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Posts Tagged ‘convention’
Conventions and writing, or Schmoozing 101
Wednesday, December 16th, 2009
by Mary Robinette Kowal
Let me talk about conventions and their relationship to my writing life. Everyone will have very different experiences, depending on their personality. Here’s how it works for me.
I primarily go to conventions for three reasons.
- To see other people in the field whose company I enjoy.
- Improve craft/business sense.
- To be “visible.”
1) To see other people in the field whose company I enjoy.
I relish the social aspect of SF. There are people that I just plain like and a convention is like old home week. It’s fun! I like you guys.
2) Improve craft/business sense.
A convention with a really good list of panels is going to appeal to me more than one in which I only hang out at the bar (though I love that, too). I want to know what’s happening in the field and to think about things that aren’t just products of my own brain banging against the inside of my skull. Even if I only learn one new thing, that’s a thing I didn’t know before.
3) To be “visible”
I’m a new writer, so I’m building my “brand.” I’m not going to get that many new readers at a convention, but the people at cons are the ones who vote on things and frankly, nominations can be leveraged ((Nominations and awards do not automatically mean a reader increase. You have to know how to work them, but the power of narrative on career is a different topic.)) into getting more readers which means…that cons are filled with a good target audience. Cons also tend to have editors at them and those are good people to know.
Now, I’ll be frank about how this works, because a lot of people don’t understand how to do effective schmoozing. Yes, yes, I’m aware that admitting this happens is distasteful. But, I’m going to talk about how to schmooze, anyway.
Schmoozing 101
These are all ideas to employ but none of them are hard and fast rules. Schmoozing is all about being charming and that will vary somewhat depending on the situation. So, here are the basic ideas behind successful schmoozing. (more…)
Tags: business, convention, Mary Robinette Kowal
Posted in Networking and Self-Promotion, SFWA Blog | 3 Comments »
Resource: The Convention Finder
Wednesday, August 19th, 2009
New writers are often given the advice that they should attend conventions. But what conventions and where? Back in March of 2008, SFWA member John Joseph Adams issued a challenge to readers of his blog, wishing that someone would, “Gather up data on all of the science fiction conventions held every year (here’s a good place to start) and set up a database so that users can enter their zip code to discover which cons are closest to them.”
Nathan Lilly, of Green Tentacles, did exactly that. The Convention Finder searches a database of cons based on location, making it easy to find the convention nearest you.
Tags: convention, John Joseph Adams, Nathan Lilly, resource
Posted in Networking and Self-Promotion, SFWA Blog | Comments Off