Arisia 2024
I attended Arisia for the second time as a participant. Last year, I was only one one or two panels and had a reading. This year, I moderated a panel, served on four more, and had a reading. I dressed up in cosplay for the panel “Steampunk isn’t dead.” Well. Sorta.
I moderated the panel on Gender and Sexual Identity Representation in Media. Originally, there were supposed to be four participants plus me moderating. Normally when there are four, the moderator can focus solely on facilitating the conversation. Unfortunately, one of the participants was unable to join us and so I tried to both moderate and participate in the conversation. I was satisfied with providing enough structure to keep the discussion on track and making sure that all of the participants were able to make contributions.
I served on three additional panels which were all fun. The Food in Science Fiction and Fantasy left me with an appetite to write more about food. The Bi+ Panel provided new insight into bisexuality, pansexuality, and current thinking in queer culture. And the panel on Invertebrates and Entomology in SFF was fascinating due to the other interesting participants that each had useful stuff to contribute. I felt like I made good contributions on each of the panels.
I got to offer a reading on Sunday afternoon. The audience was around a dozen. I think they were mostly there to hear the other participants, who all write much more poetical stuff, so my weird space opera stuff left me the odd-man out — quite literally. But the selections I had made (Military Morale Mishegoss and Super Sticky Situation) worked well together I got a polite, enthusiastic response. The other authors were jealous of my giant poster of my cover.
Water Dragon had a dealer table again this year. Last year, I was the lead in running it, but this year another author and his wife attended and took the lead. It was great! Four other authors from the publisher took turns at the table as well and it was great to get to meet them as well. I really value the vital community of authors that Water Dragon Publishing fosters.
I had a new book just out Better Angels: Tour de Force as well as the novelettes that form Revin’s Heart. The copies of Better Angels arrived just in time, but the additional stock of Revin’s Heart didn’t arrive in time. So I plenty of one, but ran short of the other.
I was grateful they required masks. Due to my underlying health conditions, I can only attend events where everyone is masked. Knock wood, it appears I came through the Convention without contracting any respiratory infections.
Next month, we’ll all be back for Boskone.
Making Pitches to Sell Books
I’ve been rather surprised to discover that I seem to be pretty good at selling books. It doesn’t hurt, of course, to have books that people want to read. But a huge part of successful selling is to have a pitch that lands with the prospective buyer. And that’s what I seem to be good at.
I think it derives from the years I spent doing educational assemblies. To make those performances work, you need to hone a series of stories and statements so that the wording and timing resonates with the audience and they get caught up in the performance. When it works best, the audience will play along and you can hear them respond and engage with what you’re saying. It’s not a conversation, but you can hear through their laughter or groans when they’ve understood something or gotten the silly joke you were trying to tell.
The first step is judging when to engage with someone approaching or at the table. Some people stand back or refuse to make eye-contact. Or are clearly focused on looking at the books themselves. I usually just offer a quiet “Hello.” Or “Can I help you with anything?” Or, if they seem unsure, I might ask, “Would you like a tour?” Or, occasionally, “What do you like to read?” I’d rather not ask that, because I want to steer them to what I want them to read.
When I’m selling Revin’s Heart, I often begin by pointing at the Airship Pirate ribbon and asking, “Would you like to be an airship pirate?” Most people at science fiction conventions would like to be an airship pirate, although there are exceptions. The ribbon is particularly good because its immediately recognizable to LGBTQIA+ folks who can tell immediately that the book might appeal to them.
I leave a beat while they consider the ribbon and then, as they take it, I say, “It’s for my steampunky fantasy adventure with pirates and airships and a trans protagonist.” I usually tick off on my fingers as list the items.
I leave another beat and say, “It was serialized as seven novelettes. They’re five dollars each, but — if you buy all seven as a bundle — you can get them for $25… [beat] which is like two free!”
If they express interest in the first one, I point at the Third Time’s the Charm and say, “Pro tip: don’t name the first book in a series ‘the third’ something.” This almost always generates a smile, if not a laugh.
At this point, I generally point to Better Angels and say, “This is my newest book. It’s about a group of non-human biological androids [beat] that look like pre-teen girls [beat] and serve as magical girl singing-and-dancing idols [beat] but they can change up their programming [beat] and become a covert military force.” Usually, by this point, people are totally caught up in the pitch and are expressing wonderment or laughing. When I did this pitch at the Steampunk Isn’t Dead panel at Arisia2024, I had been honing it all weekend, the audience responded, as I performed it, with a rising volume of amazement, “aaaaaAAAAAAH!” ending in laughter and applause.
I’ve got a few other pitches. I learned an effective one for the Grimaulkin series from the author. And for two of the Water Dragon anthologies, I will say. “The Future’s So Bright is the bright, hopeful, optimistic stuff while Corporate Catharsis is all the dark stuff you wish you could do to your boss.” This usually generates a laugh and immediately helps the prospective buyer situate those books in their mind.
After making the pitch, there are plenty of other things I can tell buyers about the books. But I’ve realized that having an effective pitch that’s delivered as a performance, sets the stage for everything that follows.
The Better Angels and Bebe’s Bedtime Bedlam
David was still on the bridge of Angels’ Wings, the Better Angels’ starship, when Bebe came out in her nightgown.
