Year 3: From the Empress to the World

Whoops. Is it still an end of the year review if it comes out in January?

I guess so.

This was an…interesting year for me as a writer. On paper, it was massively successful. The Voyage of the Forgotten, the third book in the Mercenary King series, released in November. The Kingdom of Liars published in Germany in December. And in a few months The Two-Faced Queen and Voyage will be releasing in German. We’ve had some other cool foreign rights translations as well. I attended DragonSteel and GenCon and both were fan-tastic. I should really write up a post about DragonSteel at some point. Shout out to the people who absolutely made my year by showing up with ARCs and hardcovers of my books looking for me to sign them. It was a good year. A more normal year and release than I’m used to.

Which is kind of sad, but after debuting in 2020, being able to attend conferences is pretty damn cool for me. But it’s also been quiet. I handed in Voyage to my publisher back in April of 2021. Edits came back in November/December 2021. And then I think I touched it for the absolutely last time in like…May 2022? I’ve been away from that world for so long it feels odd that something I wrote back in 2020 is finally coming out. This was a massive lead time for various reasons I can’t get into and I’m not sure I’d do it again. By the time the book came out, I had to reread parts of it just to remember what had happened when people began messaging me. Sorry to anyone who I made cry with the ending!

So, the other question is what I’ve been doing in the meantime. If people have been following me on social media, you’ve probably already heard of me talk about writing my ‘Fear’ book. I’m still working on it. Slowly. Carefully. I’m putting a lot of pressure on myself that the next thing I write will be perfect because…it kind of has to be. And that’s what I’m going to talk about in the rest of this update.

If you just want updates about what I’ve done and am working on, you can stop reading here. News will come when there’s more information. And I’ll be shouting the loudest about it.

For everyone else…let me talk about 2022 was like. And it was challenging. I use these year end updates to give myself and others a more honest take on things, so excuse me if it’s a little more melodramatic than normal.

Anyway.

I’m still dealing with consequences from releasing during the pandemic. LIke shit, I’d love to have a year end update where that wasn’t the case. Maybe next year? Still. The annoyances became bigger with my third publishing. Being an author is challenging at the best of times, but for some reason this year just felt like too much to handle. Maybe it was just because I was more jaded and knew more about publishing, but…I spent a decent amount of time this year wondering if I wanted to keep doing this.

Fuck. That’s a weird thing to write.

Being an author had been my dream since I had been in fifth grade writing the absolutely worst Harry Potter knock off anyone could imagine. I had sacrificed a lot to get here. And worked my ass off to get a contract when I was 23. But dealing with the high highs and low lows of everything that had happened to me since signing a contract really left me wondering if I could do it all over again. There were so many dumb parts of publishing that seeped away some of my passion. I love writing and telling stories but hate dealing with the business side of it.

There’s always this belief that gets passed around that you write because it’s a passion. And writing is a passion for me, but that feeling and urge to create doesn’t make up for the shitty parts. A passion still creates stress. A passion may not pay the bills, or even justify the hours spent on it. And if a passion is only making everything else around it worse, it becomes an obsession and that was something I desperately wanted to avoid. Alongside become one of those bittered individuals who blames everything and anything else because they’re not happy with the results. And this is always the worst part of writing a year end update or talking about my frustrations because there is only so much I can talk about publicly without burning half a dozen bridges down behind me.

I can always tell when other writers are doing the same because we all seem to use the same sort of language. Annoyed, yet avoiding direct conflict. Apologetic to the readers, but unable to explain exactly why things are happening.

So, let’s just leave it at that. I was tired. Truly utterly tired. And didn’t know what to do next.

So, I wrote. And wrote and wrote and wrote.

Tried new things. Weird things. Changed my style and how I developed plots, characters, settings, and everything else. Played around with new POVs. Came up with better hooks for pitches. And just kept writing and writing and writing. I’ve talked about Fear a lot, but that was just one of things I’ve been writing this year. Death is another. The Dark Lord is a third. (That’s the one I want to write after Fear). Wait. Have I talked about that one yet? I don’t think so. But it’s good. They’re all very good. Very me as I continue to try and push what the fantasy genre in a direction I think it should evolve into.

