Awesome Con Sketch Card Filler – Tuesday
As promised, here are some more caricature sketch cards I did through the weekend at Awesome Con DC.
Overall, I did 18 caricature cards in two days. Plus I had seven additional people that left me their e-mails and said they were interested in getting one done through the mail – plus another two couple that paid me in advance – including the few dollars extra for shipping and handling.
So, if everyone I contacted wants me to do a sketch card for them, the grand total would be 27 cards for a single convention. That would be the most I have EVER done…which brings up a sort of problem that I have.
I’m thinking very seriously about adding $2.00 to the overall price of the cards… from the original $10 a card (plus free, hard plastic top loader for the card) to $12 a card. I might also add an option of having it magnetized for another $3.00 – bringing the grand total to $15 for a caricature sketch card, hard protective case and a magnetic strip.
I’ve also had some people tell me I should charge $15 per card. What are your thoughts about that? I’m interested in hearing them…
I’ve heard you guys talk about this on the podcast. 10 bucks for a COLOR caricature card is a pretty good deal. The question becomes does the price increase offset the loss of potential customers which would give you more FaceTime with customers to sell merch. If you are doing a ton of cards (demand is high) maybe you need to look at a price increase. $12 might be just slight enough that you don’t lose many customers, though it seems like an odd price point. If you do increase your prices I’d advertise it as “get your sketch card now for $10 before the price goes up!”
My 2 cents….
Hey Jimmy… yeah, that’s the problem. One of the reasons I have been reluctant to go to $12 is because I didn’t want to deal with the hassle of trying to make sure I had enough $1 bills to cover the change for all the $20 bills I usually get at shows. Keeping everything in $5 amounts makes everything a lot easier.
But, I know some other artists that are selling their regular super-hero generic sketch cards at $7 – up from their original $5 price. I’m also looking at the gasoline companies as a model too… gas companies increase their gas prices in small increments until it gets to a point where we don’t bat an eye shelling out $4.00 a gallon for gas.
I know it’s not exactly an oranges-to-oranges comparisons but you can also look to movies in a similar model. Price increases always seem to come in very small amounts until we finally realize how big an increase has gotten over the long haul. 🙂
Yeah, it’s that old adage of how do you boil a frog…very slowly. Frogs can’t tell slow temperature changes and if you sit the frog in Luke warm water and slowly increase the temperature he will never jump out and slowly cook to death. While you should never try that with con attendees a small $2 price increase should be ok. We all know times are tight and I think it won’t hurt most of your sales. If you only increase the price $2 I take bake my suggestion of advertising the increase. Don’t make a big fuss over and just make the increase.
BTW, are you planning on doing HeroCon this year?
Jimmy, yeah, I’ll be at heroes Con. I’m putting my last deposit on my Artist Alley table at Heroes in the mail tomorrow.
10 dollars is a nice even number. You might want to try continuing charging 10 then offer the plastic case for 2. I feel people would want the case since it’s the only time they will be able to buy one to fit their card in.
I also like the idea of a flat 15 including the case. I like numbers ending in 0 or 5. Just makes easy math and less change.
I agree, keeping everything in five dollar increments makes everything a lot easier in terms of change and what I need to bring to conventions for change.
My friend, Dan Nokes though, just upped his already made sketch cards to $7 and no one has batted an eye yet, so I guess we’ll see at Free Comic Book Day how the increase will go over…
As always, you sir are a fine caricature artist. What a clean, fun style!
Thanks, man! It’s always great to hear compliments like this when you’re doing caricatures of real people.