Teresa Moran of Acadiana Book & Comic Shop in Lafayette, Louisiana used basic techniques and an enthusiastic attitude to generate an up Free Comic Book Day in her store:
This is my third year participating in the Free Comic Book Day event and I can't say enough great things about it! We surpassed last year! And last year we had surpassed the year before that!
We put a lot of effort into planning, cross-promoting with local theaters, sending press releases to all newspapers, etc. four weeks before the event. Then we have a store party with the blockbuster Spider-Man 2 movie theme, at the same time that day from 2 to 4. We have a flyer invitation that we fold and put into the comics that we gave to the theater to hand out. I also enclosed this same flyer invitation with the news releases that I sent out. It only cost the stamps and paper to send a news release to the newspaper, radio, TV, stations, and they all have given us great coverage each year! I just address them to the Entertainment Dept. of each and put that it's in reference to a national event and where it is being held locally. I just copied the blurb about Free Comic Book Day almost word for word from the Previews catalog retailers' order form for the month they offered the free comics, and inserted my store name and info.
If a store will apply my methods, I can guarantee you that people will show up and you will have a full house! I say my methods, but I actually just followed some instructions from a professional promoter pamphlet that a church gave me to promote a summer vacation Bible school for them. They ended up with more people than they could handle or had workers for. You can too. In fact, we try not to overdo the promotion or we may have more than we could handle too. It's not hard at all. It just takes a little pre-planning and organizing, then you just follow your plan!
There is no reason why every store can't have a successful Free Comics Day! We were up against a weekend Fourth of July when the people around here typically do family picnics and barbecues, and, a lot left for the weekend since they had an extra day on Monday to be off. If you plan and promote well, there is no reason why you won't have enough people to justify your efforts! See my flyer below:
YOU ARE INVITED!!
(Free Open to Everyone)
To
FREE COMIC BOOK DAY
(ALL DAY FROM 9 TO 8)
AND
SPIDER-MAN 2 MOVIE
THEME PARTY
(2 TO 4 P.M.)
Saturday, July 3
Come and bring a friend!
FREE refreshments, door prizes, one free comic. Just a fun time to chat about comics and the Spider-Man 2 movie.
Not required; Dress up in costume in your own original created costume, or comic book character, or theme, such as Star Wars, etc. There will be a costume contest with various categories of winners. (Please, nothing too revealing, we are trying to stay 'family-friendly')
AT ACADIANA BOOK & COMIC SHOP, 2506 JOHNSTON ST., LAFAYETTE, LA.
MARK YOUR CALENDARS NOW!
A young man came into my store and told me that he worked for another store in another town and that Free Comic Book Day 'sucked.' First of all, with an attitude like that, he's defeated from the start. I asked him why and he said nobody came. I would bet and win that they did nothing besides put the books out in their store. Sorry folks, but it does take a little more than that. It's fun too! Remember emotions are contagious! If you enthusiastically talk and invite, it generates enthusiasm. If you talk negativity and gloom that is what you get nine times out of ten. Sorry to say it, but I would never hire that young man in my store. I want to hear how something can be done, not how it wasn't or can't be done. I don't want to hear it and I don't have any time or patience for that kind of thinking. If I plan and execute and it didn't work, I would cry, then move on and figure out what I need to do next time to make it work. Each time, we analyze and look at what we could do better the next time and write it down in our 'game plan'. It's worked every time.
