For those who read these I appreciate your support. You will also know that I am not an expert and these posts are just meant to give you an opinion on my own experiences.
That being said, Conventions are they worth it? I think so. I've been a vendor at two and have gone to a couple including San Diego comic con as a fan. While that sample size is small I've had a variety of experiences in each.
San Diego comic con was amazing! Epic on all scales. I attended some of the writing panels and learned a lot from their displays.
Rose Glenn taught me to choose the con better even though I met great people.
Imaginarium showed me that smaller conventions are a great place for close knit relationships and intimate conversations from the writing community.
So what to expect at a convention? Expect a lot of slow time. Depending on the size there will be a variety of people walking by and looking over your display before you make a sale. Even friends I've made who sell a lot at these conventions experience a lot of standing around with short periods of interaction.
Some can make a living out of these conventions and you should in my opinion work towards that, but there are other factors that make a con successful or not. Who do you meet? How many connections do you make? What do you learn? These all add up to whether a conference was successful or not especially when first starting out.
For example I met Terry Brooks at Imaginarium and gave him one of my books. I hung out with Bram Stoker's great grand nephew Dacre Stoker as if we were old friends. Even shook America's first serial killer's great grandson's hand. In a larger conference getting two minutes with these people would have taken hours on a line and hundreds of dollars. Instead I met them as equals and spoke to them numerous times for 15 to 20 minutes easily.
I learned about conventions and conferences I didn't know existed despite numerous searches on the internet.
I learned about small publishing companies speaking with the founders which leant credibility to them that I might not have had from just a website.
This is a possibility at all conferences you attend as a fan of reading and/or as a writer.
So in short if you are looking at a conference as a cash grab you will in all likelihood be disappointed. If you view it as a work vacation you will have a better time. There are thousands of book conferences all over the country so grab the family pack up and explore the wonderful worlds authors have created at the adult versions of scholastic book fairs.
Comments