Posts Tagged ‘conventions’
Mondayitis – Jen S.
A new regular feature here is Mondayitis, published every Tuesday, it features guests discussing a series of questions. People have their own view of the questions and some use them as a starting point while others actually answer them, in their own particular way.
What do you read?
I tend to read fantasy first, with a slight overlap into straight Science Fiction. I am also interested in Biographies (particularly of movie stars for some reason) and have recently been working my way through a whole bunch of novels about biblical women (can anyone recommend something about a Hebrew queen called ShlomTzion? She sounds fascinating enough to have had (a) novel(s) written about her, but I can’t find anything!) I also subscribe to and read lots of Dance magazines and Sewing magazines. Oh, and I also read (and collect) comic books and have done so since I was 14 or thereabouts.
Why do you read?
Can’t imagine NOT reading! Will almost read anything that will stand still long enough for me to do so, including the Corn Flakes box and even the F* Manual!
Do you read for work or pleasure?
Mostly for pleasure, but will work my way through instructions on stuff if the pictures aren’t clear enough.
Can you do the Safety Dance while reading?
Didn’t know what the Safety Dance WAS until you recently posted a link to it. Could probably do it, but why? I’m usually lying (or at least sitting) down when reading. Difficult (but not impossible) to dance in that position!
Are you a Discworld/Twilight/Harry Potter fan?
Haven’t read Discworld, have read and enjoyed Twilight (Team Jacob, cos he’s cute and his name is almost the same as my grandfather’s) and Harry Potter (but only read the 7th book once). Am waiting on daughter to finish re-reading Hunger Games before I sink my teeth into it.
Would you attend a flash mob dressed as your favourite character?
Would I? I did! See attached picture from Take 5 magazine, from the attempt to get the Guiness World Record for the most people in one place in Superhero costume. (That’s me on the right.) There are lots of photos out there on Facebook of me in various costumes, which I’ve made. The latest was me as Deanna Troi at SupaNova 2012. I think that about covers it!
Edited to add the photo.
You can look for me on Facebook as “Aunty Jenny” if you would like to see and/or comment on the costumes!
Jen
Found a treasure
Sometimes it’s possible to find treasures just by reading the publishing page in a book. I did this last night with a book I listed and found it had been published specifically to commemorate The 33rd World Science Fiction Convention held in Melbourne August 1975. Worldcons are held in different cities around the world every year and this was the first one in the southern hemisphere.
Worldcon is a very significant event with speculative fiction fans coming from around the world. I went to Worldcon (also called Aussiecon 2010) and it was wonderful with panels on so many different features of writing and fandom.
My eldest had managed to get herself into a play. Written in the 1950s it was a very controversial play of the era focussing very closely on womens total emancipation from men. I enjoyed it very much and was thrilled to be seated with the father of science fiction fandom in Australia, Merv Binns and his wife, Helena. They are both lovely people.
I’m sure you want to know what Merv Binns has to do with the book. Apparently it was his idea to put together an anthology and so Lee Harding did exactly that. The book is called Beyond Tomorrow and is available for sale here. It has some wonderful authors in it including Ursula Le Guin who was also a guest of honour for Worldcon in 1975 and our very own Tony Morphett who has written so much for Australian television including writing the screen play of D’arcy Niland’s The Shiralee.
Deep Secret – Diana Wynne Jones
One of the many super fabulous books by the dearly loved and recently deceased Diana Wynne Jones. The description of the plot is as follows:
All over the universe, Magids are at work to maintain the balance of magic, using their own talents to push the right people into doing the right things at the right time. And on Earth, the Magids are working hard to coax the world into its rightful place Ayewards, towards magic.
Rupert Venables has been the junior Magid here for only two years when his sponsor dies; it’s up to him to find a replacement. Trouble is, the most promising on his list of five names, Maree Mallory, doesn’t want anything to do with Rupert Venables. And while the junior Magid is trying to track down the other four, the fatelines are becoming dangerously entangled on more than one world and magic starts getting out of hand…
When it comes to describing Jones’ books I find it hard to stop using adjectives. Her writing is spot on, her characters are believable and her worlds make me want to be there. I can’t reveal the twist as you might not want to read it and we can’t have that, but suffice to say Jones manages to get her usual unexpected twist into the book.
