of paper, it’s a nice relief when I can just take a picture or scan a QR code.
At this event, obviously most people weren’t advertising other events or directing people to websites – because it was just a market rather than a community event based on shared interests, there would be a natural suspicion of that as just a marketing tactic rather than a sharing of information and interests, you know?
I think of the people that we talked to and were interested in buying books for themselves, they were mostly in the 20s and 30s age range and were either students or student age, but obviously, because it was a Saturday just before fresher’s week and the market was until 2:30pm, we expected to see students after 12 (when they woke up), but that was also when the weather significantly worsened and the rain got a lot heavier.
We also had a few people buying books and badges as gifts for people they knew, and that was lovely, as well as some compliments on the Julius Caesar badges (and my suit).
Part of the reason that we want to do more general markets like this is to reach out to new and different audiences of all sexualities, genders, and experiences – one nice thing that I like about events like this is that, like I said, a lot of people who don’t necessarily live or interact a lot with queer- and/or disabled-dominated communities and subcultures operate by what often feels to me and Lorenzo stricter or more regimented social norms or rules, especially when it comes to topics like queerness, gender nonconformity, sex and sexuality, chronic illness, physical disability, and the like, but I’m a very frank and open speaker on these topics, and I’m very confident having them.
I enjoy doing outreach and education, and even if people don’t want to buy my books or merchandise, it might still be positive to see a gay trans dude talking openly about disability and chronic illness, writing fiction and selling books, et cetera.
I was definitely struggling quite a bit with the temperature toward the end of the day – I wore a three-piece tweed suit with a turtleneck and a t-shirt underneath, and I brought a heavy woollen shawl that I was huddled in from like one o’clock onward, and the second half of the day I had my leather gloves on the whole time. It wasn’t even that cold, but obviously because I can’t stand up for long periods, I was struggling to move around and keep warm, and my body is a lot less tolerant of the cold than some people’s.
We rented a table today, but I did buy a six-foot table for ourselves to use at markets in future, and I think I’m probably going to hold off applying for any other outdoor markets this year because I just can’t handle it, unfortunately. The temperatures today were at around 7 degrees, and obviously outdoor markets from October through February will be a good bit colder than that.
Any market that I go to, I’m gonna be more acutely unwell and in pain in the aftermath just because it’s obviously lots of walking and socialising and carting stuff around, but it’s much worse for me and my joints in cold, damp weather than warm.
If we can get into a good habit with these markets, I think we might buy our own gazebo next year – the 2m x 2m ones are only about £70 with the weights included, and I actually quite like the idea of having one because we’ll be able to hang some blankets inside to help keep it warmer, and also I’ll be able to put up some big posters on the back and side walls without having to worry about going into other people’s space or creating additional knock or trip hazards. I’d obviously then be a lot more sheltered and insulated.
The main thing that’s tough about going to these is just the transport, really. We don’t drive ourselves, and I do feel bad getting a taxi or an Uber and putting loads and loads of stuff in the boot before then having to unpack it even though we can be quite quick and efficient about it, but obviously it’s our big fuck-off camping cart for us to bring on and off the train or the bus, on top of the wandering around with it.
We didn’t sell very many badges today – Lorenzo and I were talking about it, and he was saying about having fewer badges on display and tailoring the badges on display to whatever market we’re at, and I definitely think that’s a good shout.
We were selling paperback books, badges, and bookmarks today, and when I can do the printing, I’ll also be selling little zines that are just individual short stories in the 1k range.
The books are priced between £5 and £10, and I think that’s more than reasonable – An Uncommon Betrothal is £20 at the moment for the pre-order, and I think that’s gonna drop down to £12 when we’re selling them in-person and online from the launch in November onwards. Badges at the moment are £1 each, and the zines will be at £2 or so – Lorenzo and I were discussing whether we should charge more for the badges and/or deals we can do to encourage people to buy at the same time, or buy things together.
I was looking at tote bags earlier this week, because they’re always great to have and sell at cons, and I think the GAY-ASS BOOKS slogan would be really fun on a tote, but they’re obviously quite pricy to get made – 25 would set me back £140, and while the price per unit obviously goes down significantly the more you order (60 are only £200), it’d still be a pretty significant investment, so that’s definitely not at the top of the list.
I’m gonna start making my own jewellery soon, and to be honest, that’s nearly wholly because I want a dangly earring that says FAGGOT (I also just want the skills to repair and modify mine and Lorenzo’s jewellery), but if I have fun with making earrings, I do think I’ll make some more. Because my brain is so foggy of late, I’m really struggling with making LEGO or doing jigsaws because the mental task of reading instructions or doing the logical fit together of all the shapes is really rough, but I’m not very good at doing MOCs outside of posing minifigs because I just get frustrated with perspective.
I’m hoping that jewellery is going to be something I’ll enjoy doing and I’ll be able to play with a bit more creatively whilst still being structured and focused work with my hands, and once I’ve done the stuff I’m interested in doing, if I want to keep doing it, I might do some stuff to sell on.
After we were talking about the difference in discussing sex and sexuality at queer and pride events versus events like these, I was like, huh, I wonder how much it is to get condom packets printed, and it’s not too bad – 12 condoms is like £23 something; 100 is £165; the website I was looking at apparently goes as low as 33p per unit for much bigger orders. They also do lube packets, tampons, and pads – and buttplugs.
CustomCondoms, for the low low price of £245, will sell me 100 aluminium alloy buttplugs with my name on the base – that’s £2.45 cost per buttplug! That’s crazy!
We’re probably not going to embark on that project any time soon, but I am delighted by the world we live in.
I’m working on some more designs for badges that will also be put onto the TeePublic store, and then we’re thinking about other stuff – Lorenzo has suggested shotglasses, which I think would fuck; I’ve been thinking about calendars, maybe. You can get stress balls and fidget things.
Lorenzo is also pretty into the idea of doing mouse mats with my ass. Which would be great, I will admit.
More seriously, we’re already thinking about stickers, and I just saw that you can do temporary tattoos, and that would be really fun as well.
I believe the next market I’m doing is hopefully going to be on the 18th of October, again here in Leeds, so! We shall see, and once I have confirmed details, I will post them, as well as info about merch and stuff as we play with and develop it.
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