Business Post: Post WorldCon Update

Worldcon Update

I’m back! Just returned from Worldcon in Glasgow after which I went for a holiday, seeing a bunch of Scotland in Oban, Mull and Iona.  Oban and Mull actually show up in a LitRPG work called the Transcendent Green, and it was rather cool to see some of the places mentioned. I wonder if people who visit the Yukon and Whitehorse ever do that?

Anyway, this is an update on Worldcon. For those who didn’t know, I had five different panels and a signing at the event, which was significantly higher than what many others had. I’ll probably do a business post on being a good panelist, which most of those I sat on panels are but not all. More on that in that post, I’d rather talk about Glasgow and the Worldcon itself.

Some Background

This isn’t the first Worldcon I’ve been to. I have actually done Discon in 2022(?) soon after the pandemic was over and because of that, had rather twisted expectations of what Worldcon would be like. Discon was small, quiet and mostly conducted outdoors. There were a few panels on self-publishing / the business side, and a lot of panels on other aspects of the craft and scifi/fantasy itself.

If anything, that part carried over. Worldcon is a weird beast, not just moving city to city every year but also being partly meant for fans and partly for the industry. In this case, the number of fans were very high, with over seven thousand individuals joining the convention, a significant percentage of them writers.

Every hour and a half there were panels going on for four days, from Thursday afternoon to Monday morning, with breaks later in the evening. There were panels covering a wide variety of topics like those of Epic Fantasy to one on how languages change and twist to talks about romantasy and more. Along with that there were events from the filk groups and a couple of celidhs and workshops and more.

The actual Worldcon was held in a convention center and the adjoining hotel, with a very large exhibition hall that had a smaller game space, food trucks and signing area within along with fan tables all in the main hall. Panels were held all around the conventions and in the hotel, with other hotels scattered around as far away as twenty minutes walk (that was mine. That sucked).

The Event Itself

I started my Worldcon with a signing. Once I got my badge, I had to wander around looking for where the signing would be, eventually finding my place. Having a singing at 1pm on a Thursday when you don’t expect most people to know who you are is, well, intimidating at best. Realistically, I never expected anyone to turn up on the Thursday, having hoped to draw people with my wit and charm during the panels rather than having actual fans show up. For obvious reasons, I brought a few books of my own to sell just in case, knowing that none of the bookstores or vendors would have mine there.

To my surprise, a number of fans did show up! I managed to sell a few books (4 total) and saw a bunch of friends, which made the signing itself an unqualified success in my view. It doesn’t seem like a lot to some, but I figure anything more than one (1) is a success at these things. After all, you never know who comes to such events, you can only do what you can.

After the signing, it was panel time. I had three that I was a panelist and two more that I moderated, spread across three days in total – Thursday, Friday and Sunday. Oh, and, of course, the ‘Walk with the Stars’ which was a chance to meet fans while going on a jaunt. That was fun, if a little difficult with my hip being what it is.

One rather interesting thing about Worldcons in the UK (and I guess most panels in the UK from what I understand) is that panelists should meet in the green room beforehand, to meet and talk to other panelists. That actually meant that each panel took up a minimum of an hour and a half rather than just the hour of the panel itself, nevermind the prep time for the event beforehand.

My first panel itself was titled Epic Appeal, the second Fantastic Foods and the last panel I sat on as a panelist was Fantasy and other SFFH Mashups. They were all well attended, fun to talk upon and covered a wide variety of discussions on the topic itself. From discussing why epic fantasy was so appealing and the types to various cuisines, the appeal of food and the issues with writing with food in a book to crime and genre mashups and why they work or don’t, I thoroughly enjoyed being on my panels (and hopefully gave a few laughs).

After those, I had two panels that required moderating. Now, panel moderation (done well) generally starts before the panel itself, with simple (and obvious) things like getting names right – one advantage of the UK Green Room and having the chance to meet and get pronunciations in-person – as well as introduction details and vetting questions and familiarity with topics. Sending questions beforehand is also useful, since the panelists can review and prepare before the panel itself, giving them a chance to talk on each of the topics.

Pre-preparing for the panel as a panelist is important if it’s not one you’re intimately familiar with. On top of that, as a moderator, your job is making sure no one panelist(s) dominate the conversation and there’s a chance for every panelist to speak, which is why having questions that fit each panelist background is important.

Of course, part of that is just seeing what people want to talk about – both on the audience side and the panel side. Sometimes, you have to switch things up during the panel itself rather than holding to a single topic or line of topics because there’s something that is working.

I have to say, the Book Marketing panel went quite well, the panelists were smart, knew what they were talking about, had different viewpoints and could discuss each aspect well. We had a few people come up to thank us for a good panel which is always lovely.

The LitRPG panel was even more fascinating, since we had two non-LitRPG group authors in it and two author readers. It was probably the most different panel on LitRPG I’ve been on because these reader authors (Scott Lynch and Genevieve Cogman) were coming into it with very different perspectives. As such, we talked more about appeal and why, about structure and the birth of the genre and changes than the nitty gritty details of the genre itself which was a nice breath of fresh air.

Overall, had a good time doing the panels and hopefully making a decent impression on new readers, but that’s only half the reason to go to such an event.

The People

Really, most of the time, you go to such conventions to meet others. Networking is the buzz term but for me, it’s mostly about meeting friends and/or making new friends. This con was particularly good at that, in the sense that I met some long-time digital friends and put faces to names and digital words. Some of them were coming from as far as Brazil! There were good long talks, lots of good food and just general catching up with people who I like.

I won’t name names, mostly because frankly, I’m sure I’ll miss someone but the chance to meet other authors is what you end up going to such conventions for. Unlike tradpub authors though, my focus is mostly meeting other authors even if editors and agents (who do come to events like WorldCon) are around. In fact, I never even glimpsed or met a single agent in my time there.

One thing I will say though, it seems that LitRPG is on the horizon and viewpoint for some editors, but here we’re a victim of our success I feel. For the really big authors, there’s no real reason to go tradpub (other than a print only deal); nor is it clear what the market is for LitRPG in traditional (i.e. print) spaces.

Many people are watching Matt’s upcoming debut, and if that goes well, expect more feelers to go out.

Anyway, that’s my report on Worldcon. After that, I ran around Scotland as mentioned and had a good time, relaxing a little and destressing. Feel free to ask if you have questions about the event. One more update post coming up soon with Dragoncon, which is SO VERY SOON.

Told you I wasn’t getting much writing done this month.