on life & other inconveniences

For me, many of my favourite moments at the convention centered on Brian. This wasn’t just his first Bouchercon - it was his first convention.

Another thing about Brian: he doesn’t do a lot to draw attention to himself online. Do you know how I met him? He reviewed my first book, but that’s a story for another day.

A lot of people don’t realize what he’s doing behind the scenes to support the genre. And that makes it interesting when he’s meeting people for the first time.

Moments I absolutely loved where when Brian introduced me to Gary Philips. Not only did they hang out in the signing room together after their panels, but Gary knew Brian. They’d never met in person, but when Brian wrote his black crime fiction article, Gary helped him with some research. When we were saying goodbye on Sunday it was absolutely genuine when Gary shook Brian’s hand and said it had been great to meet him.

You could tell he meant it.

I also loved the fact that David Corbett was so pleased to meet Brian, and more interested in talking to Brian than me. Not that he was rude at all, but he was just genuinely glad to meet someone he’d exchanged correspondence with and knew a bit from online.

Of course, I lost Brian completely when he went off to hang out with Robert Ward. Brian runs Bob’s wikipedia site, and apparently rescues him from major and minor irritations but we won’t go into that here and now. Maybe SuperBrian will tell all another time.

Or not.

I was reminded of the importance of how an author carries themselves at a convention by watching Brian, and part of that came through the contrast of Dave White to another author we’ll just call Ms X.

Not only was Dave a hell of a nice guy, but he was also thoughtful. We’d certainly had more than one chance to chat with Dave in passing, but when the convention was nearing its end he made a point of saying to Brian he’d appreciated the review.

That would be the one from over a year ago.

Short, sweet, simple. And it shows that Dave pays attention to who covers his work, both online and off.

Reviewers like Brian don’t do it for the thanks, but it was thoughtful.

Contrast that to Ms X. Brian went to the signing room to have books signed by Ms X. The briefest encounter possible. Later, when I ran into Ms. X in the halls and introduced Brian Ms X didn’t even remember she’d signed books for Brian that morning, never mind the reviews our site has done of her books. (Now, I know it’s impossible to remember everyone. I know there are moments I’m forgetful too. Sometimes, there’s that split-second hesitation - you aren’t sure if the reason a person’s making eye contact is because they know your name and want to talk to you, or if it’s random chance and the reason they looked away is because it was a mistake… or if it was because they’re too shy to take the plunge. It isn’t easy, but I know I certainly need to make a better effort to remember faces and names.)

From watching Brian, I was reminded that there are no little people at a convention. In fact, the most important people at a convention are not the people on the panels or signing books in the hallways.

The most important people at a convention are the readers. No more of this “just a reader” crap - these readers are the lifeblood of our industry. It is them who buy books, who influence what books are carried in stores and what manuscripts are purchased by editors.

It’s who we authors ultimately write for. The last time I was at a Bouchercon I was a few months from the publication of my first book. This time, I was really stunned to have people come up to me with copies of Suspicious Circumstances that they’d lugged all the way from California on a plane, to have signed. When I was in the signing room the first person in line for me had What Burns Within in a special cover to preserve it.

At my first Bouchercon I’d had a contest to win a signed ARC of my debut novel. The winner was Kim Reis.

Two years later, I’m leaving a panel at this Bouchercon and see a familiar face. I looked at the nametag and sure enough, it was Kim, so I said hi. It was so good to see her, and what amazed me was she said that as much as she’d loved the first book, she loved the second even more.

Exactly what an author wants to hear.

Then she told me that her book club was discussing my new book, because she’d suggested it.

Moments like that are both humbling and overwhelming. It’s easy for me to run down a list of author names from the convention, and I’ll admit it: I have a terrible memory for names in general. I get the author names from the program book when in doubt.

But for the Kims, Jans, Kayes, Sandys, Maddys, Emilys and all the people who came to Bouchercon because they love to read and love the genre, thank you.

And for anyone who hasn’t yet, you can read about Brian’s adventures at Bouchercon here.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 16th, 2008 at 7:16 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.