“Bebe can’t sleep,” she said, rubbing her eyes.
“Can I get you something? Some warm milk maybe?” David asked.
“Bebe wants you to read her a story.”
David felt his hackles rise.
“What story would you like?” he said, apprehensively.
“Bebe wants you to read Cap’n Capybara and the Case of the Curious Crocodile!”
“Again? Didn’t I read that last time? And the time before?”
She grabbed his sleeve and tugged, “Come. Come!”
David tucked Bebe into her bed, then seated himself. Eyes shining, she wriggled with anticipation under the covers.
“Close your eyes,” David admonished.
Bebe complied and David began to read.
“Cap’n Capybara and the Case of the Curious Crocodile. By Cat Cattwaddler.
“‘Catch, Cap’n’!” called Crocodile.
“‘Can’t,’ quipped Cap’n Capybara. ‘Carrying coffee!'”
Bebe began giggling.
“Cup caught casually chucked chunk.”
Bebe started snorting with laughter.
“Crocodile cried, ‘Captivity crummy!'”
“Aw!” Bebe said, plaintively.
“Go to sleep!”
David read the rest of the book to Bebe. By the last page she was finally asleep, her chest rising and falling evenly. He laid the book down and tiptoed out as quietly as he could. Then he turned and found the rest of the Better Angels standing in their nightgowns.
“We can’t sleep, David! Read us a story too!”
“Okay, okay,” he said. “What story do you want?”
“Cap’n Capybara and the Case of the Curious Crocodile!” they all said in unison.
“But…” David said, turning to look back at the door. Then he put his foot down. “No. You’ll have to pick something else.”
This story was originally written for a set of prompts for #wss366.
Better Angels: Tour de Force is now available at The Truck Stop at the Center of the Galaxy.
Boskone 2024 Schedule
Last year, I was scheduled to appear at Boskone, but ended up going into the hospital the week before. Tempting fate, I have again proposed myself as a participant and have now received my final schedule.
On Friday Feb 9, since this is during the academic year, I will have office hours at 10am, and then will teach class (remotely) from 1:25 until 3:45. Then, I will be free to participate in the convention for the rest of the weekend.
At 7pm on Friday, I will serve on a panel Write My Doctoral Thesis: Science Edition (in Burroughs). This looks like it will be a lot of fun.
Saturday is my busy day: I have a reading (in Galleria – Cabaret) at 12:30, then Speculative Evolution (in Marina 4) at 1pm, followed by the Boskone Book Party (in the Galleria) at 6pm, then Romance in Speculative Fiction (in Harbor 2) at 7pm.
But Sunday, I’m totally free!
Mostly, when not otherwise scheduled, I’ll be at the Water Dragon Publishing table in the Dealer Room. I’ll have plenty of copies of Better Angels: Tour de Force, as well as bundles of Revin’s Heart. Stop by and visit!
Advertising Books
Trying to publicize your books is hard. It’s one of the things that you don’t think much about until you try to transition from “writer” to “author.” At least I didn’t. But I had seen enough authors talking about the need to do publicity that I had some idea what I was getting myself into. What I didn’t know anything about, however, was advertising.
Last summer, I saw a Facebook group that was going to offer a free starter class for people who wanted to learn about advertising using ads at Amazon. I decided to spend a little money up front just trying out the advertising system. I first tried letting Amazon construct the ad (basically just showing a book among search results, I think). But I think I clicked something wrong and it didn’t work at all. It didn’t cost anything because nobody clicked on it — whatever it was (I couldn’t figure out how to get it to show me what the ad was that it was even showing). But it tried again and got some tiny number of clicks. But it was clear that a lot more fine tuning was required. So I tried the class.
The class was based around long screencasts. I quickly found I couldn’t stand to watch the screencasts at all. But accompanying the screencasts were click-by-click directions for the activities. This I could do, so I set up a handful of experimental ads like they recommended. The results were quite discouraging. I didn’t get any sales (as far as I could tell) and, when I spoke with another author who had taken a similar (but more advanced class), he indicated that you needed to get orders of magnitude larger responses in order actually see appreciable sales. And he had decided it wasn’t worth it.
Several people said that Facebook ads were a better fit, so I decided to hold my nose and give those a try. I truly and wholeheartedly despise Facebook. But I gave them some money to “boost” a post I had already written to promote Better Angels: Tour de Force. The interface was less complicated and it seemed like I got better results. So, after that ad finished, I decided to run another. When I did, however, I discovered how enshittified the Facebook ad system is.
The first ad you buy has reasonable defaults that make sense: it defaults to $14 for a week with a goal of getting people to click on your link. But when you try to do the next one, it dicks with the defaults. It tries to get you to spend $42 or $56 or some much larger amount. And it defaults to other weird goals like “get more engagement” or “get more messages via Facebook Messenger”. And it tries to get you link Instagram and What’s App accounts with your Facebook account. Ugh. I feel so unclean.
Since I’ve been playing around with my book promotion posts already, I will probably continue to purchase ads at some low level. Since it does seem to actually put my ad in front of people who do, at some level, click through to the book page. And maybe some of them actually buy a book. If nothing else, it gives me some additional metrics on which book promotion posts are more effective.
It still feels a lot like just rolling the dice.
