Elizabeth Guizzetti's Blog, page 36

I’m on my next reading rampage… First up The Sail Weaver

I met Muffy Morrigan at Norwescon. Three Raven Book’s table was right next to mine and so I must have heard her pitch a hundred times. She and her brother are such nice people and gave me some great advice.

And since I will be taking a bit of time off in order to do some reading, I went ahead and bought her new novel The Sail Weaver.

This book has everything: space battles with the Vermin, tall ships, pirates, and dragons. The characters are interesting and I thoroughly enjoyed Morrigan’s writing style which is detailed without being overbearing, especially her details about the dragons and the codes of conduct/etiquette rules for the Navy as well as the Weavers.

I love CS Forrester’s Horatio Hornblower and a few scenes seemed reminiscent of those books– specifically dinner in the captain’s quarters. Of course, it is Horatio Hornblower set in space. A wonderful story!

Norwescon Wrapup

A Northwest tradition as old as I am!

One of the longest running continues regional fantasy and science fiction conventions, Norwescon 35,  is a 4 day convention in Seatac. As it was in a hotel, there seemed to be events running nearly 24 hours a day, I was also able to enjoy the convention. The rooms and panels had staggered opening times so I was able to see their art show which opened at 10 am (the dealer’s room opened at 11 am) There were many fine artists in the art show.While this is traditionally a writer’s conference, they had a variety of panels from everything neuroscience, planets, space travel, author readings, and all types of other things. Of course, I spent most of it in the dealer’s room promoting Other Systems with a few other small presses nearby including…

Three Ravens Books where CFO Matt was promoting Muffy Morrigan newest release: The Sail Weaver. Muffy was in attendance.

Hard Limits Press newest release The Wicked Instead by Vivien Weaver. Vivien was there signing and answering questions.

Across from us was Christopher Baldwin promotion his webcomic Spacetrawler.

Even though I am a new author (one week and counting…) the other authors around me were very supportive. I got my first complement on my novel though it was hidden in with a dagger. Vivien, Muffy, and Christopher were all encouraging. I also saw other writers get a dagger-encased complement and was glad to see that I am not the only author that obsesses over storytelling devices.

There were lots of fun costumes. My favorite was a steampunk Victorian lady pushing around a carriage covered in gears and other things, then when you looked inside there was a stuffed cthlhu in a diaper holding a pacifier. Sorry, I was running to get coffee and I did not get a photograph.

My first day as an author…

What a strange experience to become an author.  There was so much work to get to this point. While there will be marketing work to do, the creative work for Other Systems is over. I have another project in the queue, but that will have to wait until Norwescon is over to begin.

I feel like it is time to sleep or celebrate, but I have done both of these things. I admit that it does not actually feel real. After all, not much has changed yet. Maybe it never will. Thousands of writers have only ever written and published one book. I am terrified that might be my fate, though I do not really believe it will. After all, I have proven my determination in comics and as I said in the above, I have another book in the wings. It’s just that my life is as it was the day before. I have gone grocery shopping, walked the dogs, done laundry, and made dinner. Like my friend Viv said, I want a ticker tape parade or something.

However, one thing made it seem more real. Seeing it in stores:

Here is the link for Barnes&Noble

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1104526463?ean=2940014188180&itm=1&usri=other+systems+elizabeth

Here is the link for Amazon

Other Systems

Emerald City Comicon Wrapup

Wow, what a weekend! I did my biggest convention on the year and became a published author.

Anyone who has read my previous posts knows I take conventions seriously and they are a lot of hard work, but I had Maria to help me with sales and my niece Jessica was there as our loyal minion.

(Loyal Minion Job Description: Starbucks run, watches the booth so I could go to the bathroom, checks on the freebie table, another Starbucks run, fights off roaming weevils etc.)

Here is Maria right after we hung the banners at setup.

My booth looks great! Setup is done! Woot! Let's get a quick pic before we sell something!

ECCC had record ticket sales this weekend. At least one con buddy of mine said he felt a little claustrophobic with so many people. I however though seeing that many people there was AWESOME! We saw some great costumes and spoke to our wonderful supportive fans.  Made some friends with more of the vendors which is always fun.

Jessica seems annoyed, but the problem is I never caught her smiling on camera, though she often was smiling and claimed to have lots of fun!

So many people were so happy for me that Other Systems was coming out. We received the excerpts on Friday night which meant we had them for Saturday and Sunday. So far we passed out 750. Besides handing them out to my current fans, I found the best way to figure out if people were interested was to ask them if they liked science fiction. I scanned every single person who walked past our booth. Some were in costume which made it easy to identify people who loved Firefly, Star Trek, Starwars, Red Dwarf, others were wearing sci-fi t-shirts. My slightly genius planned worked and I gave out 700 of the 750 to people who claimed to like science fiction enough to wear a T-shirt. I certainly messed up a few pitches, but I think I have a solid pitch now. (Which is good, because on Thursday I will be off to Norwescon!)

I got some wonderful compliments on the Excerpt, including some about the typesetting and font choices so “Good job 48Fourteen!”

On to the ZB Publication’s titles: Faminelands has a small but loyal following and I was surprised at the disappointment of Faminelands #3 pushed back release date, but every seemed to be really excited to know that I am coloring the 3rd act, so I think next year we will do really well with it.

Out For Souls & Cookies was our big seller of the year since OfS&C #3.

