Authors After Dark 2011 Day by Day – Saturday – CONTEST!

I know it’s taken a while to get this up here. Thanks for waiting, everyone!

Thursday at AAD was packed. Friday was less so. Saturday was an interesting roller coaster of busy – slow – busy – slow – what!?

First the busy. I was on a panel called “Author Blog Fail”. I joined the panel as the titular failing author blog, because lord knows I’ve had enough failures on this blog, amirite? So anyhow, I got to the panel and my sis PJ, who was another panel member, took over as moderator. She does that. It’s the whole superhero thing.   Dana Marie Bell joined us as well, because she’s rocking the whole web presence thing.  Anyhow, we had an interesting discussion about what to do and what not to do on an author blog. One of the ‘don’t do’ things was posting too often. I’m pretty sure I avoid that. Another ‘don’t do’ was posting too infrequently. Um… OK, I get lots of Six Sentence Sunday posts up, so that counts for something, right? Another thing was making blog posts too long. Er, um, I suppose I venture into TL;DR territory every now and then. Like every time I do something OTHER than a SSS or a ‘News At 11!’. Finally, a lot of the audience suggested that they like pictures. In light of the fact that I didn’t have a camera along, and I haven’t found too many pictures of ME around, I may have to drop some non-me pics on the site.

Expect ponies. Many of them. Resistance is futile, you will be herdsimilated.

OK, after the panel Dana and I went to lunch.  We met a pair of her fans at the cafe and chatted about books.  Fun was had, but then it was time for the book signing.

The book signing was pretty darn cool.  I had a few people ask for my chap books, which had the first chapter of The Strange Fate of Capricious Jones in.  I was bracketed by the aforementioned Dana at one end of the table and Stephanie “Flash” Burke at the other end.  Needless to say, sitting between those two Anton Strout and I seemed pretty tame.

After the signing, Dana and I retreated to her hotel room, because we both had to change for the SteamPunk Ball.  OK, put your nasty thoughts away, she’s my sister-in-law.  Her DH arrived then, and one at a time we each wandered into the inconveniently placed hotel room’s bath room to change.

Dana and DH were rockin’ the Old West look, and they made a terrible cute couple.    PJ and her date took over the dance floor for a bit.  I gotta tell you, that boy can dance something fierce.  Afterward they were all “Oh, we didn’t mean to scare everyone else off, were they offended?”  Guys?  The reason we were all staring was because we were in awe.  Well done.  Anyhow, I got out there and shook my groove thang with Philly’s local airship captain, who was the only other person to hang with me the whole night.  Meljean was there and looked great as SteamPunk Wonder Woman.

What did I wear, you ask?  Well, in keeping with Brin’s theory that all Scotsmen are Engineers and all Engineers are Scotsmen, my Mad Scientist costume is comprised of combat boots, kilt, pink Oxford shirt, vintage tie, leather waistcoat, and laboratory coat.  Topping it all off are the accessories.  I’ve got a cane with a 12 oz. ball peen hammer for the handle, a nice set of ‘Punk goggles, a ‘Punked out Maverick, and courtesy of Timna and Oliver (who are at Dorian’s Parlor every month, nudge nudge) a gorgeous new leather holster for the Maverick.  As an aside, it’s a holster with a thigh strap, and I was indeed wearing a kilt.  Ahem hem, and all.  I are teh sexay flirt.

Not really, but speaking of that, after dancing for three hours or so, it was time to wrap it up and head home.  I wandered down to the Patco High Speed Line station, only to find a crowd of folks who had just finished watching some sportball game.  All the benches in the station were full, and I had all of my promotional materials in a big gym bag, which made for an odd topper to my outfit.  Suffice to say I stood out a bit in a crowd of Philly sports fans.

While I’m standing there, a young lady in a black dress commented on how weird I looked.  This was odd, because I’m used to being shunned for my oddity, but rarely called out on it.  The weird thing is that she kept talking to me.  While waiting for the train, once we were in the train car, and up until she got out of the train at her stop.  It turns out she likes Urban Fantasy.  Kinda fun finding random potential fans just by being me.  Also kinda different having someone flirt with me, as I’m both a Confirmed Happily Married Guy and Socially Inept Geek.  As a reward, she got a signed chap book with a list of Urban Fantasy authors she’d not read before.

So anyhow, that capped off the con for me.  I did return on Sunday to chat briefly with PJ and Stella, as well as scooping up some knicknacks.  That’s actually the source of the Contest!  Well, ‘giveaway’ more than contest.  I’ve got a couple sample chapter books, some luggage tags, some pretty artificial flowers, and some really pretty jeweled bookmarks.  The first SIX folks to email me at bob.roman@gmail.com with the “GIMME AAD 2011 STUFF” in the subject line and a mailing address get a parcel of con stuff and a signed Iron Angel chap book!  If you wanted to come but couldn’t make it, or if you only got to the signing but didn’t get any keepsakes, shoot me an email and I’ll fire you some goodies!