Deep Secret - Diana Wynne Jones
What I loved most about this book is part of the setting. She’s set it within a convention called PhantasmaCon, it was awesome. I’m sure she’s been to many conventions over the years, she’s probably been feted at a large number of them. Her descriptions described the madness beautifully. Sitting talking to someone, trying to have a sensible conversation when someone drifts past in some costume and you have to run after them as you need to talk to them about something ‘very important’. I have certain friends I only ever see at conventions or conferences. I adored her descriptions of the costumes and the people, she has them down pat. There’s a bit of madness with the layout of the hotel as it changes continually and the attendees barely notice, when they do they put it down the committee having done a wonderful job.
Just awesome stuff, it’s a good read if you want to attend a convention for the first time as it gives you a good understanding of how conventions work, it’s also a good read for the fantasy aspects.
Writing ebooks
One of the topics at the Problogger event on Friday was about writing ebooks. Here are some of the thoughts they gave us with a few of mine dotted around just to help me remember.
Outline
Start off with an outline, a sketch of what is meant to be and then fill in the gaps. Just like doing an essay, plan it with your skeleton first. Then stop and look at the outline to see if it makes sense. If you look at a traditional essay outline with an introduction, your dot points and then your conclusion you can’t go wrong.
Audience
Stop and think about your audience. What are they like, what is their knowledge and what are their skills? Try to aim the content and the writing style to your audience so you don’t patronise them and don’t give them too little information. The same could be said of this post, or any piece of writing. Can I panic now?
Pace your writing
Pace yourself, make sure you have appropriate length chapters and have consistent content and writing throughout. Don’t have a really lengthy first chapter and then reduce the size of the chapters as you go along, make sure you write the same amount in each chapter, you don’t want to lose your audience.
Know your topic
Don’t gloss over the writing when you don’t know enough about your topic. Research and add in the information. Give them the information in the way they need it, if it needs graphs or photos then put them in. If you need lots of white space to make something really important stand out then don’t be afraid to use it.
How will it look?
Plan how you want it to be displayed. Will it be viewed on an iPad or a widescreen monitor? The displays are very different and you’ll need to plan accordingly. Make sure the screenshots are a good resolution. Use whitespace, colour blocks, photos carefully to ensure your information is highlighted and not overwhelmed. Use no more than five or six colours throughout the book, use fonts sparingly choosing one family of fonts only and sticking to that rather than using lots of different fonts and making it look like a mish mash. You want elegance and style to combine with information.
Marketing
When it comes to marketing sell to yourself rather than your readers. Write your marketing information as if you’re the buyer, if you’ll buy it then so will others. You’re inferring knowledge, make sure you join the dots as to why they should buy that book from you. Don’t dilute the sales funnel with distractions, make sure to keep your twitter feed, Facebook page link, and other calls to action off your sales page.
Launch day/month?
Use social media to its full advantage, don’t just write one blog post and have one launch day. Have a series of events in place all leading up to the one day and then put the price up the next day.
Ejunkie is a great product for getting the information out into the public eye and it only costs $5, it syncs with Paypal, but is not good with multiple products. If you’ve only got one ebook then it’s well worth it.
Ads yes or no?
If the content is good and useful then it might be possible to put ads into an ebook, but be aware they might turn off the reader. Don’t make them overwhelm your content. Remember your readers are buying your content not your ads.
Teasers, how great are they?
Teaser content is great, but don’t give too much away. When writing some of your marketing articles include a page from the book but don’t do it too often as you need to ensure your readers will still buy it and get value for money.
Templates – awesome!
When writing multiple ebooks you could use a standard template to allow for consistentcy in the brand. There is an Ebook on ebook templates available for purchase.
Don’t devalue your work
Many websites use adobe Popups to allow visitors to receive a free ebook. This can work well for some companies but it can also have the effect of assigning a zero dollar amount to the ebooks and also assign a zero dollar amount to the work you’ve put into it. If you want to put in many hours to writing and producing an ebook then give it away for nothing who am I to stop you?