Lure continues to do well, because EVERYONE loves sirens.

Here is Maria again!

Almost ready for Emerald City Comicon: the importance of Convention Checklists

I try hard not to tie myself in knots, but I also fail miserably at it every year. Emerald City Comicon is a huge west coast event. When I started attending with my husband, it was a smallish con in the Qwest (now CenturyLink) Exhibition Center. The first year, it was at the Washington Convention Center, was also the first year I exhibited. It seemed big, but it basically covered only one floor. No longer. Now it takes over the entire convention center. There are tons of media guests such as Adam Baldwin, Christopher Judge, Edward James Olmos, and more…

Moreover, there are tons of after-hour parties and events in nearby hotels, restaurants, and bars.

Fortunately I have a checklist. Note: I started packing inventory for this event three weeks ago. So this isn’t a packing list, this is just some last-minute items…

1) Get Maria’s old laptop to repeat play the trailers for Other Systems. (This has ended up being harder than I expected. I am so ready to just use my iPad even though the screen is smaller.)

2) Print price cards for booth.

3) Sleeve the rest of the final order of posters and pack with other posters.

4) Wednesday get house company ready (Maria is staying at my house all weekend and my niece will be staying Saturday night)

5) Call my sister and double-check my niece’s transportation to the convention for Saturday morning.

6) Thursday Specific: go to bank and pick up change and then go to early check-in to pick up badges starting at noon. Maria arrives 10 pm on Thursday night

7) Friday Morning: Set up Booth then go have lunch. Con starts at 2 pm on Friday afternoon. Hooray!

Now as you can see, these are a wide variety of last-minute items that need to be finished up. Many of them are easily forgettable on their own which is why I suggest any artist or author who does conventions to create checklists and use them to stay organized.

My brain is beat so I am going to do some cleaning…

It is 1:57 on March 23rd. Though I hear my husband and dogs snoring in the bedroom I cannot sleep again. On March 22nd, my brain worked a 9 am to 11 pm day only broken up by household chores, dog walking, and making dinner.

I plan to work the morning of March 23rd. I need to update Lure. I also need to burn a disk of the Other System’s trailers and get Maria’s old laptop functioning for the con. I also have some social media stuff on my list of things to do and my editor at 48Fourteen gave me a job to do. So from morning till noon, I’ll work on either stuff for Other Systems or stuff for the upcoming conventions. 

But then, I am going to walk my dogs and another dog named Zoe. Afterwards, I am going to bathe my dogs and clean the bathroom from top to bottom. Even behind the toilet. I am going to finish all the laundry. Then I am going to start on the bathroom closet which is also the home of our washer and dryer and our tools.

After that I am going to walk over to the post office, mail some birthday gifts and cards.

Why? Because right now I got to get my mind off my book and on to something else. Also because I can’t seem to write a simple thank you note. My mind is beat, yet too busy with ideas and worries swimming around up there to let myself simply rest.

So I’ll fool my brain into slowing down with manual labor. Yes, I am smarter than my brain.  

Preparing for a convention Part 3: Freebies

So back on to the topic of preparing for a convention and specifically the use of freebies to drive people to one’s booth.

If used correctly, freebies can help generate sales. They need not be expensive, and they MUST NOT take the place of your pitch. The best sales tool that you have is your pitch, but if you open with a “Hi would you like a bookmark?” It’s a nice way to segue into the pitch if the person accepts one. (However, it should be noted that if the person says no, then we just say “Okay” or “No problem” and leave it at that.)

Generally, we hand out bookmarks for each of our graphic novel titles. To the right is the Carp’s Eye Bookmark. The original is 2 inches by 6 inches and printed on heavy 14pt card stock. The front is glossy and in full color while the back is in b/w with text about the book.

For Out for Souls&Cookies, we have used stickers. In many ways stickers are easier because more people say yes to them, but they can be harder, because people hand them to their kids–even when the book is not for kids. Now Out For Souls&Cookies is technically all ages, however more than once people have pulled their kids away from the “demon dog book.”

The other thing we did for Faminelands: The Carp’s Eye (as it was our first title) we not only had the book mark, but I also created a short mini comic to get people interested. It was not an excerpt from the book, but a short backstory about the main character, Lark.

For Other Systems we are using a similar strategy: we have a 12-page excerpt of Chapter 4 to get people (hopefully!) excited for the novel. While I originally thought I was going to get 1500–a special on booklets at the printer made 2500 the better deal. The same excerpt is available on www.other-systems.com.

We also have bookcards to hand out. These are the size of business cards and  these are specifically are for the people who say, “I don’t read e-books.”

After five years I can say without a doubt, we get both sides at the conventions–people who only want digital and people who love print. Other Systems is coming out in e-book on April 1st, so the book card has a link to 48Fourteen’s comment page, I am going to tell them to let 48Fourteen know that they want to read it in print, because if there is a demand for Other Systems to go to print–it will go to print.

On a final note: Business Cards. While people won’t and shouldn’t really consider your business card a “freebie,” as an artist or writer your business cards should make people interested in your work. My business cards are full color had the cover artwork from Lure on the front and a list of all four of my titles on the back. Maria has Lord Fluff cakes from Out for Souls&Cookies on hers. Remember your business cards should not be kept. Give them out! I probably give out 1000 a year. Maria has 500 a year to give out.