We must not gloat.
Gloating is the habit of losers beating the odds. You score a touch-down, you’re allowed a fist pump or the like, but then toss the ball to the ref like you were supposed to make a touchdown.
You don’t need to keep the ball. There will be more. Because you did the work. You figured it out. You learned from your mistakes and adjusted. Competence wins out over time, all the time.
Luck is consistently 50/50, not just by definition, but mathematically. Your fate is as much a series of coin-flips as anything else. Smiley-face/frowny face = 50/50.
It is said that a person needs three lucky breaks in a row to improve their status. Not impossible, but generally unlikely. There’s really nothing you can do to change the odds on the coin flips. Luck is famously indifferent to effort or even competence. The coin spins how it spins.
But let me propose, based upon my own experience, and observations of others, that prepared and competent people can move ahead in two lucky breaks, which is far more plausible.
Which brings us to the recent Mojave County Renaissance Faire. [https://www.mohaverenfaire.com]
{If you were hoping I was heading towards politics – sorry. Not this post.}
The event, which actually happened November 13-15, despite the rising tide of COVID even in windswept Kingman, drew about 3000 visitors over three days (according to the Kingman Daily Miner https://kdminer.com/news/2020/nov/17/kingman-renaissance-faire/)
Our booth did well. Even though we were the farthest in, we were also right by the jousting exit, which balanced our fortunes. After expenses, we did not make enough to quit our jobs, but we made enough to want to do it again.
Catch the coin, lift your hand: smiley face.
Much of what we learned is specific to our booth logistics, and not of general interest, but these lessons might be:
- Absolutely worth it to take a day and set up the booth and take it down in controlled conditions. (see last post).
- So you have time to go to the store and get the things you now know you actually need.
- And have some idea of how it’s going to take to set up and tear down.
- The more complete the better. The elements we did not have available, or skipped, during the dry tech (to use the theater term) were the elements we struggled most with in the field.
- If you are hoping it won’t blow out of the trailer on the freeway, it will totally blow out of the trailer on the freeway. Don’t load the trailer with hope.
- Price tags mean you can leave the booth with someone while you go pee.
- The Square reader paid for itself in an hour. We believe we had a 20% bump in sales because we could take credit cards (or magic, as we called it in character, “Will that be coin or magic?”)
- Relatedly, it was totally worth it to have a couple hundred in small bills on hand. We made several sales based upon our ability to break a 50.
Yeah, it was our first booth as primary vendors. (I have sat in such things for my publisher, but all I had to do was show up), but most people were surprised to learn that.
We are also both career production professionals who have been on the organizing side of fairs and conventions. We were supposed to score a touchdown. And we did.
Also worth noting: I sold more books (Beanstalk and Beyond) at this fair than I have at any publisher sponsored book event.
Funny we should mention that.
I have signed the contract for the sequel (Taliesin’s Last Apprentice) and hope it will be out this summer.
So next November, you can come up to Kingman and buy both books from me. Signed of course, at the fair price of $15/each. Cash or magic.
[Tosses ball back to ref. Goes to the sideline to drink whisky.]
Love this post! Coin or magic? Awesome. 🙂
And of course, I am a fan of your books. So I am thrilled you sold more copies. But now I need my costume!