Length doesn’t matter
The ebook needs to fulfill a need and if it does then it doesn’t matter about the length. It could be six pages or 600 pages, the length doesn’t matter so long as the buyer gets value out of it.
Finding a price
To find a price do some market research in your area. Find a low price and a high price and then answer some questions. Is your brand premium or everyday and how big a problem does it solve? If it’s premium or it solves a big problem then pitch the price at the high end of the market, if not a premium brand or it doesn’t solve a big problem then pitch it a little lower. Don’t forget you can always give a discount for presales and then put the price up to it’s normal price on the day after launch. If you’d prefer to put your price up so high no-one will buy it then that’s your problem.
Problogger Event 2011
Last Friday I attended the second Problogger event. I went in my hat, I was very embarrassed to be wearing my hat but I wore it anyway.
I managed to get there with wet hair, well, that’s what happens when you wash it and it also rains. Hat hair reigns supreme! This hat is very special to me. It’s a representation of the hat worn by my favourite Discworld character. For many people their favorite character is Sam Vimes, or Granny Weatherwax but for me it’s Moist Von Lipwig. He spends a lot of time making it up on the spot and he then has the dashing and derring-do to make sure it happens, he also recognizes when a person has a particularity and doesn’t try to stamp it out but uses it to his full advantage even taking Stanley’s love for pins and adapting it to a love for stamps. I love those qualities in this character, he’s real and you can tell that. The hat is very special to me, my DD made it for me, specially for the third Discworld Convention in Sydney, I get the feeling I’ve mentioned it before. Here’s a picture of it.
That Hat!
Don’t zoom in and look at the imperfections…actually, do look at it, think to yourself how much love and care has gone into it, she designed it specially for me with the rest of the costume in mind, completely ignoring the fact I’d be feeling very embarrassed wearing it, sometimes we can learn so much from our kids. It’s good to come out of your comfort zone at times and I’ve certainly done that with this hat.
This hat has become my ID. I have it as my avatar on Facebook and Twitter, I’ll also be trying to make it my avatar on my blog. I’ll be wearing it to every conference and convention where I’ll be going under any of my online IDs. I don’t see how I’ll be able to take it overseas so it’s a good thing I don’t do overseas conventions. If you see me come and say hello!
I wrote a number of articles while listening to the wonderful speakers at the Problogger event and I’ll publish them over the next couple of weeks with some thoughts and photos of Armageddon.
Aussie Con 4 Random Photos
Just going to give you some random photos from Aussie Con 4.
Getting up close and person with a Light Saber.
Ankh-Morpork Post Office Bag
How do people do these things?
Such talent!
The talent is just amazing.
Rob Jan - Badges
Rob Jan and Gail Evans
Rob transformed into a Peacock
AussieCon 4 Days Four and Five
AussieCon 4 Days Four and Five were just awesome. By this time everyone is working on chocolate, coffee or adrenalin and there’s a real camaraderie everywhere. I stopped offering people jelly babies as I just forgot about them…not the people but the jelly babies. I have to admit at this point at the end of Day Five that I’m totally exhausted. I know I should be writing more but I think I’m just too tired. I fell asleep during the closing ceremony; I hope I didn’t snore. This is just a little blog to let you know I haven’t forgotten and I will blog more about it over the next week before I get back to normal blogging. I have a number of panels to talk about, inspired costumes to show you and businesses to highlight. For the moment, though I must go to bed.
AussieCon 4 Day Three
I’m a little behind as my website was down last night so I turned off the computer and went to bed.
Day Three was a fantastic day. At one point I sat down in the Signings/Fan Club room with a coffee and a muffin. I found the Scavenger Hunt sheet and just as I’m looking at it I notice one of the items on the list is a girl with blue hair (10 points). Fairly hard to find you’d think but sitting opposite me at the same table was a girl with blue hair. I called to her and asked if she’d mind me taking her photo so I could get my 10 points and she agreed, she was impressed with the number of points she was worth. Reading further down the list I noticed I needed various celebrity photos and I looked at the man who’d just sat next to me to see who he was and found he was the man I’d been looking for since I got in. He is heading the committee for Cabbage Con, the first Dutch Discworld Convention. Anyway, we had a good chat.
