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ClexaCon and More Things on the Horizon
Apr. 13th, 2018 06:39 pmI went to ClexaCon in Las Vegas last weekend to share a table with my pals at Blind Eye Books and to do a panel with the publishers from Sapphire Books and Blind Eye Books. It was my Queen of Swords Press debut, on the sense of being the first out of town convention that I've tabled at as a vendor. It was also my publishing debut as the publisher of someone else's work, namely Alex Acks's Murder on the Titania and Other Steam-Powered Adventures.
It was an adventure! There was learning! There was networking! There was selling some books! There was Las Vegas, which I do not particularly enjoy! Also, a lovely visit with one of my exes who I have not seen in a long time. Thursday was the getting to the casino and getting settled in and all that fun. I spent Thursday night holed in my hotel room doing novel edits, reading slush and taking a bath. It was quite pleasant.
Friday dawned bright and excruciatingly early. I opted for room service again since I had not yet found the eatery that did not require running the smoking gauntlet (I'm allergic to cig smoke, don't drink and find gambling inexplicable so Vegas is just perfect for me...not). And then we were off to the races with an early vendor room setup. I got to hang out with the magnificent Ginn Hale and Nicole Kimberling all day at our table, sold some books, got pointers and such. By end of day Friday, it was clear that I had brought way too many books.
After a 12 hour day, I was back in my room, ordering room service, working and then hitting the hot bath again. This part was kind of lovely, which gives you an idea of how tired I was. Then we were all back up early again on Saturday. Saturday morning was slooowww so we talked about useful things like how I was going to get a lot of print copies back home again (the solution: buy a new suitcase and fill it with books, which turned out to be prescient because the Fed Ex office in the hotel was closed on Sundays).
Then Saturday afternoon was our panel, "Labels - Why We Need Them. Or Do We?" This was a pretty successful panel, all things considered. For context, ClexaCon was on year 2 of its existence, had nearly doubled in size from the first year and draws a young crowd. The primary focus is the various TV and movie media stars who show up from shows that have queer female characters; this year drew a chunk of the stars from Lost Girl, Supergirl, Black Lightning, Legends of Tomorrow, Person of Interest, Wynonna Earp and so forth. Middle-aged queer female publishers are something of a novelty, but not exactly "autograph my body part!" material. But we held our own, drew a decent-sized crowd and were asked for hugs when the panel ended. In all my years of con going, I have never known a room volunteer to ask for a hug because they were moved and wanted to say thanks. So it was pretty cool.
After that, it was back to the table for more discussion of books, selling of books, promoting of presses and such. Then I went out, bought a suitcase for book shipping and met my friend for a late dinner in the casino pub. We had a lovely time catching up and a perfectly nice dinner, before I went back to my room and packed and collapsed. Then back up again on Sunday to do parts of it all over again. I had to head out mid afternoon, leaving our table in Ginn and Dawn's capable hands.
The trip back was uneventful and I made it home a tad late, but with a book blurb for Jess Wells's new book, Straight Uphill, slush read, revisions in progress and a bunch of sage advice about things to do and not do with Queen of Swords Press. One particularly useful point was that I have wildly overestimated what is feasible in terms of book releases so this year will be 3 books, not 4. I'm also talking to someone about picking some of my my portable smaller tasks and we'll see what comes of that. In the meantime stay tuned for more events, including a book release party at WisCon for Murder on the Titania.
It was an adventure! There was learning! There was networking! There was selling some books! There was Las Vegas, which I do not particularly enjoy! Also, a lovely visit with one of my exes who I have not seen in a long time. Thursday was the getting to the casino and getting settled in and all that fun. I spent Thursday night holed in my hotel room doing novel edits, reading slush and taking a bath. It was quite pleasant.
Friday dawned bright and excruciatingly early. I opted for room service again since I had not yet found the eatery that did not require running the smoking gauntlet (I'm allergic to cig smoke, don't drink and find gambling inexplicable so Vegas is just perfect for me...not). And then we were off to the races with an early vendor room setup. I got to hang out with the magnificent Ginn Hale and Nicole Kimberling all day at our table, sold some books, got pointers and such. By end of day Friday, it was clear that I had brought way too many books.
After a 12 hour day, I was back in my room, ordering room service, working and then hitting the hot bath again. This part was kind of lovely, which gives you an idea of how tired I was. Then we were all back up early again on Saturday. Saturday morning was slooowww so we talked about useful things like how I was going to get a lot of print copies back home again (the solution: buy a new suitcase and fill it with books, which turned out to be prescient because the Fed Ex office in the hotel was closed on Sundays).
Then Saturday afternoon was our panel, "Labels - Why We Need Them. Or Do We?" This was a pretty successful panel, all things considered. For context, ClexaCon was on year 2 of its existence, had nearly doubled in size from the first year and draws a young crowd. The primary focus is the various TV and movie media stars who show up from shows that have queer female characters; this year drew a chunk of the stars from Lost Girl, Supergirl, Black Lightning, Legends of Tomorrow, Person of Interest, Wynonna Earp and so forth. Middle-aged queer female publishers are something of a novelty, but not exactly "autograph my body part!" material. But we held our own, drew a decent-sized crowd and were asked for hugs when the panel ended. In all my years of con going, I have never known a room volunteer to ask for a hug because they were moved and wanted to say thanks. So it was pretty cool.
After that, it was back to the table for more discussion of books, selling of books, promoting of presses and such. Then I went out, bought a suitcase for book shipping and met my friend for a late dinner in the casino pub. We had a lovely time catching up and a perfectly nice dinner, before I went back to my room and packed and collapsed. Then back up again on Sunday to do parts of it all over again. I had to head out mid afternoon, leaving our table in Ginn and Dawn's capable hands.
The trip back was uneventful and I made it home a tad late, but with a book blurb for Jess Wells's new book, Straight Uphill, slush read, revisions in progress and a bunch of sage advice about things to do and not do with Queen of Swords Press. One particularly useful point was that I have wildly overestimated what is feasible in terms of book releases so this year will be 3 books, not 4. I'm also talking to someone about picking some of my my portable smaller tasks and we'll see what comes of that. In the meantime stay tuned for more events, including a book release party at WisCon for Murder on the Titania.