This is part of my series of essays for writers. Get them delivered to your inbox by signing up here!

Me and my 7th anniversary gift from Josh: a 280 million year old (!!!) piece of petrified pine from AZ!

I went to a comic con a few months back and over the course of the three-day weekend, I sold 18 books. So yeah, not my best sales day ever.

I’ve done a lot of events over the years, particularly in my earlier author days. I’ve done everything from large and small book signings to comic cons to craft fairs to outdoor festivals, and holiday markets. I’ve sold 0 books at some, and once even made around $1200 at a 4-hour craft fair. I’m not sure where it came from, but for a long time, I had it in my head that if I wanted to be successful as an author, then I had to do in-person events.

But there’s a problem with this logic. And the problem is the math.

The key to a successful business is profit. And with books, we’re talking profits of roughly $0.35 - $10 per sale. This means that to make profits of $50,000 per year, you’d have to sell in the range 10,000 books or more.

Even if you did an event every single week of the year, you’d have to average 190 sales per event to even come close to making that amount of money, and that doesn’t account for event fees, which range from $20 - $500 per event, gas, hotel fees, transaction fees, and table set-up supplies. In addition, you have to purchase enough upfront inventory to have to sell, which if you use print on demand and can order books at $3 per book, will still require tens of thousands of dollars in upfront cash.

In addition, every single sale has to be handled by you. If you only have one book, then each sale is simply that: a sale. You need a new customer for every single purchase, which means not only do you need 10,000 sales every year, you need 10,000 new customers.

And if you want to scale, then you have to look at other models—hiring people to sell for you (which costs money), selling through bookstores or malls (where you have to share profits), or partnering up with other authors to have more inventory available for potential customers (which means they may be poaching sales from you).

Every efficiency you add in will cost more money or take away from your profits.

If you’re bored by all the math, I don’t blame you. But the conclusion you should draw is that in-person events aren’t a great way to make a living wage from selling books because they’re extremely difficult to scale.

I definitely think they have a place in a larger context. Being visible in your local community is great, and developing relationships with readers always has value. Getting newsletter sign-ups or developing relationships with other authors can also have immense value.

Just make sure you understand the numbers before you go all in on traveling from event to event in an attempt to make money.