By Nathan Marchand
September 6, 2013
I’m a shameless self-promoter, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. However, I’m also a shameless promoter for fellow writers and their works (which Nick appreciates since he’s a better writer than promoter). Sometimes I wonder if I missed my calling as a salesman or a literary agent…maybe.
That’s one of many reasons why I love going to Gen-Con, a huge convention held in Indianapolis every August. The event has been around for over 45 years. It’s held in the Indiana Convention Center. It started as a gaming convention (board games, RPGs, etc.) but has expanded to include a little bit of everything that appeals to the nerd/geek community. It’s possible to see the Joker meditate while Link from The Legend of Zelda plays his ocarina (seriously, I saw that happen!). No wonder its tagline is “the best four days of gaming.”
Anyway, there’s an artist/author avenue in the exhibitors’ hall. This was my second year selling books there. My new addition for this year was, you guessed it, Children of the Wells. But since this saga doesn’t have any print books (yet), I took a slew of promotional materials with me to hand out like candy. I had a poster with novella covers; 200 business cards with the website address; and around 50 total sample chapters of both The Select’s Bodyguard and The Fall of the House of Kyzer. The convention started on a Thursday and went until Sunday. I ran out of promotional materials by Saturday! I had to write notes for interested readers after that.
I found ways to make CotW appealing to different people. Can’t afford to buy books? CotW is free! Don’t have time to read? CotW chapters are posted in 1,000-word chunks. Prefer e-readers? CotW novellas are published as e-books after serialization.
But more than anything, convention-goers are looking for something new, something different, something unique. They’re intelligent and sophisticated, so it takes a lot to impress them. Hearing my pitch for CotW, their eyes lit up with intrigue. It fascinated them. One man, a fellow writer and vendor, spent 10-15 minutes asking me questions about the serial and how we created its world and characters. The more I told him, the more he wanted to read it. He was hooked.
From what Nick has told me, my efforts paid off. The number of visitors to the site has spiked since the convention two weeks ago.
So, to those of you I met at Gen-Con who’ve joined us on this exciting literary journey, welcome!
We have much in store for you, so be sure to sign-up for our e-mail subscription, if you haven’t already. Both The Fall of the House of Kyzer and The Doctor’s Assistant will be wrapping up, and a new novella will start in a few weeks.
If you’d like to hear more about what I saw and did at the convention, check out my Gen-Con 2013 highlight reel and the latest episode of my vlog, “But I Digress….”
So, to paraphrase Khan from Star Trek, “Please sit and let us entertain you.”
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