Author's After Dark in Review

I'm finally recuperated enough to write this post. Well, where to start? Phew! For my first conference EVER as well as my first conference as an author AAD had everything I could have asked for in a con. There were plenty of things to do, tons of new people to meet, and you could take your own down time where you wanted too. Considering I went into the con not having slept in 48 hrs I really liked the nap time I could carve out for myself.

Panels: I was on one! For someone who's absolutely terrified of public speaking, this was an amazing experience because it was completely reader motivated so the questions were casual and not generic. It kind of felt like I was just talking on Twitter to a bunch of real people in a room. It was a lot of fun comparing how we wrote on the Erotica panel and comparing how we did sexual positioning for books with barbies or white boards--and those are just the highlights.

I was also a "reader" in a few of the panels, meaning I went to learn and question other authors. I've never gotten such personal, nice advice! I have tons of notes to share with my readers over the next coming days because of these awesome panels. Every author was super duper helpful and a panel was customized based on what people wanted to know so it didn't feel like a rehash of someone's old blog post.

Parties: It looked like a lot of people had fun with these. I didn't go to the two offered, though I did go to dinner and dress up for the themes. I wound up outside on the balcony with my new author friends talking the night away! But, from what I heard, the balls, etc were epic with lots of dancing, neat vendors, and good booze in plastic containers. (Everything was cash bar for the most part).

Swag: I came home with more than 14 books. Enough said.

Author Signing: There was a decent turn-out, a lot of people came for the highlight authors or the big names but I handed out a lot of free reads and business cards so that was neat. Luckily, I had my parents there, (yes, I was lame like that) and they went around getting the signatures I couldn't get because I was signing. Like Meljean Brook!*fangirl squee* I happened to sit next to her in my steampunk panel and dear god, I think I may have scared her I was so excited. I gushed, it was bad. It was also stalkerriffic.

A sense of utter comfort and community--well, to me, that's priceless. For the cost and the experience I would def hit this con again next year in 2012!