My Experience at Wondercon - Saturday

Saturday is always the biggest day at any of these conventions, so I pulled out all the stops.  I had two volunteers: Laura and Rachel, who took care of the booth.  I also had two models who I had hired to walk around the front area in costume.  I did this because I had noticed that tons of photographers take pictures of cosplayers who look great.  I wanted to take advantage of this, and am I ever glad I did.  The costumes cost a couple hundred dollars, and so did the models, but they really grabbed attention.  They had just arrived and I had just given them the flyers to give out when there a line of photographers formed.  Before I left, they were literally mobbed by photographers as though they were celebrities.  I had intended for them just to give out business cards and/or flyers to select photographers when they felt it would be beneficial, but they went above and beyond, giving out flyers every time, and sometimes to non-photographers.  They got really excited about the characters and posed in character.  And they even posed with the books.  They were phenomenal, and I realized I had gotten my money’s worth.

To be clear, I didn’t not make a profit off of them.  Laura and Rachel were selling books upstairs, (far more than I sold all day Friday,) but the sales didn’t come close to the $400 I put into the models and their costumes.  But that wasn’t the point of Saturday or the convention in general.  It was to get attention, and I definitely got it.  At one point I passed someone who was talking about our models when we weren’t anywhere around them.  At another time I saw someone in a different part of the convention who asked if I was the one with the volcano.  People were getting to know who we were, and they were beginning to learn the name Relic Worlds.

I had also signed up to put on a game in the gaming area during the day.  This one was actually in the convention center, so taking the miniatures was much easier.  This once again got a lot of attention as people saw me moving the volcano, and they got to see the whole, six foot diorama set up.  The best part was that there was a slow moving line right next to the gaming area, and people kept gawking at it.  The game itself only had a few kids, but a bunch of people took flyers because they wanted to learn more.

Part way during the day we started telling people that they could have a free drink if they signed up for the mailing list, which went over well.  We had twice as many people signed up than completed the treasure hunt, so the mailing list grew.  We also figured out how the booth itself should look.  (It helped to have a volunteer who was a designer.)  I learned that the best look for me was to have all the books and flyers on one side of the table, a diorama on the other side of the table, the horizontal banner at the front of the table, and the two vertical banners of the books in the back, with the name tag the convention provides hanging on the wall between them.

And prominently displayed all on its own either in the middle, or on the far side, is the all-important mailing list.

This setup was one of the most important things I learned that day.  I also learned that I need to have a separate person to run a game if I do that, (which is a good idea because it spreads out my exposure.)  It’s also a worthwhile expenditure to have cosplay models who catch a lot of attention at the front.  But it’s important to not just have them in the outfits of your story, but rather a mixture of something established, (one was in the Princess Leia slave outfit and the other was in steampunk.)

Next week I’ll conclude this story with Sunday at Wondercon.

My Experience at Wondercon - Friday

I posted before about my experience at Wondercon.  I didn’t really say much about the specifics, or what I learned, so I’m going to tell about how things went over the next three posts.  I’m giving this one extra attention, because it was a huge event in my life.

It was important because this was the last chance I was going to give myself to make sure something happened in my profession of storytelling.  If this didn’t work, I was going to settle down into some other career, and accept that book publishing would just be a hobby.  I had promised my girlfriend Jamie that I would do this so we wouldn’t be constantly in poverty with me chasing my dream.

So the plan was to make the booth so flashy it looked like it was from one of the larger companies, not in the small press area.  I spent a couple thousand dollars on decorations, including several banners, greenery to wrap around the poles, a large diorama, and of course the books and book stands.  Basically, I didn’t want people to be able to miss it if they tried.

Thursday was setup day, and when I arrived, I was excited to see my booth was the first one you saw when you came in.  Then I realized that I was entering through the loading zone, which was at the very back of the convention hall.  However, the food court was directly in front of me, so that would be my strength.  People would see it when they were at lunch, so I used an idea my girlfriend gave me, give away free soda.  This would work splendidly as drinks at the convention cost $4.

