Hey folks!
San Diego Comic Con is just 2 weeks away, which means pretty much everyone in the industry is running around like their hair is on fire.
It’s one of the busiest times of the year, not only for the editors and creators who are going, but also for the ones that have to keep the lights on at home while their co-workers are sipping margaritas poolside.
It’s a tough time to get ahold of anyone, much less pitch something, so if any of you out there want a free piece of advice, just hold off until the week after, or maybe even the week after that, before reaching out to anyone at a publisher, cold.
I thought it might be interesting to talk about how I prep for cons, specifically San Diego, because it really is it’s own thing. I’m not tabling, so I don’t have to deal with lugging a ton of books around with me, and I’m free to roam as I see fit.
My first order of business is to check with the publishers and companies I’m already working with to see if they have any panels or signing opportunities they might like me to participate in. This very often depends on the timing of releases, and what they are trying to promote at the con. So for example, my friends at Dark Horse have put together a Masters of the Universe signing that will feature Genesis alongside the main book, and have a big, more general licensing panel that Gavin and I will participate in.
I’m also happy to join my friend Andy Schmidt, EIC of Boom!, for a panel focused on pitching to publishers, alongside Tini Howard and some other great panelists. This is one you don’t want to miss if you’re a writer or artist looking to pitch a book - I’ll be sharing the things I’ve learned over the years, and I’m hoping to pick up a few tips myself from my fellow panelists and their unique perspectives.
So that’s the public-facing part of my schedule, and once it’s locked down, I make a fun graphic of it to share around on social media, and, well, here!
The other part of scheduling my con is setting up meetings, and it’s a tricky thing every year. Remember how I said everyone is too busy to read pitches or generally even write back? Well that goes for meeting requests as well.
Most companies don’t advertise which of their editorial staff will be on site either, so it’s tricky to even know who to reach out to sometimes. You can get a vague idea sometimes by looking at what panels the publisher is running, and what books are going to be highlighted - editors are often brought out to help promote the books they’ve worked on, or moderate panels.
But in general, you’re shooting in the dark, and mentally, you just need to be prepared not to hear back. It doesn’t mean they don’t want to talk to you - just that their schedule is already unreasonably packed.
I have a list of editors I’ve been in contact with, and people I want to work with, and I reach out about 2-3 weeks before the con - I feel like that’s the sweet spot where they’ve got most of the important stuff scheduled but still might have some free time here or there. Reach out too early, and they generally won’t be able to commit, because they don’t know when their “must have” meetings will be. Too late, and any time they might have had is probably full.
I generally just write a very short email, just asking if they’ll be attending, and if they have some time to meet up. If I have a big project dropping, I might mention it, but overall I try to just keep it simple. The only thing I always make a point to include is what days I am planning to be there, so I don’t hear back asking to meet up when I’m already on the plane home.
This year, I sent about 30 requests out, and heard back from about half of them over the following week. Of those, many were to say they wouldn’t be there, or didn’t have time, but I did set a few things up, and even when declining, everyone was very nice about it, and hoped we would just run into each other randomly.
That random thing happens a LOT, by the way, and it’s why I’m not really sweating anything, really. Last year, I had maybe 2 meetings set at San Diego, and a big fat zero of them at NYCC. And at both cons, I still managed to meet people I was hoping to, just by happening to be in the right place at the right time - and believe it or not, those meetings led to more work than the scheduled ones did, in the end.
So that’s something I try to keep in mind when I don’t hear back from someone, and the negative voice prickles inside my head telling me that they don’t want to see me, and probably hate me anyhow (its not a rational voice).
Sometimes, you just need to give great things some space to happen in, and just wandering around the con seeing where the day takes you can be extremely rewarding, and lead to unexpected things.
I’d love to hear from all of you, and would love to see you, whether its at one of the times above, or just randomly walking around. Come say hi!
This month, The Man Who Outdrew Death, my horror western with Stevan Subic appears in Hello Darkness #23
And, as you probably know, Masters of the Universe: Genesis debuts August 5th - I hope to be doing some signings to support it, so more on that soon!
And finally, there should be more Black Eye hitting Black Market Presents soon, so go subscribe to Kyle’s newsletter and keep an eye out for it!
Until next time, see you in San Diego!
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