I was very happy to (with the invaluable assistance of my better half) procure business cards before Worldcon. After all, I reasoned, if one is going to have business cards, and if the primary reason one has business cards is because people have asked for them at cons, then it makes sense to have business cards before one embarks for the biggest science fiction con one is going to attend all year.* And for one brief, shining moment, my logic (which only rarely matches with Spock’s), seemed sound.
Silly me. (And for that matter, silly Spock.)
Because I gave away three business cards the entire time I was in Kansas City, and only one did I give away at the con.
The first was to a friend, the second to a docent at the National World War I Museum, which we were visiting because I am planning a novel at some point which takes place during the Great War,** and the third on the plane home, to a stranger with whom we struck up a conversation when the subject of my writing came up.
Now, I think I deserve props for getting my card out to people whom one would not normally consider prime candidates, but when you consider that I did not give one out to any of the thousands of (unknown) SF fans at the con itself, I don’t think overall my marketing skills are yet up to snuff.***
But hey, it’s a start.
“Excuse me, buddy, would you like a business card?”
ETA: I am reminded that I did pass out one card to a fellow author at the con (and took hers in return). So now I am apparently so good at this I can’t keep my successes straight. Progress?
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*Or, as it turns out, next year, too, because Helsinki is not a likely destination.
**Not to mention that The Invisible City starts in WWI, and I took a picture of a map showing where my hero was when that book began.
***To be fair to myself, I did intend to give one to an editor I was supposed to meet, but it didn’t work out.
#SFWApro
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