Comments on: RomCon: A Reader’s Impression

By: Nina

Nina — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 01:27:39 +0000

It’s always interesting to get different perspectives to things. I’ve gone to RT as a reader, aspiring author and librarian, go to the same panels with all three hats on and take different things away from them. And my reader-only friends enjoy the reader-centric events (and frankly, a lot of the writer panels turn into reader Q&As). RWA is not for readers. It’s the professional conference just like American LIbrary Association’s annual isn’t for patrons. As for RomCon, it sounds like a young conference going through growing pains, but a fun one nonetheless. I”m shocked people thought there were too many authors. Wow. I guess it takes all kinds. And there are always, always four things happening at the same time that you’re dying to see, I don’t care what kind of con it is. I’m looking forward to hearing when 2011 will be. I’d like to try it.

By: Carolyn Crane

Carolyn Crane — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 20:27:08 +0000

Hey, nice recap! It was great finally meeting you! LOL. Okay, we’ll put that joke to bed now. I didn’t realize anyone thought there were too many authors. But, for a reader-oriented con, I guess that could be fair. The fun part was the lobby, in a way!

By: Kim in Hawaii

Kim in Hawaii — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 18:03:25 +0000

Aloha from Florida! Thanks for the fun recap! Since this was the first RomCon, I didn’t find the gliches overwhelming … except the hotel only served Pepsi products and I was dying for a Diet Coke. Regarding the ticketed items, I “won” 6 tickets (I’m not usually that lucky) and enjoyed each of them, even if I hadn’t read the authors who sponsored the events. Regarding “too many authors”, I loved having the authors pay attention to me, the reader! Many asked me if military families read military thrillers. Since I don’t know the answer, I will take a poll when I return to Hawaii. Regarding the duplicate books, most readers at my tables donated them to me to distribute to military spouses back in Hawaii (I want to convert the islands to romance!). Regarding bloggers, I met many fun bloggers and I have shared their websites with my military readers. Regarding Julia Quinn, she was awesome! She donated books to me to take home plus she was taking a bag down to the USO (note to readers: consider doing the same at future events – the USO lists its lounges on the internet). Regarding Sally MacKenzie, she’s a hoot … but not naked!

By: Victoria Janssen

Victoria Janssen — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 15:19:18 +0000

Thanks for the detailed post! I wasn’t able to attend because of another conference, but I really wanted to hear about it.

By: My Week In Review

My Week In Review — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 12:02:02 +0000

[...] ? I managed to squeeze in some blog hopping this week. Over at The Good, The Bad, and The Unread, I loved Limecello’s post on RomCon: A Reader’s Impression. [...]

By: Monday Morning Stepback: Links, A bit more about RomCon and Covers « Read React Review

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 11:57:24 +0000

[...] Limecello, reviewer at TGTBTU [...]

By: RRRJessica

RRRJessica — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 02:17:13 +0000

Great post! So detailed. I will come back to it for the memories.

By: limecello

limecello — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 01:38:49 +0000

Liv – the Fairy Godmother panel was more like a “how to help out your favorite author!” (Yeah I don’t know either) – but that’s what the blurb made it out to be. Isn’t The Viscount Who Loved Me adorable? And… I so need to read Ten Things. Only JQ novel I haven’t read. Loved Miranda, Meh on London, but excited about this one.
.
Phyl – The RT signing in Cbus was the first signing I’d ever been to as well, and it… was not happy making for me. Very cool about the auction thing too – I love that Brenda Novak does that – and good for you on contributing as well!
As for a breakfast type place I went to – it was Snooze, and I’d love to pick it up and put it right here. Of course then I’d gain like 50 million pounds, but it just might be worth it.
-
SonomaLass – interesting. I guess I hung out with conference junkies, because they went and bought books that morning. And then during went and bought more books as well. :X I guess it was something of a pain, but the lack of uber lines made it so ridiculously so much better (yes I’m repeating for emphasis) that I preferred it.
I do think a better/more updated/accurate list of authors signing would resolve a lot of those problems. Hope? Of course it wouldn’t be perfect… but I think like… letting people know X is the format of the signing beforehand would help a lot.

By: SonomaLass

SonomaLass — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 01:18:26 +0000

My complaint about the signing set-up was that there was no list of authors posted. There was one in the program, but it wasn’t in alphabetical order. I saw/heard several people who were unhappy because they bought books by authors who weren’t there to sign them. I bought my books, went into the signing, and saw several authors whose books I decided that I wanted (I hadn’t seen them in the display as they were overshadowed by bigger piles of others’ books). So I went back and bought a second stack of books to have signed, but I wonder how many people didn’t bother to do that. I almost went back a third time, because a chat with an author seated next to one I was waiting for made me want her book, too, but I settled for promising myself that I’d buy it later. So yeah, I do think there were opportunities missed by having that books separate from the authors who wrote them.