That’s kind of an egotistical thing to say, but authors don’t become authors by constantly saying their work is shit. It begins with someone saying either ‘I can do that to’ or ‘damn that sucked, I can do it better’ and then creating. And to continue in publishing, in my opinion, you must foster an ego strong enough to weather all the painful parts. Whether it becomes toxic or not is up to the individual.  

I didn’t necessarily have that belief a year ago. Struggling with what I was doing opposed to what I was seeing. But I’ve been getting better this year. Quietly. While fostering an ego that says ‘yeah, I deserve to be here.’ A few beta readers have seen what I’m working on but that’s really it. I haven’t tried to sell anything else yet because I’m not happy where it’s at.

Because I must be better than I was when I sold The Kingdom of Liars. Publishing puts so much emphasis on the debut that sometimes it can feel that if an author’s first books don’t do well then it can be impossible to overcome. So, at the end of the year, just like at the beginning and the middle, I was once against faced with the same question: Do I want to keep doing this? Do I want to keep dealing with the high highs and low lows? Would it better for me just to write for fun rather than profit? Was there a point where I had to admit that my dream was harming me in the long run?

The answer I came up with was…I’m not giving up just because of the absolutely annoying start I’ve had. Publishing is going to have to lock me out, board up the windows, and turn off the lights because I’m going to keep writing books. This isn’t a passion for me or an obsession. It’s a job. One I love, but a job nonetheless and I’ve taken strides to make it my forever one.

Just give me some time to make what I’m working on next perfect.

But, for now, there’s the tentative first line of Fear:

Down the twisted, crooked alleyway off Main and Seventh, there is a stall that only appears every Leevan after the whales have set and before the nightmares come out to hunt.

Cheers, here’s to another year.

How Do Writers Get Paid?

Every so often, I say something to a friend about publishing that causes them to stare at me, confused. More than often, that reaction is followed with some variation of “Wait, what?” or “Oh, that’s how it works?” It’s usually around then I remember that right, not everyone knows that and even a few years ago when I was an aspiring writer and was searching for information about publishing—how royalties work, how writers got paid, what translations are, etc—I didn’t know a sixth of what I know now. And that wasn’t for a lack of trying.

Like any industry, publishing loves its secrets, and it can be hard to find correct information about it online. Usually, the people who know the most are blocked from being easily contacted concerning these questions: author, agent, editor, etc. So, to try and help those who are coming up after me, I wanted to write a very clear, no-nonsense explanation about one of the most important aspects: How Writers Get Paid.

For simplicity’s sake, this is going to only be about traditional publishing. The big five—four if S&S ever successfully sells itself—to be exact. I’m also going to make some other assumptions for clarity’s sake. So, let’s start with the basics. Two fictional writers, Michael Kingman and Serena Hollow, will serve as my stand ins for this. They bear no semblance or correlation to any author, living or dead, and are entirely made up for this presentation. All right, disclaimer done. Anyway. Both have acquired agents, and both have successfully sold their books to a big five publishing company for World English Rights (This refers to the ability to publish the book in all territories agreed upon in English opposed to things such as North American English Rights and United Kingdom English Rights).

Michael has sold his novel and subsequent two novels in his trilogy for $30,000 while Serena went to auction and sold her novel and subsequent two novels in her trilogy for $300,000. Both are ecstatic, but also, wondering when they’ll get paid. And to be frank, it entirely depends on how good of a deal they got, who they published under, and what relationships their agencies already had with said publishers. Fun, right?

