Recently, I attended the British
Fantasy Society convention in Brighton, UK. I had never been to one before and
I have to say that these things are not normally my cup of tea. I’m quite shy
among lots of people I don’t know and I’m not good at starting up random
conversations with strangers. Even when those strangers share a common
interest, i.e fantasy novels. However, because King’s Envoy had so recently
been launched, and because I’d had the excitement and acclaim of having a short
story accepted for the Society’s 40th Anniversary Anthology, ‘Full
Fathom Forty’, it was too good an opportunity to miss. So, along with my
husband, I went.
The convention was held over three
days, Friday through to Sunday. Due to work and other commitments, we couldn’t
go until the Saturday morning. This meant I missed being in the signing line up
for Full Fathom Forty on the Friday afternoon, which was a shame. It would have
given me the chance to meet my co-anthology-authors, and also the opportunity
to speak to buyers of the anthology about King’s Envoy. Still, it couldn’t be
helped.
Once we registered on the Saturday
and collected our goodie bags full of free books and other yummy stuff, we
planned our day. Christopher Paolini, author of the Inheritance Cycle, was
being interviewed that morning and I thought it would be interesting to hear
what sort of questions he was asked and how he handled them (just in case
someone ever wanted to interview me like that!). The interview lasted around 45
minutes and it was quite interesting. I was slightly surprised to see how few
people turned up to listen though – he was one of the major convention guests
yet only about a third of the available seats were taken. The best bit for me
was when he was asked a question concerning what he thought about the fantasy
genre in general. His answer was that in his opinion, there was a lack of
strong, credible female main characters in fantasy novels. My husband nudged me
at this point and whispered that if Christopher Paolini wanted to see a really
credible and strong female fantasy character, he ought to read MY books. I
smiled and nodded – like THAT was ever going to happen. Imagine my surprise
when, after audience questions and the interview broke up, my husband went up
to Christopher and gave him a copy of King’s Envoy! To the guy’s credit, he
actually looked interested and said he’d read the book when he could. I would
never have had the guts to do that, but my husband is very used to conventions
in his own business life and he’s very good at connecting with people.
That was the first good thing to
happen at the convention. The second occurred when I was waiting to try and
catch the eye of an agent who I knew would be attending the convention. This
agent is known for representing fantasy authors and years ago, when I first
began submitting King’s Envoy, she was very helpful to me. She was the first
real publishing industry professional to give me any feedback on my work. She
was very encouraging, and looked at my work on three separate occasions.
Although she didn’t take me on, she did give me much helpful advice. As she was
going to be at the convention, I thought it might be nice to introduce myself and
thank her for all her help.
While I was waiting for her to come
out of another meeting, I was approached by a guy who said, “I saw you in
Christopher Paolini’s interview. Would you mind giving me your thoughts on how
it went?” It turned out that he was working for Random House, Christopher’s
publishers, and he was doing video interviews with people. I agreed to be
interviewed and managed to get in a few good plugs for my book, including the
one about strong female characters. That was a bonus I didn’t expect!
I then managed to catch the agent as
she came out of her meeting and found that she was as nice as she had seemed
from her emails. I think she was genuinely pleased that I’d taken the time to
connect with her and thank her, and then she asked for a copy of my book! I
hadn’t tried to plug it at all and I hadn’t shown it to her, so there was no
pressure on her to ask for one. Her favorable reaction to the cover picture
really pleased me and she seemed genuinely interested in reading the book. Who
knows what could come of this? I’m not even sure I’m looking for an agent, but
when opportunities present themselves like this, I believe in taking them. I
also believe in thanking people who go out of their way to help me.
These three things all came about
quite unexpectedly, and stemmed from me pushing myself to do something out of
my comfort zone. The lesson here is that you should never think something isn’t
worth doing, and you should take these opportunities where you can. Who knows
where they might lead?
