Shock Stock Take Two

Blog No. 232

Tomorrow morning, I’ll be on the road with Christian, heading for London, Ontario. We’ve been invited to be guests at Shock Stock, the three day horror convention. I’m getting really excited and not just because the three days away are also like a mini vacation (even though it’s a lot of work). There were some cool things last year and there are more cool things scheduled this year. Not only that, but I get to be part of the VIP stuff since I’m a guest. If it’s well attended, I should be able to sell a lot of books. (Seeing as that’s my primary reason for going). On average we do more than ten percent at most events. That is, selling a book to ten percent of the people who walk through the door. Some have been much more and even last year we did about that, but the attendance was way down. An event like this has the potential to be the biggest success yet.

Something, Something, Events and Guest.

Blog No. 228

Syndicon is over (for another year) and man, did I have a good time. There’s something about having that lanyard around your neck that says guest on it to make you feel warm inside. I’m convinced that being a guest made the day go by more quickly. That, or watching all the cos-players taking goofy pictures across the aisle from my table. As for sales, the rising tide of comicons in Windsor, tied to the fact that No Light Tomorrow is starting to get saturated in this market made things a little tough. It’s no fun seeing that hard work and proactive thinking of the folks running Syndicon fall to a crowd that is getting overwhelmed by options. I think they have a few tricks up their sleeve for next year though, so I’ll continue to wait with bated breath.

London Nerves

Blog No. 181

One of the banner images at the top of my page (the ones that change when you reload it) is a snow-scape taken from the balcony of my tiny apartment when I was living in London Ontario. It was several years ago now, and I was only there for eight months for school, but it was a very formative time in my life, so it’s really stuck with me. I even talk to people like I know London like the back of my hand, but, while I’m acquainted with the place, I realize I will never know it like someone who was born there or lives there. Still, I have the lay of the land and a few potent memories that stick out above the jumbled mess in my head.

The Weekend of Firsts

Blog No. 172

A few years ago (as documented in the deep bowels of this blog) I worked at Chapters. Initially, it was a love affair for the ages. Raises came quickly, the people were great, and I was surrounded by books. For a university list student, it was great. Eventually, all things must end, and my time at Chapters did just that. I moved on and (a little while later) started down the road of writing, perusing my dream of becoming a working writer, free from the shackles of any job, be it book based or otherwise.

During my time at Chapters, there were a few things that constantly ran through my mind. Gee, some of these books are terrible, how did they get published? Even I can write something that bad. Why aren’t I writing? And the big, Wow, some of these authors who come in to do singings are just people. I’m people. Why not me? There were other thoughts, but they mostly revolved around lunch and when my next break was. The pertinent ones are those first italicised thoughts. In January, a few years after leaving Chapters, I fulfilled the first of those quests. My book was published (by Christian and me) and it was put on the shelf in Chapters. Now, Saturday in fact (from 1pm to 4pm to be precise) I will be doing my first Chapter signing.