The blog of Luther M. Siler, teacher, author and local curmudgeon
I haven’t actually watched this yet. Well, okay, I got through like my first sentence and then decided I couldn’t watch any more, because the sight of me on video is kind of terrifying.
But YOU can watch it if you want. My first video interview! Woo!
Why November Wankery 1? Because chances are there’s going to be another one, maybe later today, maybe not, about sales and traffic. Because the great thing about getting 12K pageviews in a day is that I am under no obligation whatsoever to be interesting to anyone other than me.
So. Yeah. Starbase Indy.
That went… well?
Much like InConJunction, what is not in question is whether I had a good time. I definitely did. I enjoy these things, although the fact that for the second con in a row I was sitting near some very fun people definitely didn’t hurt. I sold a lot more books this time, 36 in total, which unfortunately still wasn’t quite enough to pay for both the hotel room and the table. I think in the future I need to focus on conventions in towns where I can stay with friends, or when I’m back in Indianapolis I need to drop the idea of staying at the convention hotel and find the nearest cheap La Quinta Inn or something like that. There’s only so many times I can go to these things and lose money; exposure’s fun, but you can die from it.
But. That exposure.
The following things happened: did I tell the story at InCon about giving my very last customer a free copy of Sanctum, and telling him that if he liked it, to find me at the next con and buy something? Well, if I didn’t, that happened.
He wasn’t the first person at my table, but he was probably second or third. Sadly, that’s as good as the story gets– he had a terribly apologetic look on his face and told me that Sanctum was literally the next book on his TBR shelf and he hadn’t gotten to it yet. Which, dude, I’m a reader, that’s fine. I’ve got a book by Salman Rushdie on my shelf that’s been waiting at least that long. If I can make Salman Rushdie wait, you can make me wait. Point is, he came over and talked to me about my books some more.
More fun? This happened. Not only did these folks begin the conversation with “I follow you on Twitter” and not only did they buy a book, they took my picture and blogged about it. Like I’m some sort of interesting person or something like that. Which was insanely awesome.
Also insanely awesome: getting interviewed by these folks on Day 3. As far as I know the podcast/video with the interview in it isn’t up yet, but I will of course link to it immediately once it is. And I’ve got a card from another guy who wants to do an interview at some point but didn’t have recording equipment with him.
None of these things happened at InCon. Which is not a slam on InCon, as it was my first convention, but holy hell did I feel more like an author and less like some sort of poseur at this one.
So, yeah. The con went well. Next up is C2E2, which despite my earlier griping I managed to find a way to send money to (and which I will almost certainly lose more money at) and the next one is either PenguiCon, which is right by my aunt’s house, or IndyPopCon in June. We’ll see.
…because why the heck not. This might be pretty in summertime:
The con hasn’t killed me yet.
It may have driven me insane, though.
I need a salad.
I should be packing right now; I’m spending the next three days at the Wyndham Indianapolis West in, uh, Indianapolis at the Starbase Indy science fiction/ Star Trek convention. I will, hopefully, both have a really good time and sell an insane number of books.
It goes without saying that I think if you’re in Indianapolis or within reasonable driving range that you should come see me. At least, it should go without saying, even though technically I just said it twice.
“But, Luther!” you cry. “Who shall post roughly every four to five hours while you are awake? How could we go a weekend without you? Isn’t it true that it’s been a year since you missed a day?”
First of all, no, not quite; the last time I missed a day was December 23, 2014. So it’s been almost a year. Second, as of right now my next six posts are set up, taking care of the blog through Monday morning. You’ve got two from me (well, one’s a Station Identification) and four guest posts coming from four very capable writers, at least one of which genuinely deserves to go even more viral than the Syria post (35,456 hits and counting) did. You’ll know it when you see it. There’s also an announcement coming Monday morning! Your hint is that it’ll be on Cyber Monday. Let your brain run wild.
Anyway. Don’t spend too much money in the big boxes this weekend, kids. The sales aren’t that good anyway. Support local and independent retailers and all that. And come see me!
