After-Action Report: Two Cons, Two Weeks

I know it's been awhile since I posted anything, but these last few weeks have been busy. In particular, I've spent two weekends in a row working conventions here in Atlanta--the horror-themed Days of the Dead and the steampunk/alternate-history AnachroCon final show.

At Days of the Dead, I split the table with Nathan McCullough, whom I know from the Atlanta chapter of the Horror Writers Association and who was selling his new novella/short-story collection Drag You Down. That was a good weekend--I got 35 e-mail addresses for my semi-monthly newsletter and sold 33 books. The Thing in the Woods dominated with over half, but I sold a fair number of Little People, Big Guns and even seven copies of Battle for the Wastelands despite it not being a horror novel. I made at least one sale by comparing it to The Dark Tower, which helped me make a horror connection even though both Battle and TDT series are primarily fantasy.

I also handed out all my remaining Thing note-cards with QR codes for the e-book, which based on my Amazon rankings seems to have led to some upticks in sales. Unfortunately the relatively high table cost, even though I split it with Nate, and the high costs of parking led to a net profit of only around $25. Still, given the large number of books sold, the addition of new people to my newsletter, and advice Nate gave me on how to fix a minor glitch in the first print copies of Battle, this overall was a good experience.

(Going forward I'm thinking of carrying books to and from conventions in a rolling suitcase and taking Lyft rather than driving myself and carrying the original shipping boxes on a hand-cart. With a more stable suitcase, I could even take MARTA even though it's slower and shave off even more dollars. That'll be really helpful with the upcoming Atlanta Comic Con at the Georgia World Convention Center.)

AnachroCon proved more profitable, since I was a convention guest. I appeared in five panels, listed here. The most lively one was the one on tropes--we got into the ones people found annoying like Tragic Mulatto (I brought up Mr. Spock as the rare male example, since McCoy gives him crap about being a Vulcan and other Vulcans think he's too human) and characters getting "fridged." I sold 19 books there (Thing was the biggest seller surprisingly enough, followed by Battle) and since I didn't have to pay any costs, I made $121.50 in profit on 19 books and got 17 e-mails for my newsletter. Although it's unfortunate that this will be the last AnachroCon, the Atlanta Steampunk Expo  is moving to February to take its place next year and I've been in talks with the organizers about attending as a writer.

Time to get "Son of Grendel" revised and posted on Amazon and get working on the sequel to Battle of the Wastelands. :)

My Five AnachroCon 2020 Panels

The weekend of Valentine's Day 2020 I'm going to be participating in--and even moderating--several panels at AnachroCon, Atlanta's annual steampunk and alternate history convention. Here they are, along with what I anticipate discussing:

How To Write Effective Villains-Friday (2/14) at 5 PM. I've gotten some kudos for developing my villains, be they cult leader Phil in The Thing in the Woods, the military dictator Grendel in Battle for the Wastelands, and (NAME REDACTED FOR SPOILERS) in Little People, Big Guns. I always take care to remember that everybody is the hero in their own story and few if anybody truly see themselves as evil. Hitler and the Nazis viewed themselves as heroically fighting an international Jewish-Communist conspiracy, the Soviets viewed themselves as fighting exploitative and aggressive international capitalism, Mao Zedong viewed himself as fighting to rebuild China after a "Century of Humiliation" at the hands of the European colonial powers and Japan, and Osama bin Laden and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi viewed themselves as agents of the will of God. Also appearing on the panel are Taylor S. Hoch, Lee Martindale, and Bill Ritch.

To Trope or Not To Trope, That Is The Question-Friday (2/14) at 8 PM. Given all the times I've referenced the almighty TVTropes in Myopia: Defend Your Childhood and my friend Jamie and I can actually carry on conversations in TVTropes, this seemed right up my alley. Although many of my stories use common tropes (no spoilers to say that in Battle for the Wastelands, the hero's home is the Doomed Hometown), some of my storytelling ideas do invert common tropes. I wrote a whole blog post about how Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker would have been more interesting if they'd avoided Redemption Equals Death for a certain character (and had to deal with all the awkward consequences), while I've got an as-yet-unpublished short story in which the villain, rather than destroying the hero's hometown, instead makes it a major military base. The hero's neighborhood gets eminent-domained and much of the town ends up gentrifying, creating sets of winners and losers and a much more complicated situation than just the usual hero-villain. Also appearing on the panel are William Joseph Roberts, Bill Ritch, R.A. "Rob" McCandless, and Dennis Medbury.

