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Balticon! The Rundown
May. 29th, 2007 09:43 pmOK, I'm back from Balticon and mostly recovered. At least, recovered enough that I managed to write today. Not a marathon number of words, and I didn't finish the chapter as I'd planned (mainly due to the sudden inclusion of an unexpected scene with an unexpected character who I can see is going to be a problem), but still it was work. I will finish chapter 1 tomorrow if it kills me. And the good thing is that I know quite a bit of what happens in chapter 2 now. That's always good.
But back to Balticon. I already updated everyone on Friday and I have to say that the Liars Panel was by far the best, mostest fun panel I was on all weekend. Not that the other panels weren't fun, but I really let loose on the Liars Panel.
In any case, Saturday got a late start, with a panel at 3 on high tech ways to promote yourself. We discussed podcasting first (which I should really do, I know, I know), blogging (which I do here and at MySpace), forums, MySpace in particular (especially regarding demographics on there), YouTube and book trailers, and what the future "great" marketing thing is. I threw in Second Life as a possible future marketing field about to break, and something called Twitter? or something like that (basically, blogging, but where you're restricted to only a few lines and the blog can be sent as a TXT message to viewers). The main concensus for most of us on the panel is that everything mentioned has a significant drawback: timesuck. So it's the usual question: spend time on the high tech promo, or just work on the writing the next best book possible. I'm still trying to balance the two and probably not succeeding.
This was followed by a signing with Jana Oliver, where I managed to convince one person to buy the book. Basically, I pimped myself through Jana, since he was initially there to see her. I had a few people stop by, but they already had signed books and were just there to chat. Which was great! Otherwise, I'd have been a lonely, lonely man.
The only other event on Saturday was another panel, about cover art and some of the *ahem* weird decisions made by the publishers. I brought up George RR Martin's abrupt cover change for Game of Thrones when viewers of the original piece felt it was too romance-oriented. I'm not sure the replacement (the silver cover with a throne in the background) was any better. This brought up the fact that publishers are trying to get covers that aren't obviously fantasy or SF in order to pull in the more mainstream market. So instead of dragons on the cover, they do something more stylized. Which usually means I walk right past them at the bookstore and won't notice them unless the author is someone I know and read. So that's backfiring in some sense because they're missing their target audience. In any case, we got across that in the end authors usually have no say in what their covers look like. And we brought up the infamous "three-handed heroine" cover that actually made it into print before anyone in the industry noticed that the woman on the front cover actually had three arms.
Sunday was great, because at the first panel about the Compton Crook award, I saw![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tryslora in the audience. At the panel, we discussed how the CC has helped, about the fact that it's almost impossible to tell whether it helped sales or anything like that because as authors we just don't know. We don't see numbers, we don't see anything that proves that this helped and this did nothing, promotionally speaking. But I do think the CC finalist status helped because my sales at Balticon were good. And people definitely paid more attention to the book, and took the risk of trying it, once they knew it was one of the finalists.
After the panel, I went with tryslora and her family to lunch. We'd hoped to catch a game of Ticket To Ride, but we hit the dealer's room, and then I had my reading. I actually had about 10 people or more at the reading, which is the most I've ever had. After that, I dropped a few more books off at the dealer's room, bought a ton of books I shouldn't have (although they were all mostly flood-loss replacement books). I caught up with tryslora and family in the gaming room (of course) and then I headed home. I probably should have stayed one more night, had my first single malt whiskey at the party (sorry, Elaine!), but I hadn't really slept all weekend and I was beat.
And now I'm home. I rested up Monday, did some home improvement (painting, gardening), caught Shrek 3 (which was a disappointment), and then today wrote. I'll put up the first word-o-meter for Well of Sorrows tomorrow, once chapter one is finished.
Thanks to everyone who came to the panels and especially the reading! It was great to see and meet all of you. I plan on returning to Balticon again next year, so start making plans now.
But back to Balticon. I already updated everyone on Friday and I have to say that the Liars Panel was by far the best, mostest fun panel I was on all weekend. Not that the other panels weren't fun, but I really let loose on the Liars Panel.
In any case, Saturday got a late start, with a panel at 3 on high tech ways to promote yourself. We discussed podcasting first (which I should really do, I know, I know), blogging (which I do here and at MySpace), forums, MySpace in particular (especially regarding demographics on there), YouTube and book trailers, and what the future "great" marketing thing is. I threw in Second Life as a possible future marketing field about to break, and something called Twitter? or something like that (basically, blogging, but where you're restricted to only a few lines and the blog can be sent as a TXT message to viewers). The main concensus for most of us on the panel is that everything mentioned has a significant drawback: timesuck. So it's the usual question: spend time on the high tech promo, or just work on the writing the next best book possible. I'm still trying to balance the two and probably not succeeding.
This was followed by a signing with Jana Oliver, where I managed to convince one person to buy the book. Basically, I pimped myself through Jana, since he was initially there to see her. I had a few people stop by, but they already had signed books and were just there to chat. Which was great! Otherwise, I'd have been a lonely, lonely man.
The only other event on Saturday was another panel, about cover art and some of the *ahem* weird decisions made by the publishers. I brought up George RR Martin's abrupt cover change for Game of Thrones when viewers of the original piece felt it was too romance-oriented. I'm not sure the replacement (the silver cover with a throne in the background) was any better. This brought up the fact that publishers are trying to get covers that aren't obviously fantasy or SF in order to pull in the more mainstream market. So instead of dragons on the cover, they do something more stylized. Which usually means I walk right past them at the bookstore and won't notice them unless the author is someone I know and read. So that's backfiring in some sense because they're missing their target audience. In any case, we got across that in the end authors usually have no say in what their covers look like. And we brought up the infamous "three-handed heroine" cover that actually made it into print before anyone in the industry noticed that the woman on the front cover actually had three arms.
Sunday was great, because at the first panel about the Compton Crook award, I saw
tryslora in the audience. At the panel, we discussed how the CC has helped, about the fact that it's almost impossible to tell whether it helped sales or anything like that because as authors we just don't know. We don't see numbers, we don't see anything that proves that this helped and this did nothing, promotionally speaking. But I do think the CC finalist status helped because my sales at Balticon were good. And people definitely paid more attention to the book, and took the risk of trying it, once they knew it was one of the finalists.After the panel, I went with tryslora and her family to lunch. We'd hoped to catch a game of Ticket To Ride, but we hit the dealer's room, and then I had my reading. I actually had about 10 people or more at the reading, which is the most I've ever had. After that, I dropped a few more books off at the dealer's room, bought a ton of books I shouldn't have (although they were all mostly flood-loss replacement books). I caught up with tryslora and family in the gaming room (of course) and then I headed home. I probably should have stayed one more night, had my first single malt whiskey at the party (sorry, Elaine!), but I hadn't really slept all weekend and I was beat.
And now I'm home. I rested up Monday, did some home improvement (painting, gardening), caught Shrek 3 (which was a disappointment), and then today wrote. I'll put up the first word-o-meter for Well of Sorrows tomorrow, once chapter one is finished.
Thanks to everyone who came to the panels and especially the reading! It was great to see and meet all of you. I plan on returning to Balticon again next year, so start making plans now.
