November Novelties

Greetings!

It’s been a month since we last connected, and let me tell you, it has been quite the month! Toward the end of October, I was planning on finishing a Mechhaven novella, but for a variety of reasons I just couldn’t get it done, so instead of fighting the muses, I switched gears to my new project—a fantasy series—and the words flowed! 

During the first week of November, I attended Author Nation in Las Vegas. It was a very fun writing conference. Authors of all levels meet up and share their knowledge and experiences. What I love is that everyone, from bestselling authors to those still working on their first books, mingle. There were several times I sat either in front of or behind some fairly successful authors and didn’t realize it until later. What’s great about this event is that everyone considers each other peers.

I met back up with some folks I’d met at the last conference I attended in 2023, and we got to know each other better and spent a lot of time between the sessions hanging out and comparing notes. Since this was my third time, in every session I attended, it seemed like I either knew or had met someone else in there previously. There are so many neat ideas that you learn about at these events that it can be overwhelming, and I’m still processing everything.

The week concluded with Reader Nation, an event with authors from all genres and all levels displaying their books to voracious readers and learning about in-person sales. When I attended in 2021 and 2023, those were my first times selling in-person. At an event so big, there’s a lot of competition for reader’s attention and hard-earned money, so part of participating is checking out what everyone else is doing and learning how to improve. I’m happy to report that my table setup got some compliments from other authors and attendees, so I’m on the right track. I gave my full pitch for Pax Machina and the Mechhaven series at least thirty times in a six-hour window, which may be a record. My sales were good for having so much competition, and I think they were a little higher than in 2023.

Overall, it was a great week. I attend only every other year, but I feel like I made some solid connections with other authors and some future vendors. Now that I’m home, I’ve been back to work at my regular job, which is busy as always, but I’m fired up about my new series, which I’ll be sharing more details with you over the coming months.

Thanks for being part of this journey with me!

Here’s a picture of me with authors Jason Hicks (left) and Brady Hunsaker (right). We all had covers created by the incredible Jeff Brown!