Even though I had taken most of the supplies on Thursday, I still had a few to bring Friday, so I went a bit earlier than I had originally planned.  As it turned out, I should have gone even earlier.  By the time I got there, attendees were arriving, and it took me a while to get parked.  I took the remaining pieces upstairs and returned each time to my car.  The last big piece, the diorama of the volcano, (Jamie called it “Break-up mountain” because it almost cost me my relationship with her,) was supposed to go in three pieces.  However, time was short, so I picked up the whole thing and ran upstairs with it.  I had to run through the entire convention to get to my table, and it was so difficult I nearly had a heart attack.  Ironically, I passed the booth that I used to go to Wondercon with, the Greater Los Angeles Writers Society, but I wasn’t able to stop and say hello.  I was in a tremendous hurry.  When I set it down, I wondered if I had time to wipe my sweat off in the bathroom.  But just at that moment, the voice on the intercom announced that Wondercon was beginning.

I still had to put up the banner, which shouldn’t have been too much of a problem.  I had created a PVC pipe setup which I had practiced setting up at home and it worked fine.  But for some reason, now that I was trying to put it up at the convention, it kept falling over.  I got one end up, and the other end fell over.  It seemed as though the laws of physics had suddenly changed in the convention hall.  I was tremendously frustrated, especially since the crowds were coming in, and slowly they started making their way to the back where I was.  The other booths around me were all set up with the people at them ready and waiting.  They started taking customers, and there I was, a sweaty mess wrestling with PVC pipe that kept falling over.  I was in a near panic.  I had been preparing for this for a year, and now here I was and I couldn’t even get the sign up.

I at last had to scrap the idea and threw the pipes beneath the table.  I taped the banned to the front of the table, then went into the bathroom and changed my shirt.  (Luckily I had more Relic Worlds shirts with me that were supposed to be giveaways.)  I returned to the table, and began.

Throughout the day I set up bits and pieces, placing up one of the vertical banners of the first book hanging from a C stand I owned.  Ultimately, it didn’t look too bad, all things considered.  The convention had provided a sign for the back wall that said Relic Worlds, so I didn’t really even need the long banner.  In fact, when I got the second vertical banner of the second book up the next day, it turned out that horizontal banner in the back would have made things too busy.

As for the day itself, there were a lot of people who came by perusing, but not too many ready to buy.  The hope was that they would be looking now to buy later in the convention.  I had a lot of flyers out, one of which was a treasure hunt that led attendees to other booths.  When they returned, they would get entered into a drawing for free stuff, including a trip to Disneyland.  But to get their prize, they would need to give me their email address, which would go onto an email list.

One thing I learned from this element is the importance of the email list, and how I had shot myself in the foot by making people have to jump through hoops to get to that point.  I met other independent publishers at the event, and all of them told me how important it was that they build that email list to build their fan base, but very few were coming back to give me their email address because they didn’t finish the treasure hunt.  I would have to change strategies.

The biggest trouble that happened all day was I hadn’t heard from one of the models who was supposed to help out on Saturday.  She was coming back from Egypt and had gotten stuck in Germany.  I needed a new one fast, and she was trying to help get a replacement from Germany.  I was trying to text and make calls while also talk with customers.  At last the one that was still coming the next day said she had a friend she could bring, so it was arranged after about three hours of stress.

