Working On A Convention

Several months ago a good friend of mine stopped by while on a trip to visit her children in California. She stayed overnight in my guest room and we had the chance to catch up and talk for hours about all things writing as well as just the goings on in our lives. After chatting for awhile about her wedding I had attended about a year prior we turned our attention to writing events we wanted to attend.

She has a start-up company called Indimagination and as the representative of her company she has the desire to go to different conferences and conventions. There are a number of book festivals, writers conferences and conventions all around the world but as we have discovered, there are significantly fewer that are either Indie Author friendly or focused. We decided that it would be great to have one here on the west coast and if we couldn't find one then we would just have to put one on ourselves.

Following the moderate success of the Survivor launch last year and the fact that I live in one of the biggest convention cities in the world we settled on the idea of doing at least the first one right here in Las Vegas. I took a chance and traveled up to Washington to see her and meet some of my other writer friends, most of whom I hope will be able to attend the Con here, earlier this year. It was fun as well as an eye opening experience.

I am undeniably new to the con scene and have a lot to learn but as the "boots on the ground" role for the group I feel comfortable in my role. I will be the main local contact and will handle the media most likely, partially because I have connections with them already as well as being the local planner. I will also hopefully be helping with welcoming any special guests, doing announcements and working to coordinate some of our charity efforts.

I am also a member of a number of local writer groups and will be attending as many meetings as possible with them and our independent book stores and libraries, perhaps even the schools here in Clark County to help drum up support and awareness. This is a dream for me to be a part of an event that could help create exposure for so many talented authors as well as continue to grow as an author and event coordinator myself. I am very excited!