By: Phyl

Phyl — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 03:43:30 +0000

You know, the only other signing I’d ever been to was when RT was here in C-bus in April. THAT was a zoo! I wasn’t planning on buying any books this time because I had packed light and literally had no room for stuff. Mainly I wanted to meet Brenda Novak. I’ve contributed quilts to her auction twice now and I have a new idea for next year. I had a fabulous time chatting with her about the auction, her writing, and diabetes (our diabetic boys are the same age). After monopolizing Brenda’s time for half an hour I chatted for awhile with Pamela Clare & Susan Crandall and then Elizabeth Hoyt (briefly). Then I saw the time and had to leave.
Let’s see, I had one dinner at the Appaloosa Grill (very nice local beer!) and another dinner at the Paramount Cafe. Oh and breakfast twice at The Corner Bakery. OMG! We should have something like that around here!

By: limecello

limecello — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 03:23:51 +0000

Phyl – how fun! What did you think of the signing? It’s a little unusual, I suppose- but basically how the signing is done at Lori Foster’s and I liked it.
As for down town, I got to spend a little time there. Went to Rio’s and tried their three drink minimum and conquered it easily. Painfully easily. I was disappointed. And we tried to go to Buenos Aires on Monday, but it was closed, so we ended up at Marco’s Coal Fired Pizzaria, which had fantastic food. Crazy delicious. The skyline image is actually the view from my friend’s rooftop – great view of Denver, isn’t it?
But yes – I’d definitely like to go back and play around downtown. Would love for the conference to move. And agree on the Crowne Plaza’s hotel shuttle being nice – just wish it would’ve been nicer for other stuff they promised

By: Phyl

Phyl — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 03:13:04 +0000

I had to be in Denver for a work-related conference Sat.-Wed. which was held in downtown Denver. I hate to tell you that I now know that Denver has one of the most awesome downtowns I’ve ever visited–it would be better than Portland if it had a bookstore like Powell’s. I’m sorry you were trapped at the CP. It sounds as if you would have enjoyed all that downtown Denver has to offer.

While I wanted to try to attend both RomCon & my work conference, in the end I couldn’t do it. I did schedule my Sat. flight to arrive as early as possible so I could at least come to the booksigning. The CP people were so kind to me–they let me ride their free shuttle to the hotel and back again to the airport even though I was not a paying guest. I spent an hour at the book fair speaking to a handful of authors and then went back to the airport where I caught another shuttle for downtown.

I would have liked to connect with some readers, but I didn’t even know until the day of if I’d even manage to make it for the book fair. It certainly looked as if people were having fun.

I’ve enjoyed all of the blogs about RomCon. I’d love to go for the whole thing sometime, but it’s unlikely. It was serendipity that brought me to Denver at the same time as this year’s event.

By: Liviania

Liviania — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 23:19:46 +0000

What was the Fairy Godmother panel about?

Also, I’m glad to hear Julia Quinn is wonderful in real life. (It was a Julia Quinn book – The Viscount Who Loved Me that led to me being a duckie. And I’m about to give Ten Things a glowing review.)

By: Tweets that mention The Good, The Bad and The Unread » RomCon: A Reader’s Impression -- Topsy.com

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 18:16:56 +0000

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By: Lisa

Lisa — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 18:04:45 +0000

I’d love it if you wrote up something about Lori’s event!

By: carly phillips

carly phillips — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 17:54:58 +0000

I’m sad we didn’t get to meet. I was looking forward to it. I’m also sorry you didn’t like the Fairy Godmother Panel. We didn’t all chat about it before hand. We kinda chose our topics (I chose the social networking part) because I love Twitter, Facebook, and hanging out with readers. Really sorry if it felt lecturing and will take it into consideration for any I do next year.

By: limecello

limecello — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 17:53:26 +0000

Lisa – it makes me sad how very awful your RomCon experience was. I think a lot of people had complaints about the staff- supposedly they were a company hired to run it? They were totally snarking on romance, and making fun of the genre, taking books out of the goody bags etc as well. So. That’s hopefully something that will be addressed for next year.
Heh – and everyone going to the bar is always a good idea! If you get a chance to go next year -or decide to go, hopefully it’ll be better! And I can definitely recommend Lori’s event. (Guess I should do a write up on that, huh )

By: Lisa

Lisa — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 08:47:21 +0000

I had such a short glimpse of RomCon being there only a few hours and thus no real way to see what the events and real attendance was so it was great reading this. I’ve never been to Lori’s even but would love to one day do that. I’ve heard great things about it. I can say, despite having bad experiences with the staff at RomCon, the one reader event I was involved with was really great. Of course, my editor took everyone to the bar when there was a room conflict, so I think the readers were loving that. But it was more than that. The reader author interaction felt really friendly and fun.

Lisa