As of a couple of days ago, it’s been a solid two months since I managed anything like the work schedule I’ve grown accustomed to over the last 15 years, and as of right now it’ll be another two before I’m officially supposed to return. Last weekend my brother and his fiancée were in town along with my best friend and we had Thanksgiving with my family a week early. My son is on Thanksgiving break, and he’s home with me right now.
What this means is that I am a complete mess in terms of knowing what day of the week it is or when I’m supposed to be doing what or basically anything else. I wrote the headline to this piece before I actually started it and I swear it was originally a #WeekendCoffeeShare post, meaning I thought it was bloody Saturday.
Thursday/Tomorrow is Real Thanksgiving, which will be celebrated with my wife’s family, and Friday through Sunday I’ll be at Starbase Indy in, well, Indianapolis. I won’t be able to go anywhere or do anything tomorrow, though, so anything I need to buy or print or get done for Friday actually needs to be done today because everything righteous will be closed tomorrow.
That’s not helping.
So, yeah, today’s a weird day, and I have absolutely no idea what’s going on with my life right now. I’m hoping the week after Thanksgiving holds a bunch of good news, but I’m not talking about that until it happens.
In other news, the Syria post had 10,316 views yesterday. Remember when I was kvetching a little bit that it didn’t look like I’d get as many views this year as last year and that I really wanted 100K out of this year? That post has been live for about exactly a week (within half an hour) as I’m typing this and it’s had 29,445 views, so so much for worrying about that. It’s finally starting to show some signs of slowing down, and tomorrow is a major national holiday, so right now I’m guessing yesterday was the peak, but we’ll see what happens.
Much more to do today, so we’ll talk later.
First, a bonus story for those of you who have read Searching for Malumba, particularly those of you who have gotten to the chapter called “A Long Day, Pt. 2.”
Out of nowhere, my Bruce Banner Facebook account just got a friend request from Caesar, of all people. I haven’t heard from Caesar since the last day of the Washington DC trip I took him on when he was in 7th grade. Technically, I wasn’t supposed to do that, because he had transferred out of our school earlier in the year, but the adults involved basically looked around and went hell, he’s a good kid, let’s just not tell anybody, and it ended up working out fine anyway.
Caesar, and this will only be funny to those of you who have read Malumba, is a politician now, as in “he is actually running for state office in 2016,” and he has a Facebook page full of pictures of himself in a nicer suit than any of the ones I own, standing next to important politicians, including one former President and at least three people currently running for office.
I approved the request immediately. This is one of the ones I have wanted to be able to keep an eye on. 🙂
And now, the announcement, and this one’s a big one: I have just received confirmation that I will have a Small Press booth at C2E2 2016, running from March 18th-20th of next year. This means that I have three convention appearances currently planned out and official: Starbase Indy later this month, C2E2 in March, and IndyPopCon in June. I’m still trying to get into one more in August that I’ve not been to before (and which will also be a really big deal), and I’m thinking about going to next year’s InConJunction, which was the one I want to last summer. If Starbase Indy is fun and profitable, I’ll seriously consider doing that again next year too, but we’ll see how the first one goes.
That’s a big deal. That’s tens of thousands of people who I’ll have access to next year in person and not through my blog or Twitter. 2016 could be a very, very big deal for Luther Siler.
I’m excited already. 🙂
I‘m elated to be able to announce this, as I had thought that I’d been locked out of attending, but my next convention appearance will be at Starbase Indy at the Wyndham Indianapolis West Hotel over Thanksgiving weekend! I’ll have all of my books with me, including Searching for Malumba, and I’ll have bookmarks available for giveaways again too. Maybe even something else, if I come up with some great ideas between now and then.
I will definitely have a booth in the dealer area, and I’m going to look into whether I can manage to be on a panel or two while I’m there as well, since that was something I wasn’t able to do when I was at InConJunction back in July. This will definitely be my last con of 2015, as I don’t even know of any taking place in December, but… man oh man, do I have some plans for 2016! Plans I can’t even tell you about yet! Woo!
More details to come later as things are firmed up.
Welcome to infinitefreetime dot com 