Sunday, Sunday
Though I pretty much woke up whenever Peryton started getting up and ready, I decided to sleep in. So as she slipped out the door to be at the booth at 9am at 8:54, she was probably late, I fell into a deep sleep. And at 9:14 I awoke feeling absolutely decadent.
JerryTel was hanging at the booth, for a couple hours with Pery when I arrived at 9:40 or so. As for Sunday there isn't much to tell. The minutia about sales was something a little less than Saturday's. Dr Nik and Sligo were sharing their new found wisdom of having attended the ENnies and Saturday AM seminars, respectively with me-- This being my first year at the get-together in Indianapolis after all. JerryTel got bored quickly and slipped off just before noon. Cram stopped in and took his place for company while we plotted things T&T.
The afternoon was spent mostly making speaking with people who wanted advice on their own publishing thing, sometimes even acting half way interested in our products. One of the more pleasant moments was when one of the mysteries of earlier days playing out. No longer wearing a short dress and a black Bob Cut wig, the woman who dropped her business card in front of me on Friday, appeared twice at the booth. She was still very easy on the eyes in her jean coverall shorts, plaid shirt and natural hair. I don't think she figured that I recognized her. The second time she approached she handed me another business card. Different style than the one I saw on but the same name. Two different approaches and variation of style while doing so. I felt a rush of heat from under my collar. Literary chicks are sooo damned sexy. I looked left and right. I felt like I was cheating on CCrabb*. I referred the woman to Peryton, the real Biblio-Babe in the my life, just too damned flattered to do more than flub about verbally. Amazing how would-be hacks like me get the attention of book dames with looks, brains and amazing style.
After the Fire
At 4pm, we gave away our Shark-Jumping poster to a kid. His father was one of the guys wanting to know about the small press industry. The breakdown of the booth took only minutes and for all the lack of sales, it actually was a much better than usual sales weekend on-line. Plus everyone at PeryPub, despite not reconnecting as much as we like to do at GenCon, felt like we had accomplished something. I had one last scotch and soda with Jack before he went home for Monday and Tuesday off-- it was on the house.
I tried to set up a dinner with Ken St Andre and Rick Loomis and Sutter, James Sutton, to meet. One party wanted early and the other party wanted late. Ken compromised by saying he'd meet at a Denny's outside of his motel right between the county jail and the airport or some such. I declined, as we were quite happy going to our "fancy priced restaurant for a late nite black-tie event," to quote him. We were going to Bourbon Street, at 7pm, as we are wont to do when we are in Indy. Sutter declined as well since his booth breakdown wouldn't be until after 10pm or so. Plenty of our friends showed up as it was. We had a fine victory lap dinner with Batman, Colts Gal, Sligo and Cram. The conversation was equally between football, an ancient Greek-themed T&T round of games for GenCon for 2013, and Sligo's continuing stream of bits of wisdom from the seminars that he had attended over the last couple of days. For that last bit, I think he felt I should be taking notes.
Godsheads bless Peryton, though she took off her Exhibitor badge, she couldn't stop carrying around her gamer backpack that evening.
The next morning I was up around 6am and out the door to catch a bus out to Batman's house and retrieve the car. For all the work of the morning, it was not unpleasant. Peryton was amazing at getting everything ready to go, and after dropping off some borrowed items around town, we were on the road. Poor me would only have three more days off of work to recover from our beach blanket bingo.
Afterthoughts
Still going to do the booth at next year's event, but I am going to be much more organized and assertive about managing it. Stuff like time-slots and scheduling help here and there. And the booth lay out is going to be awesome. A closing event, like a poster give-away raffle for interested folks, will be a nice top off.
Definitely will have to cut into business and game-running time to have more social occasions for our clique. One the phone over the last week, after GenCon, we all really missed each other.
*Christine Crabb is PeryPub's Editor, its managing editor, its main squeeze; dammit. Get your mind out of the gutter already.
5 comments:
Well done as always...
Interesting idea about an end-of-con hook to get people back to the booth.
Do you have any particular plans for next year's booth?
Plans are for fools! When he gets here, we melt him, and laugh on into the night! HAHAHAHAHA!
That will absolutely draw a crowd.
Well Tyler, I plan on multiple posters, about four of them. And a partition wall so our area to hang them up is not shifting as boxes are emptied.
And two smaller tables so we aren't sitting behind on long table looking like we're about conduct a survey. One card table for the display and one round one. Where I will have our TV/VCR set up, playing either the Black Hole, Excalibur, The Princess Bride, or the Maltese Falcon. A rocking chair as well as the four chairs we are already assigned.
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