A question of ethics-advertising your profession at model shows

I don't know how it would go over if you put this promotional material and business cards on the contest tables next to your models....However, most shows allow people who are so inclined to purchase vendor tables that they can set up with material they are looking to sell, or advertise. I think you would probably benefit from that angle. Then you could set up a display of your dioramas and other promotional items from your magazine, separate from what you enter into the contest. That's just my thoughts...

See, this is why I posted up here.  Vendor tables!  Never would have thought of that angle.  Brilliant!

Hmmm...I've been called a lot of things...but I've never heard brilliant before

Hope it works out for you! Glad to help.

I'd have to agree with the vendor table route.

If I were walking around the contest table and saw a "commercial", I'd be totally turned off and not even want to know what you're trying to offer....that's just me. However, in the vendor room, I'd be much more inclined have a look-see and chit-chat a bit.

Jon's spot on with his advice. Many vendor tables are guys who have a side career as an aftermarket manufacturer. For example, the Formations guy who sold his resin armor conversions at shows and eventually his company. Have the right product and people will travel to shows to buy direct from you. I know modelers who have traveled to shows they might otherwise not attend in order to buy from a manufacturer that is attending.

I'm not sure that kind of promotion is that effective.  Most of us find submitting articles to editors directly is the best way to get stuff printed (over the transom, as they say).  Write mags you want to right for and ask for their writer's guidelines.  Many now have these accessible from their web sites.  Once you are published in a few, include tear sheets (copies of a few pages of your articles) in your query letters.

Not all mags take unsolicited articles.  Get a copy of Writers Market to learn of the preferences of mags.  Not all hobby/model mags are in WM, but some are, and there are not enough of this kind of mag to support you, so you need to branch out into a wider market than model mags anyway.

BTW, selling fiction is a lot different than selling non-fiction, and much harder.  I suggest you do a lot of article stuff first, submitting non-fiction stuff occasionally but not depending on it for income.  Many community ed programs have courses in how to sell writing, and these are usually good bets.

If I were a judge or organizer of the contest, I would be really turned-off by seeing the contest commercialized at the entry level. Not a good idea.

The vendor table thing seems a much better route.

Vendor table w/ some of your work and dios that correspond to them...that way people who want to chat with you about your cross-over hobby won't take up space and get in the way of those who are looking at models...

I'm going to echo Don and question the effectiveness of this as a promotional strategy. The way publishing is going, everything's shifting digital these days, and something like WW2 short fiction is going to be a long-tail draw pretty much no matter what (short fiction doesn't have high readership generally). You'd probably get some interest at a local contest, but it'd be isolated interest, and the word-of-mouth amplification would probably be minimal.

If I were in your shoes - I wrote a novel some years ago and made a half-hearted attempt at getting it published - I'd focus much more highly on online promotion, with in-person stuff as at best complementary. If you haven't already, you may want to consider setting up a blog discussing inspiration, research, hinting at future stories, etc. You could post the short fiction in various places - particularly through Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing, which in the last year has exploded and has been the source of many stunning success stories. The beauty is that it gets literature out there, where it can be judged by readers, rather than judged by gatekeepers at literary agencies and publishing houses. 

With that presence in place, you'd have somewhere to direct people after the show, and since its online, it's a lot easier to spread impressions of your work.

Another option would sponsoring a class at the show. If the promoters are at all decent, you'll get recognition at the awards ceremony and possibly on the table you sponsor. Addiotionally, as a sponsor, you shpuld be alowed to place flyers on teh info table.

That said, it is common practice at figure shows for painters to have a business card with their displays should a collector desire to purchase an item or propose a commission.

   Cool.  Thanks for the advice, guys. 

DoogsATX

Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing, which in the last year has exploded and has been the source of many stunning success stories. The beauty is that it gets literature out there, where it can be judged by readers, rather than judged by gatekeepers at literary agencies and publishing houses. 

Manstein's revenge

 

DoogsATX:

 

Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing, which in the last year has exploded and has been the source of many stunning success stories. The beauty is that it gets literature out there, where it can be judged by readers, rather than judged by gatekeepers at literary agencies and publishing houses. 

 

Tell me more about this...

 

https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/signin

DoogsATX

Manstein's revenge:

 

DoogsATX:

 

Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing, which in the last year has exploded and has been the source of many stunning success stories. The beauty is that it gets literature out there, where it can be judged by readers, rather than judged by gatekeepers at literary agencies and publishing houses. 

 

Tell me more about this...

 

 

https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/signin

My wife's become quite the book collector since she got a Kindle for Christmas the year before last. Doesn't read much more than she used to; she just acquires more and more free books until her Kindle fills up and moves like pond water. Then she spends the next day deleting the books off of her Kindle to make room for the next batch she acquires.

Rob Gronovius

My wife's become quite the book collector since she got a Kindle for Christmas the year before last. Doesn't read much more than she used to; she just acquires more and more free books until her Kindle fills up and moves like pond water. Then she spends the next day deleting the books off of her Kindle to make room for the next batch she acquires.

I use the Kindle App on my iPhone and iPad...the beauty of it is that you can store everything in some data center somewhere, and just pull in the books you're currently reading. And since text is pretty small, the downloads are more or less instantaneous.

One thing I don't like about the Kindle is there's no way to digitize my existing book collection short of just buying Kindle versions of everything straight-up. And that'd be cost-prohibitive. Wish Amazon would do something like iTunes Match and give you the chance to Kindle-up, say, any books you've bought through Amazon for a set and inexpensive price per book.

Manstein's revenge

DoogsATX:

Manstein's revenge:

 

DoogsATX:

 

Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing, which in the last year has exploded and has been the source of many stunning success stories. The beauty is that it gets literature out there, where it can be judged by readers, rather than judged by gatekeepers at literary agencies and publishing houses. 

 

Tell me more about this...

 

 

https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/signin

 

Do they offer copyrighting services?

oddmanrush

I don't know how it would go over if you put this promotional material and business cards on the contest tables next to your models....However, most shows allow people who are so inclined to purchase vendor tables that they can set up with material they are looking to sell, or advertise. I think you would probably benefit from that angle. Then you could set up a display of your dioramas and other promotional items from your magazine, separate from what you enter into the contest. That's just my thoughts...

I tend to agree... A vendor table would be the most ethical route... Personally, I get turned off by being "slipped" advertising under the guise of something else...  But there's a fine line(and a blurry one at that) between genuine information and shameless advertising/self-promotion,  and it's easily crossed...  Trouble is, you won't know when you'll crossed it, as it's not defined by you but others, and each line is as different as the individual... For instance,  I get turned-off by advertisments in member signatures around here...  I got no issues with the same thing in the advertisment SECTION of the magazine or website.. But in the forum member's sig, well.. That's unethical, IMHO... It strikes me as an attempt at circumvention of the FSM site's advertising policy...

As they said at the start of "The Atlanta Course" (a required 12-hour course at the US Army Recruiter School that's taught by a civilian rather than a Army Recruiter Instructor, believe it or don't), "People hate to be sold anything, but they love to buy!"... 

Remember the Decoder Ring and "Annie's Secret Message" in the movie, "A Christmas Story" and how PO'd that Ralphie got after decoding the "Secret Message" that read, "Be sure to drink your Ovaltine" ? A lousy commercial!   He never mentioned Little Orphan Annie OR Ovaltine ever again!  So the ethical route, IMHO, would be a table,  a few cards, a diorama or three, and a flyer or pamphlet, similar to what Shep Paine did for Monogram, containing the how to, & what with of your dioramas, and where the inspiration comes from, including how to get it...