So You Want To Go Indie: Publishing in the 21st Century-Saturday (2/15) at 11 AM. We're living in a new world with e-readers and platforms like Amazon KDP and Createspace. To use economics teacher metaphors, publishing used to be an oligopoly (harder to get into and more money for those who do), but now it's monopolistic competition (low barriers to entry and less profit). This has led to an explosion in the number of books available to readers, but also drastically increased competition for writers even as it provides a lot more opportunities for them. Also appearing on the panel are William Joseph Roberts, Mandy Burkhead, and Cecilia Dominic.

Alternate Universe Creation-Saturday (2/15) at 1 PM. One area of my writing I've been given kudos for is my worldbuilding. My "idea files" for different projects typically involve well-developed worlds just needing people to put in them. From high school (around 2000 or so) until 2015 when my new day job required more time I was a regular member of the Internet's biggest alternate history forum, producing several alternate timelines on the site and commenting on many, many more. Even though I had site administration ban me to avoid distractions, I still blog about timelines I can read in the public section, so I'm not getting rusty. Also appearing on the panel are Taylor S. Hoch, Bill Ritch, and Cecilia Dominic. This is the first time I'm actually moderating a panel, so wish me luck. :)

How To Research Effectively-Saturday (2/15) at 3 PM. Given how I've got a history masters degree this is an area where I can put my talents to work. For those writing military fiction YouTube has demonstrations of the firing of various weapons and even footage from actual combat (like the time someone put GoPros on tanks in battle in Syria). Also it's possible to get an alumni library card for colleges you've graduated from to retain access to the library, like I have for Georgia State. Also appearing are Lee Martindale and Cecilia Dominic.

Belated After-Action Report: MultiverseCon

This past October 18-20, I sold books at MultiverseCon, a new convention at the Hilton Atlanta Airport. It was the first convention and attendance was lighter than I expected, but I still sold eighteen books, making around $75 profit. I also collected twelve e-mail addresses for my roughly semi-monthly MailChimp newsletter.

And there was plenty of cool stuff besides making money. I made contacts with some people that could lean to paneling at AnachroCon in February. I'm currently in the process of getting my "Dark Tower meets Game of Thrones" novel Battle for the Wastelands ready for independent publication (more on that later) and AnachroCon, with its steampunk basis, would be a great place to premiere it.

I also got some good advice about conventions in Atlanta whose patrons buy lots of books. CONjuration, which I thought was primarily magic/fantasy-focused, would be a good place to sell Battle even though there's no magic (I would probably describe as "steampunk" if pressed, although steampunk seems to be in decline these days). So would JordanCon, which will be returning to Atlanta this coming April. The next CONjuration in which I'll have Battle (and Little People, Big Guns as well) will be (I'm assuming) November 2020, but the next JordanCon is slated for April 17-19.

Another unexpected pleasure of the convention was meeting S. Kay Nash, who edited The Thing in the Woods for Digital Fiction Publications. She's pretty cool. :)

I'm definitely looking forward to the next MultiverseCon, since the convention will probably have more visitors and I'll definitely have more books to sell.

Writing Update, Featuring the World Horror Conference...

The weekend before last, I got the chance to volunteer at the World Horror Conference, which came to Atlanta this year. Although I've been to DragonCon and AnachroCon multiple times, this is the first time I've attended a conference dedicated solely to horror and the first time I've worked as a volunteer in that context. And I got a gig as a panel monitor, which meant I could watch panels so long as I kept all the speakers hydrated, kept the room clean, etc.

Not only did I get to see some interesting panels, but I got to make some very useful contacts. I talked with representatives from a small press (I'm not going to name said press at the moment, for reasons you will see) and pitched them The Thing in the Woods. They were interested, and one of the relevant editors gave me what looks like a personal e-mail address to send it to. I spent the last week editing the book (mostly for style and some minor grammatical quibbles) and put it in the press's preferred format and submitted it to all the appropriate e-mail addresses last Saturday. The press's response time is within 90 days, with six months on the outside. Now all that there is to do is wait and keep my fingers crossed.