So, let’s first determine what it means to sell a novel for money. When an author sells their novel (or novels) they are paid what is commonly referred to as an “advance”. This is an advance against what the publisher thinks that book (or series) will make in the future. Think of it like a bet. They’re betting about how popular, or not popular, they think it’s going to be. But it’s also a loan. One writers aren’t expected to pay back if they fall under the expectations because every percentage of what a writer makes on a book goes to paying back the advance rather than directly to them. If a writer earns more from their book than what they were paid for in an advance, it’s called “earning out.” Which means any money made from their percentage of the book’s sales after that will directly go to the author rather than to paying back the advance. But that’s the future after a book has been published and, frankly, likely published for a few years at the earliest. Many authors never earn out their advance for a variety of reasons.

(Note: Earning out is a little more complicated than this depending on whether each individual book has to earn out with its own sales, or the books have been merged into one conglomerative of sales, but that’s a whole separate discussion.)

So, the advance. Michael’s advance for 3 novels was $30,000 while Serena’s was $300,000. How do they get this money? Well, like I said, it depends on how good of a deal they got during the contract negotiations. Commonly, there are three payment plans an author will get: dual, triple, and quad.

I’m also going to have to drop another note down here before I begin. For simplicities sake, I am choosing specifics milestones in an author’s career and publishing journey for them to get paid at. This is not a “This is how it’s done” and more of an example of how it could be done. I have not worked with every publisher, and cannot speak for every publisher, but conversations with fellow writers about this sort of stuff has left me confident that this example is common enough to be used as an example. Agents, who I fully believe earn their cut and more, are the experts in this field and any questions a writer has can be answered by them should they sign with one.

Back to the money. A dual payment plan is when an author gets their money at two distinct times. Half usually on signing the contract and then one third of that remaining half each time they deliver a book, and it is accepted. (What it means to deliver a book will depend on each publisher. But, to my knowledge, it means when the book is an acceptable state for publishing. Which is also why they must accept it. Sending in 150,000 words of Dragonball Z fanfiction will likely not get the money released if they were expecting a 150,000-word novel about a pathological liar set in 1920s Thailand.)

  (Extra-extra note: I am boiling all of this down to the most basic assumptions to make it easy to understand. Contracts and specifics may vary. Cool? Cool.)

So, let’s do the math for both Michael and Serena assuming they have this option.

  Michael will earn $15,000 upon signing his contract. And then get $5000 each time he hands in his novels.

Serena will earn $150,000 upon signing his contract. And then she’ll get $50,000 each time she hands in her novels.

Let’s assume this is over a three-year period from 2023-2025 when his three books are published. Michael’s earnings might look like this:

·         $15,000 in 2022 (Half of the contract) (Let’s also assume he signed it the year before since publishing is very rarely quick)

·         $5000 in 2022 (When book #1 is accepted) (Let’s say later half of the year)

·         $5000 in 2023 (When book #2 is accepted)

·         $5000 in 2024 (When book #3 is accepted)

Now, for Serena:

·         $150,000 in 2022 (Half of the contract) (Let’s also assume he signed it the year before since publishing is very rarely quick)

·         $50,000 in 2022 (When book #1 is accepted) (Let’s say later half of the year)

·         $50,000 in 2023 (When book #2 is accepted)

·         $50,000 in 2024 (When book #3 is accepted)

When you look at it like that—that’s pretty good. That’s orderly and consistent. But a dual payment option is the best it can get for a writer. They get their money quickly and without too much hassle. But since this kind of payment method is the best, it’s also the hardest to get. If, while negotiating, an author didn’t have much leverage or have an agent with a boiler plate (the standard contract they sign with a publisher) with this payment method already established then they likely won’t get it. They’ll be paid in accordance with another method. One that releases the money slower and is more favorable for the publisher.

Now let’s go to the three-payment method. First, they still get paid half their contract on signing. Next, they get a sixth of their money upon delivering each book and then another sixth when that book publishes. Michael and Serena would look like this:

Michael will earn $15,000 upon signing his contract. And then get $2500 each time he hands in one of his novels and then another $2500 when that book is officially published.

Serena will get $150,000 upon signing her contract. And then get $25,000 each time she hands in her novel and then another $25,000 each time it’s officially published.

