I didn’t add this to my original convention report. It felt both too personal and like some kind of finger pointing toward the folks running the con. I didn’t want it to come across that way. I’ve been con staff. It’s not easy and sometimes people just flake out.

While I was at Shore Leave I went to a panel that I thought sounded interesting. “How To Submit To An Indie Publisher”. I thought this would be an opportunity to get some tips on how to submit or leads on different independent publishers. I headed down to the panel room and grabbed a seat. The room had quite a few folks in attendance. There was clearly interest in this topic. The room had a vaguely ‘U’ shaped set up, but it wasn’t totally clear where the ‘front’ was supposed to be. Everyone gathered and waited.

And waited.

A question got tossed out, “Who’s on the panel for this?” Nobody had a good answer. Somebody looked up the name of the individual who was supposed to be running it all, but that person was nowhere to be seen. I started to get the itch to be part of the con. I had an idea, but I held off.

A few people were murmuring and finally somebody said, “It’s five minutes past the start time, I guess we call it?”

I decided to act. Perhaps it was pure ego, I don’t really know. I have had this happen to me before – a genuinely interesting topic and the people running the thing don’t show up – and it’s disheartening.
Get enough of that feeling and it will start to drag your convention enjoyment down on the whole.

I stood up, walked to a position sort of in front and said, “I hate seeing a panel that’s a total bust like this. I’m happy to facilitate a discussion on the topic. I’ll lead this panel.”

And nobody said no.

So I carried on. “I need to say up front that I am not associated with the con, so this isn’t their fault. I do however have a couple of decades of experience speaking on topics like this at other conventions. I’m also an author with work published through small, independent presses and help run a fan group that publishes a Hugo eligible fanzine every month.”

Guess what? It worked. Another author, and an actual guest of the con stepped up to join me. With somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 works published I often deferred to Phil. There was another gentlemen who joined us, though I forget his name, who was part of a large and award winning writers group. We had a useful chat that gave some basics on submission guidelines, taking critique, working with (or around) social media and a handful of other topics.

I have no idea if I should have done that or not. I really don’t. It feels like I did the right thing though. It feels that way because at least two of the folks that attended the panel continued to chat with me afterward and were thankful for all the information we had been able to share. If that chat helps them move ahead and get their independent writing career moving, then it was worth it. I can’t wait to see what they come up with!