So, here we go…convention season has started. Panels are one way to do well, as an author, at a convention…since you spend a shitload of money to go, and money on swag and bookmarks and lots of sleepless nights with the up and down of will they even KNOW WHO I AM???

Yeah, basketcase season.

I imagine authors aren’t the only ones who go thru this. Any professional who ever has to give a presentation must wonder about some of these issues.

First, will they want me to give my presentation/panel? Did I write it up with enough wit and interest to stir them? Will they find room on the schedule for me? Do they know WHO I AM?

Yeah, you have to get over that barrier first. Now, if you know people, you might be able to be sneak into someone else’s panel. Be the extra body at the table, offering up quips and reflections on their 

topic. Great gig if you can get it.

(I might be on the luck side of this at PhilCon. A good friend who knows people who put the con together. He’s promised me panel spots. I get to kill him if he lets me down.)

(Hear that, Bob?)

Second, your panel was accepted! Whoohoo! Now, can you deliver? I’ve put together a panel idea for the Romance Novel Convention, in Las Vegas, in August. On what I learned about writing from almost dying. It’s sorta a pep talk panel. For those in doubt and beginners. If it’s accepted, I have to figure out something to offer them. More than just my story and lots of words. I need a handout. Of what helped me get going, websites, classes. Buttons to promote me and the topic… I have to be entertaining…how many feathers can I bring to Vegas with me for my hat?

I have a lot to deliver…this was my pitch. I sure hope Jimmy Thomas lets me know soon…

What I Learned About Writing From Nearly Dying

You can learn a lot from nearly dying. Especially about fear and how it can hold you back. But once the worst has happened, that’s when second chances appear. And third, or fourth. However many it takes. Let me inspire you, tell you my story and how I went from ten days in a hospital, to attending my first romance convention a year later, to pitching a year later, to an agent a year later and signing a book that next year. Eight books later, I’m still writing, I’m still publishing and I still believe in facing the fear and laughing in its general direction. It is possible. I’m proof. I can inspire you to see past the roadblocks and hold onto the fun of writing.

Thirdly. Will they come? Now, some of this is out of your control. I’m sorry, at a romance convention, if you are scheduled opposite Cherry Adair or Jade Lee or the Unwrap a Cover Model…you’re toast. 

One convention I was at, Shelley Adina and I had two women show up. What did we do? Well, we invited them to sit near the front, we took chairs and we talked to them. About our topic and answered questions. One person shows up? Give them all you have. They can go out and chatter to their friends at how great those authors were!

If I am accepted for this panel, I intend to promote it like crazy on FB, on twitter…everywhere I can. 

Try to get some excitement moving forward before I’m at the con. Same thing for PhilCon.

I love doing panels. I love teaching something, sharing something, or just blathering…I don’t know. If this panel isn’t accepted for the RNC, then I’m going to work on refining the pitch and proposing it for other conventions.

What are your experiences with panels? Attending? How do you decide on what you’re going to attend? Ever been to one where you’re one of two or three attendees? How did the presenters handle it? Any ideas what you’d present?

And let me take this chance to point out that yours truly has a bag o’ swag available on the Brenda Novak’s Annual Online Auction for Diabetes Research. The bidding is going well, but let’s do the pirate world proud and get this really moving full sails! How? Promote this link! 

Mention that the bag continues to grow…I add stuff all the time…it will be one stuffed swag bag!