Again, let’s assume this is over a three-year period from 2023-2025 when his three books are published. Michael’s earnings might look like this:

·         $15,000 in 2022 (Half of the contract) (Let’s also assume he signed it the year before since publishing is very rarely quick)

·         $2500 in 2022 (When book #1 is accepted) (Let’s say later half of the year)

·         $5000 in 2023 (When book #2 is accepted, and book #1 is published)

·         $5000 in 2024 (When book #3 is accepted, and book #2 is published)

·         $2500 in 2025 (When book #3 is published)

And now for Serena:

·         $150,000 in 2022 (Half of the contract) (Let’s also assume he signed it the year before since publishing is very rarely quick)

·         $25,000 in 2022 (When book #1 is accepted) (Let’s say later half of the year)

·         $50,000 in 2023 (When book #2 is accepted, and book #1 is published)

·         $50,000 in 2024 (When book #3 is accepted, and book #2 is published)

·         $25,000 in 2025 (When book #3 is published)

Doesn’t look as good as the first model, right?

Depending on how fast Michael and Serena write and what their publishing schedule looks like they could have very weird feasting-lean years of writing income. If everything goes perfectly, Serena could earn $175,000 in one year, and then between $25,000 and $50,000 the next two to three years. This is also why many are warned how to quit their day jobs even if they get a fantastic contract since it can be hard to deal with all the ups and downs of publishing.

Finally, let’s look at the final payment method: in quarters. First, they still get paid half their contract on signing. Next, they get a ninth of their money upon delivering each book and then another ninth when that book publishes. And then they get the final ninth upon the paperback version publishing. (I’m using this paperback version as an example, not the standard, since I think it exemplifies the point well that payments can be spread out over a long period of time that are not in an author’s control. This may vary. Another example may be a year after the book has been published.)

Back to the math. Michael and Serena will look like this:

Michael will earn $15,000 upon signing his contract. And then get $1250 each time he hands in one of his novels, another $1250 when that book is officially published, and then another $1250 when the paperback version of that novel is published.

Serena will get $150,000 upon signing her contract. And then get $12,500 each time she hands in her novel, another $12,500 each time it’s officially published, and then another $12,500 each time the paperback version is published.

So, once again, let’s assume this is over a three-year period from 2023-2025 when his three books are published. (Spoilers, it’s not just going to be just those years). Michael’s earnings might look like this:

·         $15,000 in 2022 (Half of the contract) (Let’s also assume he signed it the year before since publishing is very rarely quick)

·         $1250 in 2022 (When book #1 is accepted) (Let’s say later half of the year)

·         $2500 in 2023 (When book #2 is accepted, and book #1 is published)

·         $3750 in 2024 (When book #3 is accepted, book #2 is published, and book #1 is published in paperback)

·         $2500 in 2025 (When book #3 is published, and book #2 is published in paperback)

·         $1250 in 2026 (When book #3 is published in paperback)

See ups-and-downs and how the tail has become longer in this model? A writer couldn’t sustain themselves on this if this was their only job. Their pay becomes widely inconsistent. And, once again, this is assuming their books come out in an orderly, yearly fashion. Add another year in there somewhere and things get much leaner. But let’s look at Serena to see how she did:

·         $150,000 in 2022 (Half of the contract) (Let’s also assume he signed it the year before since publishing is very rarely quick)

·         $12,500 in 2022 (When book #1 is accepted) (Let’s say later half of the year)

·         $25,000 in 2023 (When book #2 is accepted, and book #1 is published)

·         $37,500 in 2024 (When book #3 is accepted, and book #2 is published, and book #1 is published in paperback)

·         $25,000 in 2025 (When book #3 is published, and book #2 is published in paperback)

·         $12,500 in 2026 (When book #3 is published in paperback)

Suddenly, that looks better, but nowhere near as good as the previous models.

