9/28/09 - Weekend Recap
This was an eventful and productive weekend. Exhausting, but eventful and productive.
On Saturday we attended the First Annual Somerdale Day in Somerdale, NJ. It was very convenient, being ten minutes from our house, and it was a reasonable event at only $25 a table. Since it wasn't the traditional craft fair or book fair there was a lot more variety in the vendors. We were the only ones with books…and horns, the later of which made us pretty popular. While I did decent sales on the books given the type of event it was, the horns were by far my best seller and what everyone was talking about even if they didn't buy.
The cool thing is one of the organizers, her husband runs Fright Fest in Delaware and she was very excited to come over and buy a set of horns and took my information to give to him. Who knows if anything will come of that…it would be very nice!
On Sunday we were back at Between Books in Claymont, Delaware for our scheduled Delaware Launch of the anthology So It Begins, book two in the Defending The Future anthology series by Dark Quest Books. Being a Sunday and given the weather and the professional sports game scheduled, we only had about seven to nine people throughout the day, four of which were there with people participating in the event. Still, sales were decent given the attendance and the store took stock afterward for their shelves. We had a very enjoyable time with readings by CJ Henderson, Bernie Mojzes, James Chambers, AM Boyle, and myself. Mike McPhail was in attendance and participated, but he does not do author readings. While we were there, Mike and I got a sneak peek at the galley for The Stories In Between, the anniversary anthology we contributed to. The collection celebrates thirty years of operations for the book store and owner, Greg Schauer. Personally, I also got to meet the artist who illustrated my story, Blair Webb.
The nice thing on a personal note is that Sunday at 5:30 am (after a night of no sleep) I finished the Halfling's Court: A Bad-Ass Faerie Tale. To commemorate the event my readings at Between Books were from that instead of So It Begins. To top it off, the fabulous artist illustrating the book, Linda Saboe, www.croneswood.com, was there and gave me some of the completed artwork. Absolutely gorgeous! Here's a sneak peek of the art.
And finally, some publishing news I received Sunday night: I have agreed to do a writers book for Dragon Moon Press called The Elements of Fantasy: Magic. Originally this was to be a multi-author writer's guide but problems with that project have required this change in direction. As I was one of the original contributors and following up with the project, I was able to pursue the opportunity. It also means that the project is already roughly one fifth to one third of the way done, depending on how long subsequent chapters turn out to be. We are aiming for 30k to 50k words.
And today's question: What exciting or unexpected thing happened to you this weekend? For me it was the book deal and getting to see a mostly completed copy of The Stories In Between. Oh...um...and finishing the book, but while exciting, that was more desperate than unexpected ;)