After a self-imposed hiatus from touring, I'm again loose from my cage. A couple of years back I was part of the WordFire Press road crew hefting books from convention to convention. That was a great experience not only hawking books shoulder-to-shoulder with other writers but it was also an amazing opportunity to meet fans. When I first got published I attended as many writer conventions as I could afford such as Bouchercon, Left Coast Crime, and ThrillerFest. While these cons were a blast--suffice to say a LOT of booze was consumed--I decided they weren't worth the money. Flying out of town, plus hotel and meals, and the con fees would set me back a cool grand. Anything in New York was almost twice that. Truthfully, at these cons, the public was mainly interested in the hardback NYT bestsellers and most times, the vendors wouldn't bother stocking my vampire novels. I'd usually only get one panel, not surprisingly, first thing Sunday morning. We panelists were lucky if we didn't outnumber the audience!
This year I'm traveling with the Bard's Tower, the venture headed by Rabid FanBoy. They took over the operation from WordFire and streamlined the process. As before, our venues are the comic cons, actually known now by several other names, as Comic Con has been trademarked and reserved for use by those within the proper fold. Besides the format, the biggest differences between what we do and traditional writer cons are attendance and the workload. Attendance meaning greeting between fifty thousand and a hundred thousand people who file by our booth. Workload meaning unpacking hundreds of books, setting up the booth and tower, staffing the booth from 10AM to 8PM, then the final tear down. I bought new Dr. Martens with extra cushy soles, however even with them, at the end of each day, my dogs aren't just barking but howling.
Typically, those of us working the booth sell out at least one title. And it brings a big smile when in these distant burgs, a customer remarks, "Aren't you Mario Acevedo? I have your books!" Bless you, kind reader. I only wish I had a thousand more fans for each of you.
If you want to come by and browse the Bard's Tower, check out my 2019 schedule. See you there.
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