Ad Astra 2008

Ahh, it's good to blog again. Very busy time, lately. Plus, Violet needs the computer more and more now as her third and final year at George Brown draws to a close at the end of this month. Hard to believe that time is nearly here.

And hard to believe Ad Astra has come and gone. It wasn't nearly such a big event for me this year as it was last year. Violet and I moved the weekend before, and that consumed much of my non-working time. When I finally got around to applying for panels, I was told they were all full up.

Still, I went and made the most of it. My friend Jeff came with me to help run the table on behalf of Burningeffigy Press, and we did our very best. Sadly, our very best barely covered the cost of the table. I sold four Section K's, five Epoch's and a couple of Intergalactic Soul Hunters. Not nearly as impressive as last year's figures. I think attendance was down - there definitely seemed to be more people this year.

Burningeffigy did even worse. Jeff had brought a bag full of chapbooks published by the press, including one that was up for a Bram Stoker award that very night. The chapbooks (mostly horror) were priced between $5 - $8, but we only sold about five, maybe six. Ironically, the chapbook that sold the most was Jeff's book, Guilt Pasta, which had no SF/Fantasy or Horror content!

We did have fun, though. We got to talk to lots of people, and a few came back after buying a book from me and told me they were really into it! That's just gravy to a writer. I shook hands with some other authors (like the brilliant James Alan Gardner, author of Expendable and Vigilant, among others), and I even received an invitation to attend Anime North this May.

All in all, it wasn't a very profitable weekend, but it was successful. I look forward to next year's convention.