So, having started the Scavenger Hunt I then started taking lots of different photos and some time soon I have to collate them and find out how to enter.
I did attend some panels and yes they were really important ones but I also spent a lot of time networking. I spent some time in the panel Copyright in the 21st Century with Cory Doctorow as a very vocal speaker. I really enjoyed the panel The Best-Kept Secrets of Australian Horror at which the moderator mentioned one of my favourite books by one of my favourite authors; The Nargun and the Stars by Patricia Wrightson.
I’m sure I did a lot more but that’s all for now. I do intend to expand on some of these points in the future but only the more important ones. You really don’t need to know what I ate and how many inane conversations I had about my hat, yes I did wear a witches hat.
AussieCon 4 Day Two
As we walked in today I took a photo of Polly Woodside. Currently not open for visitors, Polly Woodside is a tall ship from 1885.
Polly Woodside
I took various photos of people whose names I didn’t get, they were in steampunk costume and looked absolutely fabulous. I also don’t think I’ve labelled the photos correctly as I don’t generally read steampunk so I’m unfamiliar with the characters they’re depicting.
Skeleton
Vampire
I only managed to get to two panels as I spent a lot of time talking to people and taking photos. Managed to connect with some people I met at the first Australian Discworld Convention and took a whole heap of photos of dealers and their stalls which I’m planning on featuring on other days when I can give them an appropriate amount of time.
Here’s a photo of me connecting with friends. Just in case you don’t know, I’m the short one in the front.
Old Friends
I was going to do a quick run down of the sessions I attended and some words about the Ditmar Awards but it’s after 11pm and I have to get up and do it all again tomorrow and then again Sunday and again on Monday. I’ll try to write some more tomorrow but I make no promises.
AussieCon 4 Day One
I’m not going to give you a blow by blow description as that would be too boring and too difficult. I’m told there’s around 2,000 people there and it certainly looks like that kind of number. A typical time slot has 17 different things to attend and choosing just one is really hard. At previous conventions I’ve been to the Dealer’s Room has been virtually empty during the sessions but today there were so many people there, I’d hazard a guess that there might have been around 50 people there and that was during the third time slot.
Just a bit of background for those who don’t yet know about Aussie Con. AussieCon 4 is the 68th World Science Fiction Convention, this is the fourth time it’s been held in Melbourne hence the name. I’ve just lifted this snippet from the AussieCon website.
The annual Worldcon brings together science fiction and fantasy professionals and fans from around the world. All forms of SF&F are represented – film, television, comics, costuming, gaming, and especially literature. Programming includes panel discussions, lectures, science demonstrations, films, readings, and autographing.
It is being held at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre in South Wharf and seems to have every facility for conventions imaginable. South Wharf and South Gate appear to lead directly to Flinders Street Station, the main railway station into the city of Melbourne and so I took that route to and from the station.
I only did two sessions today, Spoiler Alert: reviewing plot-driven fiction without giving the story away and The social aspects of online games. They were great sessions and I learnt a lot from each of them. The first one I attended as I wanted to learn how to write better reviews while the second I attended as a parent.
I managed to become a sponsor of Dudcon III which is held at the same time and place as AussieCon. This is very important is it is when the Ditmar Awards are held. We had our opening ceremony in the bar next to the convention and I feel robbed, I was assured it would take 30 seconds but I’m sure it only took 10! I took along jelly babies and bookmarks and offered them to everyone possible.
I’m not one for taking photos but I did take a couple. This one is of a couple of people dressed up the Clanks, cranks and steam-driven tanks: YA steampunk session. I do promise to try and take more tomorrow.
Clanks, cranks and steam-driven tanks: YA steampunk
I could show you a photo of the convention centre but I only took one on my way out and it was at night so it comes out a bit grainy. What I will show you is a video of the gas jets outside the casino. They were on in full force tonight with the flame jetting out in time to the music. When I was taking this video I could feel the heat of the flames on my face, I did wonder about my eyebrows at one stage.