Newsletter #79 — Donut Dilemmas
April 1, 2024
Newsletter #79 — Donut Dilemmas
Donuts — When I was writing Exit Velocity we lived two blocks away from the Doughnut Vault, which has fantastically delicious donuts: my favorite! And so, because writing is a stressful business, you know, I often felt the need for a donut. Or two. They were delicious.
They were also, like, omnipresent and somehow they worked their way into Exit Velocity. Lots of things worked their way into Exit Velocity — not only donuts, but hatpins and crochet hooks. Donuts, however, were the tastiest of all these things.
But donuts — as the parrot finds out — can be dangerous.
IRC Presentation — On March 15 Carol Saller (Maddie's Ghost, a middle-grade novel) and I presented at the Illinois Reading Council Conference in Springfield. The title of our talk was "Injustice and MG/YA Fiction: Reading to Inspire Hope and Social Action." Our talk was attended by teachers, librarians, and a few fellow authors, and we had interesting discussions afterwards. It's possible that a journal article for the IRC magazine may result from this presentation.
Science Fiction Conferences — Last month I was taking a Zoom webinar on self-published books and what experiences authors have had selling them (i.e., what works and what doesn't) and one of the authors happened to mention that she sells a ton of books at the big science fiction conventions each year.
That reminded me that I had intended to put something like Find Sci-Fi Conventions on my list of monthly to-do things . . . but who knows where that particular chore disappeared to. So I did a quick search of sci-fi conventions. O.M.G. There are at least forty each year in the US alone.
I don't think I'm going to any of these in 2024, I will be busy enough. But I think that in 2025 I might start out with a smaller, nearby one and see how many books I can sell. But wait! Windycon is held in November of each year in the greater Chicago area (Oak Brook in 2024), and I think this year is the conference's 50th anniversary. I had better investigate this. I might end up going to a sci-fi conference in 2024 after all. (I will not wear a costume!)
The huge question for each author attending such conferences is: How many books should I bring to sell? I wish there were a metric for this! Something like, "For every X-Number of attendees, bring X-Number of books." But I don't think there is.
When my first book, She's on First, was published in 1987, I took 50 copies with me to the SABR (Society for Baseball Research) Conference, which was in the Twin Cities that year. I worried about whether I would sell them. As it was, I sold all 50 in six hours. Which meant I had no more books to sell on the second and third day. Which meant: I should have brought more books! On the other hand, I have been to conferences at which I sold only two or three books. Lots to ponder.
Spectre — One of my favorite nonfiction books of the last couple of years is China Miéville's A Spectre, Haunting, on the relevance of The Communist Manifesto today. (I might have mentioned this in a previous newsletter.) In any case, early in March I sent out emails to several socialist journals, asking if they would be interested in the possibility of reviewing Exit Velocity. The first to respond positively was Spectre. The magazine is not to be confused with Miéville or his book: I just think it's serendipitious that I heard from Spectre first.
Setting— In my April 1 blog I write about the importance of professional book reviews.