Report on Necronomicon 2023
We got home from Necronomicon about 7 PM on Sunday. We lefteverything in the car to be unloaded in the morning, because we were tired. (Wearen’t spring chickens any more!) But I’m counting the convention a success!
We left about 8:15 AM on Friday to pick up Mark, who wasgoing with us. His house is about an hour from our home, and the conventionhotel was a little more than an hour from his house. Being old and intimidatedby our smart phones, we tend to print the route we need to take by usingmapquest or google maps on our desk computers. It worked well for this tripexcept at the end, where the instructions said things like, turn right and go387 feet, make a u-turn and go 219 feet, turn right and go 121 feet. How are wesupposed to measure feet when we’re in a car? Anyway, I told my hubby to make au-turn at the first intersection, only to realize that intersection led to theparking lot of the hotel we wanted! By the time I realized that, he had madethe u-turn and was at the lights where we had originally turned right.Eventually, we turned around and got to the hotel.
It was a little after 11 AM, and my table was supposed tobe set up by noon, so we decided to get a luggage cart to take my 5 boxes ofbooks to my table. But we actually unloaded everything onto the luggage cartand I went inside to see if we could check in for our hotel room. Yes, wecould! So John and Mark took the boxes to my table, where John startedunpacking the books; Mark took the luggage to our hotel room; and I got us allregistered for the con. Then I went back to the table, handed out badges andprogram books, and finished setting up the table. Now I could settle in for therest of the day, talking to the other authors in the Author Alley and trying tobe friendly to potential customers that walked by.
John and Mark sometimes sat with me at the table, studyingthe schedule, reading the program book and talking about whatever was on theirmind. At times one or both would wander away to check out a panel or activity,the art show, the dealer’s room. I made a fast walk around the dealer’s room,but never got to the art show. I tried to talk to the other authors, but onFriday, the tables to the left of me and directly across from me were empty.And after a couple of hours, the table across from me and to the left wassuddenly empty too. There had been an author there, with his book, but now hewas gone, and nobody saw him pack up and go.
The con had an activity called ‘Cthulu Crafts’ all 3 daysof the con, which John went to see what it involved, looking for something thatKlingons might be able to use. He talked to the host and mentioned thatKlingons had an activity they did called ‘Paint and Take’. Later on Saturday,the young man in charge of scheduling stopped John in the hall and asked ifmight be interested in doing a ‘Paint and Take’ at the next con. So John andMark started talking about finding other Klingons to come with them next yearand what they might be able to do besides a Paint & Take. I wonder whatcustomers would say if I manned my table as a Klingon for a day at next year’scon.
John and I had 2 panels to do. The first was on Saturday at11:15 AM, and it was on ‘What Inspired Me to Write’. I had come up with 7questions to help keep the conversation going. With 6 panelists, we filled upthe hour and didn’t get too repetitive, so I was feeling pretty good. We alsohad an author there who was one of the con’s Guests of Honor, and he sometimesput in his 2 cents worth, which was also an ego boost for me.
Our 2nd panel was Sunday at 11 AM, and this onewas about “How I Write.” Again, 4 other authors joined us, and only 1 was arepeat from the day before. I had 9 questions to ask, and the answers werediverse, pointing out that there is no one ‘correct’ way to right, er, I meanwrite.
Two people approached me during the convention. One was aneditor who was looking for free-lance work. It is very hard to edit your ownbooks, so I may be looking her up. The other woman was a free lance graphicartist. I may soon have work for her, too.
At 8 PM on Saturday, there was a panel on self-publishingthat I wanted to go to, so John and I took down the table about 6:30 so I couldget supper, since I hadn’t gotten any lunch. The restaurant was quick atgetting our food to us, and I had some time to spare before the panel, so Iwent up to the con suite, and had some chips, a glass of cola, and some popcorn before I went to the panel.
Now, self-publishing is a big subject to cover in 1 hour.And when the hour was over, Brenda (only 1 panelist showed up) decided to takeus to Salon G, which was supposed to be empty for the next hour. But when wegot there, another group had been given the room to use, so a few of usdie-hards who wanted to know more gathered around an empty table in AuthorAlley and talked for another 1 ½ hours. By then I was the only one leftlistening. Brenda gave me her personal email address, in case I had morequestions, and promised to introduce me to Kevin on Sunday, who could give memore information on email lists.
Sure enough, as soon as I got my table set up on Sunday,Brenda was there with 2 men to talk to me; Kevin about email lists, and Robertof Westerfield Studios. So I had a talk with Kevin about email lists andbookfunnel. And then I had a nice talk with Robert about multi-media and how hecould help me get the word out about our books. He mentioned some things that Iknew existed but didn’t have a clue how to do.
And everybody told me to start getting our books made intoaudible books!
I considered it a very productive convention for me, havingmade those contacts and had those conversations.
And the cherry on top of the whole convention was that Isold 4 books! That’s the biggest sales I’ve had at any convention. My salesactually covered the cost of the table for once!
Two of the books were John’s ‘The Stone Builders’, whichyou can download for free at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/565000. Init, Humans and Wassarans have co-colonized a planet, and now they discovered itwas colonized once before by a race who built everything out of stone. But theStone Builders had abandoned their colony in a hurry. Why? And was the threatstill here?
The third book was John’s ‘The Waste Gun’, where ascientist has found a way to get rid of radioactive waste permanently. But aneco-terrorist sees it as poisoning the Earth and is determined to stop him.This one isn’t available as an e-book right now, as I flubbed up the formattingof the manuscript before I got it published as an e-book, but I’ll let you knowwhen it is published.
The final book was an anthology of short stories aboutvampires called ‘These Vampires Don’t Sparkle’. This one wasn’t published byme, but I have a story in it, on page 155. I don’t know if it was everpublished as an e-book, but the hard copy was put out 9 years ago by SkyWarrior Book Publishing. There is a 2nd volume called ‘TheseVampires Still Don’t Sparkle’. I just checked with Amazon, which said volume 1was out of print, and they only have 1 used paperback of volume 2 for sale. Somy chances of getting any more of either one of them are pretty slim.
I look forward to going back to Necronomicon in 2024.
