I like to have my event schedule sorted out early in the year. This allows for me to schedule my writing around conventions and festivals so I can set a book launch date with plenty of time to allow to finish, edit, format and printing.
This is what this year looked like:
- March/Apr- Oz Comic Con Adelaide
- August 5-6 – steampunk panel and write your own Discworld story workshop at Nullus Anxietas
- August 19-20 – Salisbury Writing Festival
- August 27th – ACG Ball
- September (mid) – Steampunk Festival
- September (late) – Steampunk Pirate Ball
- November – Supanova
Though I had lost a couple of months due to ill health, I was still on target for a September launch date, when I hope to launch it at the Steampunk Festival (who were kind enough to host the book launches of both Doctor Jack and Eye of the Beholder) .
I recently got my email for the Steampunk Festival and tendered my application and started preparing for Salisbury Writing Festival registration…
But, wait…
I grabbed for printouts for Steampunk Festival and flipped through them. Dang! The Steampunk festival has changed dates. The original Steampunk Festival was held in May, then twice in September, which is why I tentatively scheduled it in for the same time this year. Big mistake! It is now scheduled for 19-20 August – the same weekend as the Salisbury Writers Festival.
Decision time!
I enjoy Salisbury Writers’ Festival. I’ve got a lot out of it in the past six years. I meet fellow writers, hear from publishers and agents in panels, on the state of writing and publishing in Australia. Members of my writing group enter the short story competition. This year I may have convinced some of my fellow writing group to attend the actual festival.
But will I?
The Steampunk Festival is one of my favourite event – costume-wise, meeting readers and fellow steampunks. It is a photographic smorgasbord. This is my tribe. They understand me.
Sales-wise it is my biggest event of the year. I have launched both my books at the Steampunk Festival and hope to again this year. This means I have lost a month of writing time and now have to finish my book earlier to get it out in time for August.
<insert expletives here>
But I’ve made my decision. It wasn’t hard in the end; I go where my readers are. I’ll just have to pull up my socks and write faster. I’ve got a closer deadline now. No time for napping.
Photos ©2016 Karen Carlisle. All rights reserved.
Agreed. I’m hoping the event will accept my application and allow me to do my book launch there this year. I love the Steampunk Festival.
My two pesos? Festivals, retreats, cosplays, and cons are all nice things to be at, but if you are writing professionally, and even more so if you are fighting for recognition and trying to establish patterns and traditions for your own publishing, and you have established a tradition of “Book launches take place at event XYZ,” that seems a powerful inducement to attend that event over any other.
Like I say, just my two cents; as a hobbyist, I don’t face the kind of pressures you pros do, and maybe that makes it easier to see. Best of luck in any case!