For Pride, I will be bringing the Water Dragon Publishing table to the Mill District Queer Artisan Market on June 23, 2024. I plan to bring a rich selection of the LGBTQIA+ offerings that Water Dragon offers — featuring my own works, of course.
I think the very time I ever sold books was at the first Queer Pop-up Market in 2022. At the time, I only had the first two novelettes of Revin’s Heart out, The Third Time’s the Charm and For the Favor of a Lady. Storm Clouds Gather was about to be released. I printed out business cards to hand out with the QR code for the landing page on the back.
I didn’t yet have a real table or a canopy or signage or anything. But when I look at how far I’ve come with doing the work, it’s nostalgic to look back and remember how new and exciting it all was. I did pretty well in terms of sales too: I sold perhaps a dozen copies — not bad at all for a new author with only the first two books of a series.
The Queer Pop-up Market was canceled in 2023, so I didn’t get to do it last year. But I’m glad they’re doing it again this year. I had a great time doing it the first time and I’m really looking forward to being back at the Mill District again.
After that, the next event I’m scheduled to do is Readercon July 11-14, 2024. Although they rejected me as a participant, I’m still going to attend to staff tables for Water Dragon Publishing and Small Publishing in a Big Universe Marketplace. I’ve heard that this is a particularly good event for selling books, so I’m hopeful we’ll do well there.