And this is very simplified look at how a writer gets paid in the current model. Publishing, at its core, is a meritocracy. The more an initial advance is the more likely that writer and series will get more marketing so the publisher can get back their money. And success begets success. Which is why it can sometimes feel and look like some writers are getting everything while others are getting none.

I wish I had some insightful wisdom to share here, but I don’t. This is publishing, whether we like its methods or not.

Best of luck.

Year 2: From the Magician to the World

Another year down as a professional writer. This one seemed to fly by in the blink of an eye. Like last year, my plan moving forward is to keep doing this end of the year wrap ups. Mainly to give myself an excuse to reflect on how the year went writing wise and what I wish I had done differently. And, in a way, these posts serve as a small-time capsule of who I was and what I thought which I like the idea of. Hopefully everyone enjoys reading them!

So, 2021 started with the release of THE TWO-FACED QUEEN back in March—which, look, I’m biased but I think it’s utterly incredible. It’s a book I’m very proud of and truly think was better than my debut. Go read it if you haven’t yet! And if you haven’t seen what Kirkus said about it—you can below:

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/nick-martell/two-faced-queen/

Moving on, I spent the first half of 2021 finishing up THE VOYAGE OF THE FORGOTTEN, the third book in the Mercenary King series. I found it more challenging to write than the TFQ for various reasons. The start gave me a lot of trouble. There were too many different paths to take, so I’d end up writing a huge section, scrap it, and then restart. Eventually I got to a start that let me advance in the novel, but I wasted too much time in the beginning than I would have liked. I think…by my best guess I probably scrapped somewhere between 300k to 400k of words in all of writing, rewriting, and editing process. One thing I hope to fix moving forward is to be more efficient. I shouldn’t have to write the equivalent of three books just to publish one.

But luckily, I think the start of THE VOYAGE OF THE FORGOTTEN is fantastic. Might be my best one yet. There’s a few lines and scenes that I can reread over and over again which is quite rare for me. Besides for when I listen to the audiobook or dramatic version, I usually don’t read my own books again once they’ve been published. And, like all the other books, I’ve put my all into the ending of the third book. It was wonderful and heartbreaking to write. I won’t speak much about it except for a single line that I think encompasses the entire novel very well.

“To taunt death, one must not seek immortality, but instead—to truly spite the unwavering hunter—it is best to leave something behind they can never claim.”

Ok, I lied. One more line.

“This was not how our fathers waged war. With their tidy lines of shields and spears advancing cautiously, honorable duels between knights in plate, or even tactical nautical battles. This was chaos, a magical conflict of the kind that only existed during the Wolven Kings reign.”

I’m really excited to see what everyone thinks about it. It’s probably my best yet.

THE VOYAGE OF THE FORGOTTEN will be releasing November 2022. As always, I’m sorry for the delay, but some things are out of control. It’ll be worth the wait.

I’ll have to write another post soon about the future of the Mercenary King series, but that’s something for another day.

After finishing up book 3, I’ve spent a lot of time working on new things. For awhile I was writing two books concurrently—nicknamed my Fear and Death books respectively. Eventually, after getting about 50k-60k into both, I decided to focus on the Fear one. It’s fun to write something new, and honestly is my love letter to the things I grew up on. But not in the fantasy genre, but anime and video games. I wanted to create something that gave me the same feelings as when I watched Digimon and One Piece and played the Legend of Zelda and Kingdom Hearts—the grand sense of adventure, the weird world, the loss of innocence in the face of growing up, and unique companions that have bound themselves to the characters—and I think I’ve recreated those feelings well. But we’ll see.

Ironically, I’ve got titles I really like for both Fear and Death, but I won’t test my luck by putting them out in the world until ink has dried on paper.

And that’s about it for 2021.

Ok, Ok, I lied again. One last line from THE VOYAGE OF THE FORGOTTEN:

“The world needs a villain to reset it, so I am here to play the role with a smile and a bow.”

My thanks to everyone that has supported me and the Mercenary King series this year! And here’s looking forward to 2022.

