I was lucky enough to attend StokerCon 2024 in San Diego at the end of May. It was my first convention and was an enlightening, and sometimes overwhelming, experience.
Some highlights and tips/tricks that helped me survive a writing convention:
If you're a shy person, volunteer to help at the convention. Especially at the registration table. Shyness manifests for me as a mental bully. It tells me that I don't matter to and/or that I'm bothering other people. Having a task where I had to talk to people forced my brain to overcome that little voice yelling "no one wants to hear what you say." Once I'd spoken to all those people at registration it was easy to continue ignoring the voice in my head later. After all, I'd already talked to those people and they weren't annoyed, so why wouldn't they want to talk to me now?
.
If you get overwhelmed with social interactions, build in some bed rot time. StokerCon used a scheduler called Sched where you could plan out panels and events you wanted to attend. Each day of the convention I made sure to leave an hour or two open where I could retreat to my hotel room and decompress. That time allowed me to recenter myself and continue on the day without completely shutting down or feeling anxious.
.
You don't have to go to every event. If something is not your cup of tea, feel free to choose to do something else. One of the events was a mass author signing where a large number of authors waited at tables to sign books, while hundreds of convention attendees and members of the general public queued up in the space to get things signed. I have crowd anxiety (exacerbated by listening to the episode about fire safety rules and the Iroquois Theater Fire on the Stuff You Missed in History Class podcast ). One of my favorite things to say when asked about this fear is "crowds are a dumb animal." It's absolutely true. You get enough people together and expose them to an impediment to getting to safety (like a door that goes in rather than out) and they stop thinking, they just start reacting. Even if that means pushing on an inswing door, effectively trapping them all. I knew this event would only give me a panic attack, so I didn't attend. It meant missing out on getting some books signed, but it kept me from making an embarrassing spectacle of myself by having a complete breakdown.
.
Pack an extra duffle bag or bring an extra suitcase for all the convention swag. People will hand out bookmarks, door hangers, business cards and ARCs (Advanced Read Copies) of their books. You'll buy books. You'll buy more books. You'll buy a concerning amount of books that will make your convention buddy gently ask you how you plan to get those books home. Everything adds up to a lot more space than you think it will. If you don't have an extra bag to take it all home, you might end up with the difficult decision on eating the cost of shipping items home or leaving some behind. Save yourself the future heartache and bring some extra luggage.
Stay at the convention hotel (if possible). Not only does the convention typically get a discounted rate at the convention, but part of the convention is the unofficial networking that takes place. You chit chat with people while eating food at the restaurant. You sit outside by the fire and talk about books and favorite writers. And with those conversations, you form connections, make new Writing Friends, and sometimes you can even end up invited to contribute to an anthology or be asked to submit your work to their magazine. If you're at the convention hotel, it's also easy to schedule bed rot time or take a "disco nap" so you can attend later evening events (if you're an early bird like me, this is a necessity).
Get a convention buddy. I was lucky, Eunice Magill volunteered herself for the unenviable task of helping me learn how to navigate the convention. She was the one who explained unofficial networking, who tried to keep me from buying my weight in books, who explained etiquette when it came to approaching authors for signatures outside of signing events, and who cheered me on when I was filled with self-doubt. If someone in your writing group has gone to convention before, ask them if they'll show you the ropes when you get there. It's immensely helpful.
If you sign up for a pitch event, be prepared. Many conventions have events where you can pitch your work to agents or editors. StokerCon had a sign up where you could be chosen for slots with agents. The organizers could not have made it any easier for attendees to choose which agents or editors they wanted to pitch to- they had bios and types of works those people represented/sought listed on the page containing the list of people you could pitch to. Then there was an agent panel the day before and a pitch panel the day of the pitching event. One of the key takeaways from those events was to make sure the person you were pitching to actually repped the type of work you were pitching. When I heard that, my immediate thought was "well that's obvious. Who wouldn't do the research?" The answer? A lot of people. A surprising number of people signed up for whichever agent/editor they could, regardless of whether that agent/editor repped their type of work. It's a waste of time for both sides. This is what you need to be successful for the pitch event:
Do your research before deciding who to pitch to. Beyond their bio on the convention website, go to their agency website and do a deeper dive. What kind of work do they represent? If they have information on query submissions, what do they want those to look like?
Make sure that your books is complete before you pitch. If it's not, most agents/editors aren't going to accept it.
Make sure that your book fits within the standard word count range for the type of book you're writing. If your book is a 200,000 page mystery, you're likely not going to get a "yes" because that is so far outside the bounds of the standard. It will look like you did absolutely no research in the genre.
Once you've done your research, prepare what I called my "submission package." This is the group of documents you want in case the agent/editor says "yes." The agent I was pitching to only accepts pitches at conventions, so they didn't have information on their website about what kind of query they desired. I created a folder on my computer that contained:
A query letter that mentioned pitching to them at the convention that I could update with any other information desired.
Saved copies of the first 10 pages, first 20 pages, and first 50 pages of my novel. (Those were the most commonly requested page amounts I saw on QueryTraker.)
A one-page summary document.
A two-page summary document.
A one to two-sentence pitch. Your pitch doesn't have to be "X title meets Y title" or any of those other conventions unless the agent/editor specifically asked for it. Instead, you should concentrate on something you can say which reliably relays the essence of your book within a couple of minutes. The StokerCon pitch event only allowed 5 minutes to pitch the book, then 5 minutes for discussion with the agent. That's not a lot of time to pitch your book if you aren't prepared.
Treat these interactions with the agent like a job interview. Be prepared to answer questions about your work. Be succinct. And be professional.
If you're describing your book to people, treat every interaction as though it's a pitch event because you never know who is listening. There was an author who was pitching an interesting sounding novel. But they had not done their research into how publishing works. Worse than that, when they'd talk about their book they didn't treat it like a pitch event. They'd keep talking long after the other person had lost interest. It was unfortunate as I saw an indie publisher eavesdrop on their conversation about that book with interest... that slowly died as the conversation dragged on. Learn to edit yourself when talking about your work.
Most of all, make sure you know how to stay connected to the people you've met. Friend them on Facebook or other social media. Exchange contact information. Whatever you want to do- if you made a genuine friendship, or business, connection with someone, don't let that fade once the convention is over.
I hope these tips and tricks help any of you who are attending your first convention in the future. It was my first convention, but it won't be my last.
Links:
Great advice, thanks!