But that would be the next day.  In the evening I was supposed to put on the Relic Worlds miniatures game.  I was exhausted by the end, but it had to happen.  The worst part was, it was supposed to start at 7, and the convention hall didn’t end until 7.  So I had to leave a little early to get set up.  I took a couple things with me since I didn’t know how far it was.  And boy, was it far.  First I had to go all the way across the convention hall, then I had to go across the rest of the convention center.  After that was a gap before I got to Staples Center, which I had to go across.  A basketball game was about to start, one of Kobe Bryant’s last, so there were crowds to go through.  Then I had to go a block, go into the Marriott, go through the lobby, go up a couple escalators, walk across to the opposite side of the hotel, then across a walkway, then up another flight, then to the opposite side of the next building to reach the gaming area.  My miniatures game had a huge number of pieces, and this would have taken all night to get set up.  So I just returned to the convention center, grabbed the small board game, and went back.  (Someone bought a book during the short time I was back at the booth, one of the only copies I sold all weekend.)  I returned to the gaming area and found a friend.  We set up the game to show it off, and to provide a little more advertising for Relic Worlds, but we never got around to playing.  I was too exhausted.

So that was Friday.  My take away from that is that Friday is the day to present yourself, and to not expect any sales.  It’s the primer for the convention, and for your potential audience.  It’s important to have an easy and attractive way to get people to join your mailing list.  It’s also a good idea to have a great looking booth with something that catches everyone’s eyes, (Breakup Mountain was a big hit, and it actually helped that I carried it through at a time everyone saw it.)  And it’s good to have a gimmick.  The treasure hunt was great in this regard, but I needed to not have it tied to the email list.  Next time it will be just you sign your name and you draw from a treasure chest.

Next week I’ll tell about Saturday, the biggest day of the convention.

Preditors Editors

When I was at Comic Con this year, I approached the booth for Penguin Publishing.  Even though I'm a proud independent publisher, I'd like one of my books to be traditionally published to get my name out there.

I had a book I knew they would be interested in, but the agents were refusing it; some because of blatantly racist reasons; (it portrayed an Italian American as a hero rather than a gangster, with which they openly said they didn't want to take any part.)

I got a manager to speak with and told them the situation, saying I'd like to send them information about this so they could decide for themselves.  The manager said she liked the idea, but she stubbornly stayed with company policy.  It would have to come through an agent, and therefore they would never take a look.

One of the employees overheard me, and secretly handed me a note with a website.  It ultimately didn't help me, but it's a good site for seeing reviews about agents and the like.  It's at:

http://pred-ed.com/

I’m Concerned for Geek and Nerd Culture

In so many ways, this is the best time to be a nerd.  When I was growing up, the title of geek or nerd was an insult, a degradation, a put down.  Now we live in a world where Weird Al Yankovich is a number one top seller, and geek culture has entered the mainstream.  It’s even popular to call yourself a nerd.

And that’s where my concern lies.

Any time something becomes popular, people want to emulate it, even if they don’t care about it.  It becomes all about conformity.  Comic Con is a great example.  Once a hive for those of us who enjoy stories that were off the beaten path, it’s now become the place for the mainstream to come see celebrities.

We don’t want to exclude anyone, of course, but it does seem less than genuine when Entertainment Tonight and their wannabes are hash tagging themselves as “total nerds” when they’ve really just followed fad after fad, and they will leave when this one fades.

But my concern runs deeper still.  To me, one of the major definitions of nerd and geek culture was giving a chance to the more alternative art forms.  While everyone else was following Debbie Gibson and Tiffany and whatever nameless movies were the latest fads in the late ‘80s, I was reading The Dark Knight, watching Indiana Jones, and listening to Weird Al.  What was the common string in all these things and others I was into?  They broke new ground.  Only Spike Jones had done anything remotely close to Weird Al.  Indiana Jones was an entirely new invention; it wasn’t based on books or old TV shows.  And even The Dark Knight, though it was based on Batman who had been around for 40 years, it was an entirely new take on him, and superheroes in general.  The entire genre has blossomed from that.

