Oh, and Is Anyone Going to Philcon?

[dr_pretentious]

I got this voicemail message the other day:

Hi, it's D&R. Is there a poetry reading at Cleo's this Friday? And if there is, can we crash at your place Friday night? And if we crash at your place, can we drag you off to Philcon with us on Saturday?

The answer to all these questions turns out to be yes. Surprise!

So, who all's going to Philcon?

Saturday is the only day we can go, but it would be a fine thing to meet up if any of you will be there.

[In an amusing new twist, lj is no longer time-stamping my entries to say they're four hours later than they really are; now, it's refusing to post my entries at all unless I falsify the time value myself. My computer clock is just fine, thank you. It's 3:50 am, a perfectly civilized hour.]

Comments

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Socializing, networking, informational--yeah, that covers a lot of it.

Most of the attendees are fans who go to socialize with fellow fans, to buy stuff in the dealers' room that's hard to find elsewhere, to see hard-to-find films, to hear the objects of their fandom converse on the far sides of conference tables, etc. I used to go for those reasons, back when I was young and dinosaurs roamed the earth.

Then I seceded from fandom for 15 years, but that's another story, and it's not all that entertaining or useful.

I'm going to Philcon for 3 reasons. (1) Friends I don't get to see all that often are planning on going for fun. (2) An agent I admire, whose talk at the World Science Fiction Convention in 2004 was very helpful and informative, is on the program, and I'm planning on following his name from time slot to time slot to see how much I can learn. (3) The agent who requested my full manuscript, who has had it since the beginning of October, and who has not yet responded yea or nay, is planning to go, though she's not on the program.

I'm a tad nervous about the possibility of running into her, because I don't know what the etiquette is for when an author runs into a person who has her work under consideration. On the other hand, I actually enjoyed the agent's company when I met her at Writer's Weekend, and even if she greeted me by saying she didn't want to represent my work, I'd be glad to see her again.

When I was trying to figure out authorial etiquette in preparation for my first return to the world of fandom, when WorldCon was in Boston in 2004, I found a thread on Making Light very helpful. Teresa Nielsen Hayden did a thorough run-down of the things people need to know if they're going to a con for the first time, especially if they're writers with mss to sell. If you're curious, it's worth tracking the post and its comment thread down over there.

The most important thing is: Do Not Pitch Your Book To An Agent Or Editor Unless Explicitly Invited To Do So. (It doesn't hurt to have your pitch prepared in case you're asked, but at an event like Philcon, it's unlikely that the people you'd want to pitch to are taking pitches from anybody.)

The second most important thing is: Do Not Try To Press Your Manuscript Into The Hands Of An Agent Or Editor. (If they want the ms, they'll ask you to send it. There's some kind of taboo against accepting mss in person. I'm not sure what its particulars are, but it appears to be universal. I've seen newer newbies than myself try the ms-press, and seen agents and editors recoil physically, like vampires from garlic. It's pretty dramatic, if you know to watch for it.)