The conference also yielded an unexpected bonus. I attended pitch sessions hoping to snag a spot with one press I was interested in as a possible market for Thing. Instead I was seated with another press, one that puts out horror that's too gruesome for me and for whom Thing would not be a good project. So on a whim I decided to pitch my on-hiatus bizarro story Little People, Big Guns, which features a group of little people making war on a pack of badgers that killed one of their own, to another imprint by the same company. They were really impressed, which one of them said was the most entertaining pitch they'd heard all day. However, they said it sounded like Act I rather than a full novel. Their rule is to keep the insanity escalating. So on the fly I came up with Act II and Act III, the former of which involves the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (which would explain one character's strange behavior in Act I) and the latter of which involves a gigantic bear-sized badger and said character missing a foot and with a literal ax to grind.

They liked the plot, and so now I've got another project to write. Considering how I originally intended for this to be a short story (or at most a novella) I'd self-publish on Amazon for the Kindle, the possibility that this could be a published novel (albeit probably a short one) is a major boon.

Finally, I met a cool guy who's a voice-actor. Given my earlier dabbling with the idea of making "I am the Wendigo" into an audio book, this could be a really useful connection. I've got a lot going on right now, but I've definitely saved his business card.

So let this be a lesson to all aspiring writers--if you want to make good contacts, network, and pitch, volunteering at conferences is one way to do it. However, you should take pains not to be obnoxious or in it for yourself. Remember, volunteering is work, and you should put that first. Don't worry, there'll be plenty of time for the stuff you want to do as well.

Oops, I Did It Again

After a chat with a friend from my writing group at this year's AnachroCon, I went and changed The God of the Wet Wood back to The Thing in the Woods. Although the title is rather generic-sounding, there was the danger that due to the rapid growth of "monster erotica" (so much that I actually found a small press willing to publish it now), somebody would think a book combining "god" and "wet wood" was something rather raunchy and not, you know, the teen Lovecraftian horror novel that it actually is.

Oh well. My writing group is going to go over the whole manuscript tomorrow night and maybe they'll come up with some ideas for a better title. One group member suggested I call the novel "the rough beast" (an allusion to Yeats' "The Second Coming," my favorite poem), but the title doesn't really fit well with what the monster actually is.

One reason I picked The Thing in the Woods is that the phrase comes up in the text of the novel in a significant way (not going to say anything here due to spoilers). Any new title would need to be similarly relevant to the text.

AnachroCon Post #2: Useful Things Learned

Here's my second post about the 2013 AnachroCon, which will be more general than my last one.

One of the panels I attended was entitled "Viking and Norman Re-Enacting," which taught me a lot of useful information. Much of the information I learned will appear in the Wastelands novels, which feature a Norse-analogue culture known as the Sejer. In particular, the Norse used A-Frame tents whose wooden poles were elaborately carved. I've started tinkering with the second novel Battle for the Wastelands: Escape while I wait to hear back about the first Battle for the Wastelands and the tents of the Obsidian Guard, the tyrant Grendel's personal troops, will be like that. The Norse also used box chairs--no legs and the seat could be used for storage. Grendel's throne will be based on this design.

(Norse shoes were also held closed with toggles, which I'll squirrel away in my files for later. The Sejer in the Wastelands world have shoes with laces.)

I also attended a panel featuring my friend James R. Tuck that discussed the directions writers other than H.P. Lovecraft have taken the Cthulhu Mythos. This included the Delta Green stories about an American covert-operations group fighting the cosmic horrors as well as the works of Brian Lumley. I'll have to check these out--the Delta Green world sounds particularly interesting and I'd love to write stories set there someday. There're also more whimsical works, like a cookbook of all things entitled Cuisine from Beyond.

At the "State of Steampunk" panel, I learned a bit of welcome movie news. Cherie Priest's novel Boneshaker has been optioned as a movie. A bit more digging revealed that the film rights have been bought and work is underway. Although I had my issues with the book, I'd still see the film more than likely.

I also learned about a small press called Combustion Books that is putting out steampunk books. Their business model is unusual--they pay the author a set amount per print run, no strings attached. If there's a second print run, they'll pay for that, and so on and so forth. If a larger publisher expresses an interest in the work, no problem. I'll keep them in mind.