The point is, we were willing to try new things.  That’s really what made a “nerd” or a “geek” more than something being cerebral or fantasy-oriented.  Today, however, it seems as though few self-proclaimed nerds and geeks are willing to try anything new.  They are stuck repeating the same things over and over.  For instance, I took my new series Relic Worlds to the Indiana Jones fan club at Comic Con.  It’s inspired by the series, and has elements of Lucas’s other great creation, Star Wars.  Those movies caused me to grow up and want to do something new, though similar.  Instead of giving it a try, the fan club showed no interest.  What would have happened if our parents had given the same chance to Raiders of the Lost Arc in 1980?  If, instead of giving a chance to this new movie by these aspiring filmmakers, they were too busy obsessing over something nearly 35 years old?  If they had been like current fans, they would have been so busy obsessing over something from 1945 that Raiders would have been a failure, and would not exist today in the lexicon of great adventure movies.

And the same is true across the board.  It’s the reason why Hollywood and publishers are obsessing on toys from the past.  It’s not that there aren’t good ideas out there.  I know of many authors and filmmakers who are striving to be heard; and many of them are in the areas that geek and nerd culture would love.  But people are so obsessed with what’s in the past they’re not willing to give a chance to what’s in the present.

So this is a call to all nerds and geeks out there.  Find your roots.  And by that, I don’t mean your old comic books and toys still in their wrappers.  I mean, remember that what made all the things you enjoy from the past famous is because people gave them a chance.  And there are new works that are equally great just waiting to be found.  Give them a chance.  Stop looking backward all the time.

Wondercon

So I had a really good time at Wondercon, and I have a few thoughts about it.

First, and most importantly, as I was predicting, it's taking over for Comic-Con. It started at just the right time to pull the core away from the larger convention. Here's how.

Wondercon originally was taking place in San Francisco. Two years ago they had to renovate the convention center, so they moved it temporarily to Anaheim. The move was intended to be temporary, and served as a testing ground to move Comic-Con there. The contract between Comic-Con and the city of San Diego was coming up for renewal, and if the trial convention worked, Comic-Con might move there. San Diego countered by promising to expand their convention center.

The trial convention was a disaster. Parking was a mess, first of all. Not only was there a shortage of it, the convention had not made a deal with Disney to allow overflow parking to move there, and they had no backup plan, so attendees had to guess at places in the general area; and since Disney takes up most of the surrounding locations, there are few places to go. I personally had to walk for more than a mile with my heavy gear and books. The shopping mall where I parked had no idea why everyone was going there, and were not happy that their parking spots were being taken up by non-shoppers. The organization at the convention was also very poor. The computer system apparently had problems as people who had bought tickets online were not able to get in because of some glitch that had lost their information. Those who did get in had to buy their tickets at one end then pick them up clear at the other end of the convention center, then walk clear back again to the opposite end of the convention. To top it all off, it rained that day. There were several leaks and garbage cans were placed around the convention floor to catch the water coming through. Here's the kicker to that: there were three floors above us, so the water was getting through all those levels.

So Comic-Con stayed in San Diego, and Wondercon returned to San Francisco. But the organizers in Anaheim decided to try it again. 2013 went a bit better, though their parking was still a problem.

What has worked in Wondercon's favor is Comic-Con's complete ineptitude. Despite a promise from the city, the convention center really hasn't expanded much. And despite clear interest from fans and a desire from companies to show more material, the convention itself has not expanded. They continue to keep the convention down to four days rather than going for a week, like Sundance Film Festival, or two weeks, like Coachella. Such an expansion would ease congestion and provide opportunities for more people to come. Instead, they sell the same number of tickets to an ever-expanding customer base, thus making it impossible to please people who want to come.

This expanded customer base, by the way, is primarily people from the mainstream who have little interest in comic books, science fiction, or fantasy. It's celebrity seekers who are following the large corporations that are sending their celebrities and marketing experts to the convention to advertise and make lots of money. It's become a fad, and people who want to see the latest thing are going. These are temporary fans, and when it is no longer the in place to go, they will move on.

The base fans, meanwhile, have been squeezed out. In order to get a ticket now, you have to state your interest, then watch their website for updates because when they announce the tickets will go on sale, (6 a.m. on a certain date,) you have to be on your computer and start clicking buy at the moment they go on sale. Then, if you're lucky enough, you'll get listed in a lottery and they will draw randomly as to whether or not you are allowed in. So, a dedicated fan who has been going every year, (some for decades,) has to literally win the lottery in order to get in.