Year 1: From the Fool to the World

Weird title for an end of the year wrap-up, right?

Let me explain that briefly before we start the end of the year wrap up. Back in 2016, I titled my senior portfolio in creative writing From the Fool to the World in relation to the tarot card deck and the various arcana the Fool’s journey represented. The collection centered around various stories with the themes of the major arcana being a basis for what each story was about. At the time, it felt like an appropriate to show my development and now more than ever it still does. Most days I still feel like a fool trying his best to survive in a weird world.

So, anyway, let’s get to the meat and potatoes of this post.

2020 was a fun year. I spent most of it traveling to new places and going to conventions including and not limited to Worldcon, Boscon, Balticon, and so many others. I met a lot of new friends in the writing community, got to sign tons of my own books for the first time at these conventions, and…alright, alright, I’ll stop the charade. 2020 was a nightmare for a lot reasons, so I’ll actually talk about how it was.

Early 2020 was spent primarily on me doing edits for book 2, The Two-Faced Queen. Frankly—and I know how lucky I am—book 2 was fairly easy to write. The most extensive edits I made on it were in the beginning —anything about 50% of the way through was more or less unchanged. And even the early edits were focused around speeding up the action and figuring out how to start a book without rehashing too much from the first. Along with making sure it wasn’t inaccessible for those who started the series with book 2 rather than the first. Tricky stuff, but I think I ended up with a nice blend of everything. If you read The Two-Faced Queen without reading the first, let me know what you think! I’d be really curious to see if dropping into the story with the sequel worked for you or not.

Anyway, it’s a weird thing having two books under my belt and being able to see my strengths and weaknesses in writing more plainly. I don’t think it’s a surprise if I say endings are a strength of mine while the beginning of stories are something I still need to work on. I tend to write stories that require a lot of build up for the endings which inevitably makes the start of those stories suffer. The Two-Faced Queen’s beginning is better than The Kingdom of Liar’s was, but I’ll still need to improve this aspect of my writing moving forward. I’ll never stop learning and oddly enough that gives me something to focus on. I do better with goals. Maybe it’s a carry over from my sporty days.

So, that was the start of the year, and for the rest of the year I worked on book 3 and, honestly, dealt with the aftereffects of having The Kingdom of Liars come out. And…well, it was an interesting launch. Pandemic issues aside—including another delay in its release, overall stress of debuting, two separate launch dates, and Michael Kingman’s very unique ability to piss off a lot of readers—it was a fairly rough time. I lost a lot of confidence in my ability as a writer after seeing people’s very mixed reactions to Michael’s voice. It led me to question what I was doing and how I was. Now isn’t really the time to talk about this in length, but for as often as I was writing…I was probably spending as much time rewriting, not happy with what I was creating. And that’s without mentioning all the other ups and downs in my personal and professional life . I felt outside the writing community and other communities I had once liked participating become stress inducing. For a long time, I didn’t really know how to get over that mental hump.

Thankfully, I’m in a better place now. I know what kind of writer I am and believe I’m only getting better.

So all of this leads me into talking about how book 3 is going. As of right now, I’ve written and cut more than 250k words from various drafts of book 3. It’s easily the most challenging thing I’ve ever written, but as 2020 comes to an end, I’m starting to get a better handle on it. The current draft I have if something like 150k or maybe 160k. I think? It’s hard to tell since it’s spread out in a few documents as I piece things together. Thankfully, the various delays for book 1 gave me a lot of room to go down wrong paths and grow as a writer. I still don’t know if I’m good as a writer as I need to be to pull this book off, but I guess we’ll find out together, eh?

Ideally, I think the word count will be somewhere around 190k. Or I hope it does at least. Going over that 200k word count sounds like a recipe for getting calls from my agent and editors asking what happened and if anything can be cut…

Other than that, I’ve been working on a standalone novel that I absolutely adore, but since it’s not under contract yet, I can’t say anything about it. Well, maybe I can tease it a little bit. It’s the story of a surgeon who tries to kill his daughter in a deathless world. I’ve been having way too much fun with it whenever Michael’s voice became too overwhelming.

