Ah! The weekend is done. It was an interesting weekend and I’m still mentally slapping myself for the times when my brain quit functioning but my mouth still worked, spitting out idiocy. I’m good for that when I’m nervous. The caffeine probably didn’t help matters, except to keep me going after not sleeping well because of the partying going on at night while I was trying to sleep.
But that’s a con for you. It was fun.
While my husband hosted a Battletech grinder in the gaming room (Friday and Saturday), I was busy chatting with people about my books from my vendor table. I sat between two others, including two young men from the Epic Loop store in the Fargo/Moorhead area on one side. They were very helpful in watching my table when I had to make a quick run for food or the bathroom. I had only me while most everyone else had at least a partner. But my daughters begged for the Portal Companion Cube and the Minecraft pick-axe they had on their tables, so between that and bringing back lunch for them one day when I ran to Subway, I think I made up for it on my end 
On my other side was an indie horror film producer who made retro horror (think 1950′s style). Cool stuff!
It was my first real exposure to the public as a local author with actual books, and, other than being across the river on the MN side, I was pretty much in the college city where I graduated. I wasn’t far from NDSU in Fargo. I’d consider that local, even if I had to drive from central ND to get there. And I sold books! Not as many as I’d hoped, but enough to make it worthwhile.
As you can see in the picture, one 2′ x 6′ table hardly had room for the books I put out, which didn’t even include Metamorphosis. I was one book stand short too, so it stayed hidden. The table cloths were provided, so I didn’t have to use the one I bought. I sold a little of everything that was on the table and gave away a few things.
On Saturday, I gave a presentation on self-publishing, but in one hour, I knew I would only have time to present the basics. I could have gone two hours, but I didn’t want to be away from my table that long and had only asked for the one time slot. Unfortunately, the con organizers scheduled Patricia Tallman at the same time in the other room. *I* wanted to sit in on that one! As for my “panel”, which really was a presentation, I still had about seven people who were very interested and asked lots of questions so that I had to rush through the last half of the information I had in my presentation.
On a good note, I did get to pester the gracious lady guest of honor a little. They placed her table at the entrance of the vendor room just a little ways down from me. I had the chance to get our Babylon 5 season 5 boxed set autographed and had a couple of pics taken, one with my youngest child and another with my husband. I’m not very photogenic and Pat is tall, just as her name suggests, although in the high heels she wore, she made me look like a dwarf…not hard to do since I’m only 5’2″. My husband is about 5’9″.
Oh, yes. On Saturday, someone accidentally triggered the fire alarm, about ten minutes before my presentation. Luckily, it was a false alarm and they let us back into the hotel in less than ten minutes, so I barely had time to set up but the staff also bumped everything by ten minutes, so that helped.
At the end of the weekend, I had one more chance to pester Pat. Knowing she’s an avid reader, I offered her any of my books. She said she reads everything, including young adult. I offered her a full set of the Starfire Angels series to take with her for her Penny Lane charity, but afterwards, I realized I didn’t sign any of them. Doh! I hope she enjoys reading them, because she said she does read them herself too. So, I’m kicking myself and scared but excited to hear what she thinks of it. She said she’d let me know.
All in all, an exciting weekend, but the ride home sucked with two kids overly tired after staying up late and playing hard with their cousins all weekend. They crashed quickly after going to bed last night. Thank goodness!
Monday is here and I’m rested and ready to go ride my horse.
I’m leaning towards using my initials for what’s coming in the Revelations series. If you’re not familiar, I use M. A. Nilles for stories that are more graphic and/or contain more mature themes. Soriel was kind of a transition, while Deception was still all right for a younger audience. I feel that Phantoms and now Shards are leaning towards that more mature audience. I can’t sugar-coat the realities of the Shirukan when I’m writing about them directly, not the way I could in Soriel. I’ll be using Phantoms as the transition to M. A. Nilles and am changing the cover of Shards to reflect that change also.
Thank you to everyone who signed up for the chance to win one of my signed paperbacks of Soriel through Elle Casey’s Indie Book Giveaway.
