Penguicon Recap: Day 3 - Sunday
Yeah I kind of dropped the ball here and forgot to write about my last day at Penguicon over the past couple weeks. Oops! I've been busy. Honest :/
Sunday
Since I had a 9 AM panel (followed by a 10 AM reading) I decided to call it an early night on Saturday. I kind of regretted it at first because Saturday night is the big party night, but the next morning I quickly realized I made the right choice. My first event of the day was the Guerrilla Marketing --- The Art of Self-Promotion panel. Usually, 9AM on a Sunday isn't the best slot for a panel (see above about Saturday being the big party night), but the room was PACKED. I was joined by The Time Traveler and Michael "Freon" Andaluz. The Time Traveler recorded the panel and I think he's gonna post it on his site at some point. This was a fun panel and it was my first time being a moderator, which was interesting.
The three of us talked about what we each consider Guerrilla Marketing and how we promote ourselves. I told about how I put my website address on everything I can that I give out, or in some cases wear, at conventions. And how I always carry cards with the websites on them, because you never know when you'll be somewhere you can leave a few laying out or meet someone who is interested in the book. I've found that when people ask me what my book is about, giving them the card makes it a lot easier (and they like the cover art on it too).
I must digress for a moment, because I ordered a new batch of promo cards yesterday and I changed what they said a bit. Above www.magicofeyri.com it used to say 'Learn More At" , but I changed it to "Discover the Magic at." I like that a heck of a lot more.
Back to the panel: we focused a lot on internet stuff and I told of how I'm on Livejournal, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, YouTube and Internet Movie Database. I also have this blog syndcated to my profile on Amazon.com. So I'm all over the place. I had a lot of fun on this panel and hopefully those who attended took home some helpful info.
Immediately following the panel, I had a reading with Freon at 10 AM. I was very nervous about this, as I have yet to do a public reading of ay of my stuff. Getting up and talking in front of people doesn't bother me at all, but reading some of my stuff aloud does. Go figure. Well, thankfully (but also sadly) I dodged a bullet. No one showed up to the reading, it was just Freon and I. So we sat around for an hour and chatted.
After the 'reading' I headed over to the Dealer's Room and thanks to William and Deborah Jones, was able to set up camp at the Elder Signs Press (ESP) table. I sold three copies while in the dealers room, which was great, and led to Deborah teasing me that I was monopolizing the table. I stayed in the Dealer's Room until my last panel of the weekend, How Has the Ease of Computer Animation Changed the Monster Movie?
This panel was a hoot. I was joined by William Jones, Jeff deLuzio and another gentlemen filling in for John Scalzi. Sadly Scalzi had a family emergency pop up at the last minute and he had to leave, so I didn't get a chance to meet him. Oh well. I still had a lot of fun. This panel had the most audience participation of all the panels/events I was a part of. We talked about all kinds of things, "less is more", flimmakers having limitations in the old days and how that made things more interesting, movie trailers showing too much, and all kinds of other fun movie related things. We of course touched on Cloverfield and pretty much all agreed that it was a step in the right direction in regards to using CGI in a monster movie.
After the panel I bummed around the hotel for a bit, talking to friends and fans -- even selling a copy of The Magic of Eyri in the halls. But the best part was when I was stopped by a fan:
Him: "Wait...you're Daniel J. Hogan?"
Me: "Yes."
Him: "I bought your book back at ConClave (October '07) -- I loved it !"
Me: "...Realy?"
Him: "Yeah! It was fan-f@#%ing-tastic! I couldn't put it down."
Me: "...Really?"
Him: "It was so hilarious, my mom kept asking me what the heck I was laughing about. It was great, and your world is totally believable."
(one side note: this is the second fan who's told me my world/characters are 'believable.' I guess I'm doing something right.)
Me: "What was your favorite part or character?"
Him: ::thinks:: "The ducks! I loved the ducks."
That was certainly one of the high points of my weekend. So, I'd say Penguicon was a big success. I had a great time.
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danieljhogan) wrote,
