World Fantasy and pitching

I have never been to World Fantasy before. In some ways, it is a fairly standard con, from this one year's experience. There are panels and readings and signings. It is in a hotel. Most people have flown in for it.

Some differences:

Almost everyone at World Fantasy is in the business. I heard Holly Black say 85% and she is probably right. I wanted there to be big flashing lights up around certain people, or for the badges with names to be bigger and always turned the right way around. Every time I asked what someone's name was, it turned out to be someone who was important and I felt I should have known. I knew their work, but not their faces. Often, that was all I had to say, and suddenly I had an enthusiastic conversation. I figure other writers will never get tired of being told their books are great. I can't imagine it getting old for me.

The bar is always full. At 3 in the morning, people were still there, chatting. When I woke up and went running every morning, there were people there. Probably not the same people as at 3, but I was never sure. I know my agent had people he needed to talk to there and he set up "dates" with them. There were also a lot of ad hoc conversations, where you are sitting with someone and then someone comes and sits with you and you introduce them to the person you are with, and then there is conversation. There were people I introduced around (not many) and people I was introduced to (though I doubt they were that excited to meet me). I did not push myself into any conversations. I figured they would happen without that.

There were free books. Most of the free ones I wanted were books I already had, but still. Free books, how great is that? I brought home about 3, but I could have had 20 if I wanted.

The mass author signing was very cool. Since it was still mostly professionals, the people who came to get books signed were always people you needed to get to know. And I felt a little less self-conscious going around and getting books signed by some of my favorites. I didn't bring books specifically for signing because it's just too hard to jug that many books around the airport, but I had brought books to read and it turned out that Sharon Shinn and Scott Lynch, whose books I was reading were there. I also went and said hi to Esther Friesner, whose Psalms of Herod I loved years ago, and Carol Berg, whose first book Transformation is incredible. And I never got over to say hi to Patricia McKillip although she was right across from me.

There was a significant portion of aspiring authors there who were pitching in various ways. I even ended up talking about a book to an editor I was introduced to, although it's not the same kind of pitching in my situation. When I heard from aspiring authors about how many editors and agents they had pitched to, however, I began to suspect that what they thought was going on was not what was really going on. They said they were given x number of invitations to submit, but the agents and editors I talked to sort of rolled their eyes and said that they just throw that stuff directly in the round file. Real submissions come from agents or from the regular channels. People who think that meeting someone is going to make up for lack of writing talent are annoying.

This is not to say that meeting people at a place like this is unimportant. Besides being incredibly cool, it is a great place to get to know people who may eventually matter to your career. It's just that it doesn't work in any obvious way. You never know who you are talking to who will matter and you never know what conversations will make them remember you. I think pitching directly may only work rarely, and that generally speaking, just being introduced is far more valuable. But perhaps this is my shy nature coming out. I hate pitching and being pitched to. I like meeting interesting people.