Another publisher I encountered is Georgia-based MV Media, whose representatives were there selling "sword and soul" books. Rather than taking place in faux European environments like most sword and sorcery, they take place in faux African environments. I'd found Griots: A Sword and Soul Anthology on Amazon awhile back, so I'd already known about them. Those of you with an interest in Afrocentric fantasy fiction, whether you want to read some or sell some, should check this out.

Finally, I met up with a member of my alternate-history message-board who is attempting to revive the site's defunct podcast. I have begun discussing an interview with him, since my alternate-history short story "Coil Gun" appeared in Pressure Suite - Digital Science Fiction Anthology 3 and my self-published story The Beast of the Bosporus is essentially "secret history." He's already agreed to host "Beast" tie-in I've already posted here.

AnachroCon Post #1: Christians Should Tip Better

I just got back from AnachroCon, an Atlanta-area alternate-history and steampunk convention, and one of the topics discussed at the panel this morning really stuck to me.

It was a panel about cyberpunk, but at some point, Allan Gilbreath started talking about how servers hate it when certain Christian conventions are in town because they complain about everything and don't tip well, in contrast to the genre fans (people who go to conventions like AnachroCon I guess) who do tip well and tend to be more easygoing. A later conversation with him and another panelist included the claim that many people from these conventions try to game the system by complaining about the air conditioning at hotels in hopes of getting discounts and that they feel they're owed something because of their "long-suffering." The other fellow even made the claim that only 1 percent of the people in those groups are humble, kind, generous, etc.

The first thing that came to mind was Romans 2:24 in which the Apostle Paul said the words, "The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you." Although the passage is referencing Jews (who had God's law revealed to them) who did not follow the Law and those brought their faith into disrepute with outsiders, the principle expressed in this passage just as easily applies to Christians today.

For the record, I do not deny having done things that have given people cause to mock our faith. I will not go into detail here, but those who know me will know. That being said, that does not affect the wisdom of my point one iota. Hitler and Stalin, two of the most evil men who ever lived, both thought the other a monster and both were right. And the purpose of this post is not to brag about how good a tipper I am.

For starters, the Bible says that Christians are to be ambassadors of Christ (see 2 Corinthians 5:20). One role of an ambassador is to make the country who sent them look good. If an ambassador acts like a fool, it rightly or wrong reflects poorly on their whole country, not just them. Jesus Himself says in Matthew 5:16 that Christians should let their light shine before men so that people would see our good deeds and praise God.

Secondly, the Bible exhorts believers to be generous. There are many, many Bible verses exhorting us to be generous with our money. There are so many that rather than posting them individually, I will simply post this article here that references a whole bunch.

Thirdly, the Bible exhorts Christians to remember the poor. One account of the coming Judgement Day states that the nations will be judged by how they have treated "the least of these my brethren." Here is a list of dozens of verses exhorting the good treatment of the poor. Servers are not paid minimum wage; instead, they're paid a significantly-lower figure (in Utah, for example, it's $2.13 per hour) and expected to make the rest of the money in tips. If people tip poorly, wait staff do without. In fact, servers rely on food stamps much more than the rest of the population.

Fourthly, if you're trying to get discounts in a dishonest way (like complaining about problems that don't exist or are really quite minor), that's lying and stealing. There are lots of verses condemning such things--here's a selection. Remember, it is written that the love of money is the root of all sorts of evil.

I am not suggesting tipping waiters/waitresses more if they do a poor job. I once tipped a particularly bad waiter $0.10 on a $3.00 Steak and Shake milkshake to make a point. That being said, most restaurant staff who've served me have done a decent job and should be tipped at a proper rate (I was always taught to tip 15 percent).

One objection to my argument I can think of right off the bat is that times are tough and one might not be able to afford to tip as much. Well, if you need to cut expenses, why are you eating out in the first place? If you're already going out to eat at a restaurant where there's a wait staff attending to your needs, you can afford to tip decently. Doubly so if you're going to a religious convention in another city.

And lest anyone think I'm making too big a generalization from the claims one or two people are making, here's an article on why servers hate Sundays. Here's another one with more links.