Henry Segovia of Lobo Anime & Comics in Albuquerque, New Mexico sent in this detailed Free Comic Book Day report.

We've been behind Free Comic Book Day 100% since it began 8 years ago and have had events each year.  But like Kendall Swafford of Up Up Away!, we didn't know what to expect this year.  Our FCBD sales had increased each year by around 25% and with the economy a little soft here as well, we were hoping to at least match last years numbers.

Last year we moved into a 2,400 sqft store and had the room to do a lot more with FCBD.  From the very first year we have seen it as a celebration and have tried to introduce new people to comics and existing readers to new genres.  But we also had all those who came in only for their free comic book.  Each year we keep working on how make it better.  We keep trying new things and tweaking old ones.

Again this year we started by having several other vendors come and set up outside at our side walk sale.  It may sound strange to invite others to sell their goods at your store but it worked very well in the end.  The vendors invited to sell were loyal customers who had collectibles they were selling off.  We tend to get a line of shoppers lining up early for their free comics so the venders made their sales and kept the early bird shoppers happy in the hour or so before the store opened.  And nothing draws people like a crowd browsing at a side walk sale.  We were also lucky enough to get Mike and Khrisitne Esch to bring down and display their replica Batmobile from the 1960's TV show.  These two events generated tons of outside interest, even before we opened our doors and kept our entire staff free to handle the in store sales and promotions.

Once in the store we had other things to keep people interested.  The free comics were set up at the farthest point from the door so that customers had time to see the sale items and discounts being offered on all our different product.  In the center of the store we placed some local artists who did sketches and sold their commissions.  We also had a costume contest with first, second and third place winners.  Last year we thought we would have just a hand full come in costume and were stunned when so many came dressed that we added two more prizes.  This year we were ready and promoted the contest from the beginning.  In the end we had over 50 people come in costume.  We also invited Debra Klecan, a local photographer to take pictures of all who came in costume.  She then posted all the photos on line and those who came in costume could purchase some studio quality photos of themselves at some great low prices.  This seemed to go over very well since not many who come in costume have any type of formal photos of themselves.  We invited an Anime Club to come by and fund raise by selling baked goods and hot dogs.  This added to the feel that this was more of a party and celebration than a store sale.

As far as advertising we did a TV commercial that ran for a month on one of our local stations.  We had a local VJ come in and film six live spots which aired the Friday before FCBD telling people to come to the store.  We sent out a newsletter asking all our customers to come down in costume or street clothes about a week before FCBD to film the segments.  We also called the 501st Legion who have supported us since day one to come by if they could.  In the end we had about 15 people in costume and another 20 or so in street clothes which made the spots look fantastic.  We also kept our website updated with any and all information as well as our Facebook page.  We made custom color 11 x 17 posters for FCBD that we posted around the store and plastered on our windows.  We also made 4-1/4 x 5-1/2 page fliers that we put in all the merchandise bags for three weeks before FCBD.  The last thing we did was post street signs five to six blocks away in both directions of our main street directing people to the store the event.  We opened at 11:00 and had a non stop flow of people from then to 6:00pm.  From 6:00 until we closed (7:00) people still trickled in.

What worked best?  A few things seemed to work better than others.  The last week of the ad seemed to generate the most calls to the store from people curious about our commercial and we also started getting calls at 8am the day of the event due to the VJ spots.  During the event we had one employee casually take a survey of how customers had heard of our event.  The number one response was our website.  Second was the commercial and third was word of mouth from regular customers.  In the process he also gathered nearly 50 new emails for our newsletter by also asking if they would like to be informed of any other upcoming events.

Was all the work worth it?  We still had the where's my free comic crowd that came in and disappeared with out a backwards glance, but it didn't seem like there were many.  We did see many new faces who didn't know we were here and were very excited to find us.  The newbies and the faithful customers tended to hang around and enjoy the day for what it was.  And we had a lot of complements on the great party we put together.  Those random comments of "good job," all the smiling faces and "thanks for doing this" in itself made it all worth while.  After all was tallied up we ended with nearly a 60% increase over last year's total sales for the day.  Thank you all who came by and celebrated Free Comic Book Day with us!

The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.