Anyway, in a nutshell, that’s been 2020.

Here’s to 2021. Thank you for everyone who has been with me so far. I hope I live up to your expectations moving forward.

Con Life: From Unknown to Having a Deal

The first con I ever went to was World Fantasy ‘16 in Columbus.

 I had just completed a book I was happy with, done my research, and despite being painfully shy at times, thought this might be a good opportunity to meet people in the community. Long story short, I spent most of my time going to panels, readings, and trying to work up the courage to talk to people I knew from twitter, their books, or the few agents I knew the names of. I failed about as spectacularly as one can. For starters, everyone seemed to be in groups that were more intimidating to go near than the popular girls when I was in elementary school. And not wanting to bother them, I stayed away, hoping I might find an opportunity to break in at a different point. At the time, I didn't know room parities were a thing, so I lost the chance to meet people there. Which, the more cons I go to, I've realized that if someone's at one, they're ok with being talked to. Instead, I spent most nights at the bar, at the counter, watching the world series games on tv. Despite disliking baseball and desperately wanting to meet people. At the time, the only writing community had ever been a part of was at my university. And they were more literary than I ever aspired to be.

But, lucky for me, someone took pity on the poor kid sitting at the bar alone and invited me to join his friends at their table. Without him, I don't know if I would have ever gone to a con again. I also don't know if I would have an agent or a book deal without that small act of kindness. Because he ended up introducing me to my agent, and from there, well, my agent helped me refine the book I knew had potential into something other people might want to read. If there's any one person who has every right to take credit for my career if I ever become popular, it's him.

So that was the first con I went to.

The first con I went to as an agented author was World Fantasy ‘17 in San Antonio.

Immediately, it was like night and day. Authors I had met at previous cons introduced me to editors or other authors, no longer making me feel like the kid who alone at the table in the cafeteria while laughter echoed from the other end. The agency I was apart of introduced me to even more people. It was a lot. Names upon names, conversations upon conversations, and I don't even remember how many times I said the pitch of my book. Because of that con I still have it memorized. But the thing I remember the most was the weird feeling I had when I talked to certain people. People who at first seemed disinterested in me but lit up when someone else told them who my agent was. It made me feel gross. As if I were simply some steppingstone for them to get closer to someone else. But people like that were few. Maybe that’ll change the further into my career I get.

I remember that con fondly, because it was just fun to meet people and talk about books. And it was long before I started worrying about publishing things. I was just a kid having fun. That feeling went away with time, but I'd like to get back to it one day.

The first con I went to with a deal was WorldCon 76 in San Jose.

I remember going there just wanting to meet new people and hang out with those I hadn't seen in a while, catch up with my editor, and have a meal with my agent. But the issue with those cons is just the sheer size of them. The hangout location of the professionals changed each night and unless someone tells you where it is, you spend part of your night wandering around hotels seeing if you recognize someone at a bar. It's exhausting. But worse, at World Fantasy I already had trouble remembering everyone's name, but WorldCon it was almost impossible to keep them all straight. Especially nights I walked home at 3am after waking up at 6am the previous day trying to recall, or find the twitter handle, of the person I spent half an hour talking to in the bar at 8pm before I was overwhelmed with more names the next day. It was around then I stopped taking it personally if someone forget me or my name even if we had talked at a conference. And hope they do the same for me. Cons are exhausting.

The more cons I go to, the more my experience changes each time. I imagine my first con with a book out will be different than all these cons before…but I’d like to try to introduce new people to others as someone did for me at World Fantasy ‘17. So, this is me saying, that if anyone ever sees me at a conference come say hi. I know what it’s like and have difficulty approaching people I don’t know-know, so I’ll do my best to approach other people I see them alone too.

I don’t think I’d be able to look myself in the mirror if I ever forgot where I started.