[Writing Post] ConJOUR – and Why Small Conventions Rock
Last year, Jody Lynn Nye and Bill Fawcett wrote an article for the SFWA bulletin about why authors should do small conventions (small by their definition is less than 500 attendees). ConJOUR is one of those conventions – they attended last year, as did I, and I attended again this year.
Small conventions, like ConJOUR, are great in a lot of ways — except if you go solely to sell a lot of books, art, or whatever. Lower numbers generally mean a spread out audience and a larger percentage of things to buy to buyer ratio. Now, if at all possible no one should go solely to sell stuff. There are other reasons to go to any convention – especially the small ones. ConJOUR is a prime example.
ConJOUR is in its 4th year. It started out as a gaming convention, so there are still a lot of games and gamers around that tend to stick to one area. BUT…the convention and the attendees are starting to branch out to other areas. They don’t have dozens or hundreds of professionals vying for panels (yet), so I was kept hopping. I was on 9 panels – usually in time CHUNKS. Thank goodness I had my husband to help man the table…
ConJOUR is one of the few campus-based conventions I know of, or have participated in – AggieCon being the other – which makes it…different. You don’t have everything in a hotel, so the typical room parties don’t happen (which means the “rules” I mentioned a few weeks back don’t apply).
When part of a campus setting, the convention “floor” does tend to be more spread out, as well, with panels in various classrooms and such. Con JOUR is on the University of Houston Clear Lake Campus (which is beautiful) in a single building, but with everything scattered across the building. It’s hard to see who/where people are.
The panels were interesting topics – yet, the small attendance made some have little or no audience. This did not deter panelists though. I was one at least two panels on where there was either NO audience or 1 or 2 people. In “hotel” conventions, this might mean the panel is cancelled or moved to the bar. At ConJOUR, with Terry Mixon recording some of the panels for Dead Robots Society, or the topic being something the panelists all really wanted to talk about/learn about – we had the panel anyway, regardless of audience. 
Now THAT is dedication and commitment. Some of the more technical panels (i.e., “business of writing”) panels had bigger audiences, many of whom were panelists NOT on other panels at the time. Because there is always, ALWAYS something to learn – especially now with publishing in such flux. In fact, Christine Rose is about to put together a Second Edition of her Publishing & Marketing Realities for Emerging Authors book because things have changed THAT MUCH in the last 18 months. THAT panel could’ve gone on for a whole 2nd hour – and I did end up talking to some folks attending the panel at my table for another hour. There was a panel I need to go listen to a podcast recording of because I couldn’t make it – mostly because I needed to give my table minders a break (there was stuff THEY wanted to do besides listen to me talk).
And that’s one of the joys of working with small conventions – you have the opportunity to learn stuff from other professionals (as well as have face time with fans) because you have the time to get to know them. I’ve worked several conventions with The Bedlam Bards, but this is the first time I’ve been about to get to know them and find out more about them as people. Such as, if a new writer comes to me and says “I’m painfully shy and can’t act, how can I do this whole marketing thing? I’m DOOMED!”, I can suggest they talk to The Bedlam Bard’s, Cedric. His day job is as a therapeutic hypnotist. If an artist is looking for a comic book publisher and may want to try something smaller, I can send them to David Doub at Dusk Comics. And hopefully, if either of them is looking for a prose writer collaborator, they’ll think of me, because boy, will that chick hustle a book/story/etc. 
Publishing, conventions, and music…we’re symbiotic industries. We need to work together – call it paying forward (or sideways) or whatever. We help out those who are coming up behind us because you never know who will be the “Next Big Thing”, and if it’s someone you’ve helped along the way – they WILL remember you, unless you’ve violated the ONE RULE OF WRITING (and frankly LIFE) of Don’t Be A Jerk (or for YardDog fans… DBAA, or Wheaton’s Law). Pick one and Learn it. Live it. Love it.
P.S. Several of these pictures are courtesy of John and Susan Husisian. They ROCK – the Husisians, not necessarily the pictures. And if you HAVE pictures and want to share, send ’em on…