Afternoon, all! After some wrangling, I'm going to be attending the Independent Creators Expo and Film Festival on 20 February, at the Ramada Inn off Miller Lane in Dayton, Ohio. I will be hanging with my friend who makes cute dragon statues over in the dealers' hall, and peddling copies of Dire:Born. I'll happily autograph books, chat, or throw cards at you as you please, if you can make it over that way.

Small conventions like this are a good way for local writers to network and get word-of-mouth PR. The tables are typically inexpensive, so that you only need to move a few books to recoup your cost of attendance, and sometimes you can even get in on panels or other programming events. As long as you aren't too shy, your gain usually outweighs your risk. And you get all the joys of attending a convention, and meeting fun people!

It's also a non-standard marketing technique, that can help ally the boredom of your usual work in this area. Which is important, because if you fall into a rut, your writing can suffer. So don't be afraid to get out there and mix it up a bit, you might enjoy the results...