Lessons From Galaxyfest… — Derek Barton – 2017

This weekend was an amazing experience and a great opportunity to meet several established writers and comic-con artists.

As always, I want to share with you the lessons I learned so that maybe if you are interested in becoming a self-published writer, you can benefit from my experiences.

While the con did not get the anticipated crowds all of us hoped for (approximately 3,000 versus the 10,000 people), there were a lot of exhibits and vendors that I could learn a lot from.

I had the immense honor to meet and speak to these writers:

• Peter Meredith (www.petermeredith1.com),
• MJ Bell, http://mj-bell.com),
• Susanne Lambkin (http://www.susannelambdin.com),
• Natalie Wright (http://www.nataliewrightauthor.com)
• Cameron Roubique (http://www.killriver.com).

From these guys I learned a lot of information about Audible, about booth displays, about other conventions/bookfestivals, about book covers and book interior layouts.  I got new ideas for marketing, book themes and even items to go with the books to draw people to the booth.

By the next convention I hope to have a new book banners, new materials like character bios and character magnets, a new variety of bookmarks based on the books and even (insert drumroll here…) a new book direction – I am going to develop a Steampunk Novel (or novella)!  I will still work on my Consequences Within Chaos novel sequel, however, I will be also donating time on a Steampunk storyline.  Like I did with In Four Days, be on the lookout for my story blogs!

Why Steampunk?  For one, I like the whole western/victorian theme which of course I will beef up with own horror style.  Second reason is that this will also give my fans another element or genre that they can delve into with me.  And lastly, it is obviously growing in demand and in popularity.  I am intrigued just where this could lead me.

Also I met up with a few voice-over actors that I may be able to help me launch an Audible version of Consequences Within Chaos.  Recently, I signed up with Audible and I really love the service.  I listen to books now as I do my 3-or-4-mile walk each night.  Peter Meredith explained the process to me and really enlightened me on how this could be a big benefit overall to me.  We just might see how right he is!

Another great benefit to comic-cons is the artist booths.  Not only are their works inspiring and thought-provoking, but they could be great resources in the future.  I already have a great artist, Dan Thomas of Dark Art Komics helping me out and showing me the ropes at these comic-cons, but I also met Jacob Spill (https://www.facebook.com/jspill) and several other artists that could help me with illustrations or covers in the future.

Financially I took a gamble, threw the dice and unfortunately hit a wall with Galaxyfest, but I did get a lot out of it in terms of marketing knowledge and trade information.  I will certainly do more conventions — JUST DO IT BETTER!

Here are a few more pictures of the fun characters and fans you do run into at these things!