Finding and Agent

[aurelio]

Congrats on your book deal, Ilumene. Best of luck with it all!

On the scifi convention front, the only one I've ever attended was one were I was an invited speaker (for animation related stuff, not writing). It was a very odd experience, and I would agree that the scifi fan group is pretty insular. Although there seemed to be subsets and cliques within the larger group, they sure all seemed to share a desire to be exclusive.

Since I was an animation person, and not truly scifi, I was treated like an outsider. Even though I was an invited speaker! That was weird and unexpected. In the panel discussions, people in the audience argued with me on almost every point I made, and the fact that I had spent (at that point) over 15 years in the animation business was meaningless. My opinions were still viewed askance. It mostly made me chuckle, because I wasn't sharing anything particularly controversial or argumentative - I mean, it's just cartoons for cryin' out loud!

I personally think that if your book is very specifically aimed at this readership, then you would do well to take the time (and I'm sure it will take time) to get accepted in, but if your book is not quite the hard-core scifi stuff, it might not be worth all the effort. Once you attend a convention It'll probably be obvious to you whether or not your book is a good fit for that group.

Good luck.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

At all the SFF conventions I've been to (and that's a great number) people in the audience argue with panelists all the time. I'd say it was a way of including you in, Aurelio, by trying to engage you in a dialogue (also, possibly, a desire to impress you, the professional, with how much they know -- or think they know, anyway). I can see how that might give you the impression that you were being excluded or dismissed, but it may well have been a combination of lack of social skills on their part and unfamiliarity with the (highly opinionated, highly talkative) culture on yours.

* * * *

Certainly conventions are not as good for making instant professional contacts as, say, writers conferences, but it is a good way of beginning to meet the people who know the people that you want to meet. Also a way of establishing yourself as a familiar face and a familiar name and voice, which further down the road could pay off.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Ilumene, if you're at Glasgow this year,feel free to stop by.

 

[aurelio]

I'd say it was a way of including you in, Aurelio, by trying to engage you in a dialogue...

LOL - That's a sweet thought, Kelpie, but I don't think so. The feeling I got was more of rebellion against the establishment, because I had worked on Disney films and such, and I represented that to them. Also I represented "cute family films." And I accept that, because to a small degree it was true. It just seemed odd and funny. Like Darth Vader feeling threatened by Grandpa Smurf.

But that was more of a personal anecedote/observation rather than an indictment of these conventions or conventioneers. I obviously didn't fit what they were looking for, and that was more my point. I think for certain genre scifi, these conventions are a good room to work. For other stuff, like speculative fiction, maybe not.

The best advice I can give is one needs to go and find out first hand.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

The thing is, at any panel there are always a few showoffs in the audience who think they can impress the pros by challenging them (or just like to hear themselves speak before a crowd and have few other opportunities to command the attention of so many people at once), and if the moderator is lazy and gives the audience the floor for questions too early (or worse, if one of these people has a friend on the panel*) they can end up taking over way too much of the discussion.

Just because nobody stands up and bashes these people over the head doesn't mean that the entire audience is in agreement with them (or that others in the crowd or on the panel aren't silently entertaining themselves with thoughts of violent assault).

Media type panels (movies, anime, tv) seem to especially attract these people, maybe because the crowds are larger and because the pros involved are considered more glamorous, I don't know. And yes, working for Disney did make you something of a target (the anti-Disney folks tend to be rather vocal).

But going by what I've heard time and again after panels, I suspect that a large proportion of the people in the room met up with their friends after yours and said something like, "I was really looking forward to that panel, and that guy Aurelio O' Brien in particular sounded like he had interesting things to say, but some of the usual idiots wouldn't shut up, and he barely had a chance to talk."

You may have been a big hit with most of the crowd and never even knew it.


____________

*Someone who's only on the panel because they have a friend on the committee. This is why I tend to avoid programming that mixes pros and overtly fannish types on the panel, or gamers and costumers along with writers -- because they tend to lack focus and it's easy for the mouthy part of the audience to take over. I don't go to these things to hear the audience speak; I want to hear from the experts on the panel, darn it!

Anyway, my point is, one has to go to a few of these events and learn how to navigate them before you find out how to make the most of them by falling in with the people who share your own interests and enthusiasms.

 

[aurelio]

But going by what I've heard time and again after panels, I suspect that a large proportion of the people in the room met up with their friends after yours and said something like, "I was really looking forward to that panel, and that guy Aurelio O' Brien in particular sounded like he had interesting things to say, but some of the usual idiots wouldn't shut up, and he barely had a chance to talk."

You may have been a big hit with most of the crowd and never even knew it.

That may have been the case. I do hope so. The crowd at this convention seemed to be almost exclusively space scifi and sword & sorcery oriented. ( A silicon valley area con.)

In fact, I just got their mailer for this year's convention. Their website is:

SiliCon

in case anyone is in that area and wants to check it out.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Yes, Silicon does seem to draw a more specialized crowd. BayCon, in the same area (and used to be in the same hotel) draws a larger and more diverse group of people.

I wouldn't expect to do much (or any) networking at a Silicon, though they can be fun. They don't call it Silly-Con without good cause.

One way to decide whether a convention is worth going to or not is to look at the guest list, and particularly at the Guests-of-Honor. More exciting speakers naturally tend to attract a larger and more interesting membership.

 

[aurelio]

Sounds like you are familiar enough with SiliCon to know what I'm talking about, Kelpie.

I think the friend that invited me to participate was looking to deliberately expand the scope of SiliCon into animation. It was all terribly well intentioned, but I (and the other animation panelists) became inadvertent targets, I guess. It was like being coaxed to stick our heads through some holes in a wall and discovering we were looking out of a pie toss. I took it all in fun (I like to debate, and enjoy a good pie), but I think my friend was pretty disappointed that people weren't more open.

Good thing I wasn't trying to sell a book on animation there. Egad. I'd have been really disappointed.

Not all conventions are alike though, as you say, so it is wise to check ahead and get a feel for each.

 

[Brys]

I just thought I'd mention PanMacmillan's New Writers scheme - it's for writers in the UK.

http://www.panmacmillan.com/aboutPan/macmillannewwriting.html

 

[the_faery_queen]

in answer to original topic, you don't need an agent to self publish, but it helps if you want to target bigger proffessional, paying publishers.

but in the uk at least, they're impossible to get! i wrote to 40, just an inquiry, would you read my thing. NO we're too busy, was the reply from all of them. so i gave up! i found a small print publisher instead, and hopefully if i can market it well, gain a name for myself, i can then get an agent, then approach bigger publishers.

i know that in the us it seems tobe easier. i know two people with agents, one who was in ireland, got herself a us agent, and one who is american. the latter now has a publishing contract.

getting an agent doesn't mean you will get published, am sure you know this! it just means that it is easier to target bigger publishing houses who wont' even look at you without one. but you can get a publisher without one, baen, for instance, don't require one. and to get a uk agent, it is easier, i think, to get a publisher first, THEN an agent! once the hard work is done, they seem to be more willing to consider you *shrug* but marks story gives me hope that i can market my small print thing well enough and perhaps attract one without having to run around to find them