Some people who have been going to Comic-Con have noticed a change in the fan base lately. Fewer people in costume and more people who seem less interested in the products. This is why.

Wondercon does not have the fame Comic-Con does. It hasn't attracted the mainstream audiences who are only wanting to follow what's popular. As a result, it's a large concentration of true fans. It's great for sellers like me who get more from a small number of sci fi fans than a large number of people who don't care. And it's better for fans who want to see what they're interested in rather than having every television show and movie shoved down their throat whether it matches their genre or not.

There is a bit of a fear, however, that the stigma of Comic-Con will follow. First, and perhaps most disturbing, as you walked into the convention center you passed under the gaze of James Spader on a poster of The Blacklist. A fine show, I admit, but it has nothing to do with Comic books, sci fi, or fantasy. It's just a corporation wanting to sell their product to a large audience, just like at Coimc-Con.

And then there's the parking. Still insufficient, but worst of all, incompetent. When I tried to park, I was told by a guard to go to the lot on Western Street. So I did. They told me to go to the lot on Katella Street, so I did, and they told me to go to the lot I first went to. So they were literally sending the attendees in circles. When I informed them of this, they didn't believe me, and they refused to get on their walki-talkis to confirm what I was saying. I had to go to the shopping center I parked at two years ago and lug my stuff a full mile to the convention.

But they did seem to fix the problem with the tickets, and with the rain, so that's good.

Book Conventions – What are they really for?

This Saturday I’ll be going to Wondercon to promote my new book Relic Worlds: Lancaster James and the Search for the Promised World.  That makes this the perfect time to explain how I use conventions to promote.

When I first started going to book conventions to promote my work, I went in with the mentality that they are book sales where I would sell my work and try to make a profit.  I was VERY disappointed.  When I compared not only how much I paid to get space at the table, but also to get gas to get to the convention, food while there, parking, and sometimes even having to buy a ticket to the convention, I found that I had to sell a huge number of books just to break even.  Frankly, I didn’t even make enough to justify the time spent.  I didn’t even make enough to pay for the gas it took to drive to get my seller’s permit.

Did that make it a complete waste?  At first I thought it was.  However, when I started giving material away, people flocked to me.  They started following my work, and some have become long-term fans.  This has paid off in terms of people purchasing my material later.

The moral of the story?  Bring material to give away.  Also, try to get a table with others.  Getting one by yourself is not only costly, but doesn’t look as good unless you have a huge amount to fill the table.  Sometimes there are lone authors sitting at a table that no one wants to go near.  It actually looks a bit sad and can be a deterrent.  I go with the Greater Los Angeles Writers Society.  Sure, it’s their name on the banner, but I get a space at the table with my own materials, and often I get people who came over to look at other authors.

I prepare for the convention by making a small diorama of the subject of the book.  This weekend it will be Relic Worlds, so I have a diorama of some ruins in the desert with an adventurer exploring them, and a little battle happening around him.  I will also have bookmarks, and the first chapter of the book to be given away for free.  It’s an investment of around $150, but the series will be seen by a lot of people and will be taken more seriously because they saw it at a booth at a major convention.

It’s also a good idea to get into a convention where the trend of your audience is going.  I’m actually more excited about being at a booth at Wondercon than I would be at Comic Con this year because a lot of the die-had sci fi and fantasy fans are moving to Wondercon from Comic Con.  They have gotten tired of how overly commercialized Comic Con has gotten, and how it’s more about the big mainstream movies than they are about sci fi, fantasy, and comic books.  So, while there will be a lot more people at Comic Con, most of them are curious onlookers wanting to see what the new trend is rather than people who will become long-term fans.

It’s always about the niche in independent publishing.  You’re not going to get the mainstream audience; not at first.  Go for your niche.

http://www.comic-con.org/wca