Grafficker Alley was an Experience
I want to resist being critical of the event since I've only ever sent my zines to friends, never selling to strangers at a table. I split the table price with a fellow zinester, Kai, so I came in with as low of a financial risk as possible. I made the goal of just trying to have fun and treat it as an experience and not as a profit-focused event. I'm glad I did so. The event wasn't really like any zine fair I've been to and was much more like an anime convention artist alley. It made me feel like I misinterpreted the poster when it said "The Festival of Self-Published Comics, Manga and Zines!". Anyways, I didn't sell much, but some other vendors came by to say hi, look at my stuff, and generally be pleasant and social. I was very thankful for that since I'm not any good at initiating small talk from either side of the table. Some people even came around to trade zines, which pretty much made my day. The most popular thing from my table was the fictional cult mini zine I made in the heat of the moment after a D&D session. You can see samples in the zine archive. I went in the direction of goofy instead of creepy and have no regrets.
I hope to update my zine archive soon because I made two zines just for the event. I didn't have to, but I knew my D&D stuff was about my original character and thats a hard sell. So, I made up a zine about my personal feelings towards sewing and a quick mini zine showing off some of my most nostalgic anime. I had one person pick up the anime zine and recognize most of the anime listed there, which was super rewarding for me. The sewing zine was the most personal zine I've made. I tend to keep my thoughts to myself and my friends because I don't think a stranger cares why I do what I do. I had one person pick up the zine and say they liked it and a couple mentioned how they were also into sewing. It was enjoyable to have an instant connection with someone.
Overall, this gave me some confidence towards selling at an event. Not the profit aspect, but the social one. I admit being really exhausted after 6 hours in the general noise of such an event, but I think that comes with practice. Still, I don't plan to put too much effort into getting another table since I don't have a large body of work and what I do have is pretty niche (bascially, if you don't care about D&D, you arent going to care about most of my stuff). Hopefully I can attend more events at the zine library, just to be social.
Oh! a final note: I made a display stand for my zines with inspiration from another zinster and help from my dad who is much more accurate with measurments than me. I think it turned out pretty slick (for foam board) and packs flat for easy carrying.