This past Saturday, StarWarp Concepts—represented by me and Troubleshooters, Incorporated: Night Stalkings author Richard C. White (who was kind enough to take the pics you see here)—attended the inaugural BookCon, a one-day event spun off from the annual Book Expo America trade show. I’ve been to BEA a number of times as an author wandering the aisles to see what was going on with the major publishing houses, but this was the first time I’d ever exhibited (the prices for BEA booths are ridiculously high, but BookCon’s booths were much less expensive). So how did it go?

Well, for one thing it was a madhouse—from the estimated turnout (between 9,000 and 10,000 attendees, but seemed larger) you would have thought you were attending New York Comic Con: crowded aisles, high numbers of teen fans, people racing from one event to another. The only thing missing were cosplayers! Although I did my part, in a style I like to call “the love child of The Master from Doctor Who and Jonathan Pryce’s Mr. Dark from the movie Something Wicked This Way Comes.” It’s become my official book-selling outfit, because attendees at comic conventions and book festivals always remember “that guy in black with the skull tie.” (Not pictured: the black sneakers with orange laces that complete the look.)

Helping Rich and me out at the booth was J. D. Calderon, writer/creator of the mouse-starring fantasy webcomic series The Oswald Chronicles. (That’s J.D. you see to the left, during one of the breaks between waves of eager readers.) Although I’ve been an exhibitor at the Brooklyn Book Festival the past few years, and we’d all done New York Comic Con, none of us had ever exhibited at BookCon’s parent trade show, Book Expo America (waaay too expensive), so we had no idea what to expect.

Well, after the usual hyperactive start to a convention—the doors open and the masses flood in, racing down the aisles like speed demons in a Fast and Furious movie to grab whatever is free or being offered as a special—the show eventually settled down to the standard flow of browsers in search of new books to capture their interest. And that’s where The ’Warp came in, with our selection of dark fantasy titles. While I preached the Gospel of Pandora Zwieback, Rich got folks excited to read about his supernatural superhero team of Troubleshooters, and to meet the crew of his pirate-fantasy digital comic The Chronicles of the Sea Dragon Special.

Favorite con moment: An 11-year-old girl and her grandmother stopped by to ask about Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1. Since the girl was wearing a leather jacket, Pan’s look and attitude had caught her eye. The grandmother asked if the book was appropriate for the girl’s age.

“Well,” I said, “as I told the father of a 12-year-old girl who bought a copy last year, the book has some movie-violent scenes—”

“That’s fine,” said Grandma.

“I use the word ‘asshole’ a couple of times—”

“That’s fine,” said the girl.

“But there’s no sex.”

“Great!” said the grandmother with a laugh. And Pan gained a new fan.

That girl wasn’t the only new Panatic, or the only new fan of The ’Warp. Tweens, teens, and adults all came to the booth, and happily left with copies of Blood Feud, The Saga of Pandora Zwieback Annual, Troubleshooters, Incorporated, Lorelei: Sects and the City, Carmilla, A Princess of Mars, and The Bob Larkin Sketchbook. We even sold a few Pandora Zwieback T-shirts, and pointed readers toward our downloadable e-titles Snow White and The Chronicles of the Sea Dragon Special. And when Rich and I weren’t hawking our wares, we participated in discussions of Doctor Who with attendees who noticed the Jon Pertwee T-shirt that Rich was wearing—a conversation starter for sure! All in all, we had a good time, and came away with a sense that we’d made some additions to The ’Warp’s fan base.

BookCon 2015 has already been announced for May 30–31—considering the first one’s success, its expansion to a full weekend comes as little surprise—so in all likelihood you’ll find The ’Warp crew back behind the table, welcoming fans old and new. Hope we’ll see you next year!

The next two stops on the SWC 2014 convention tour are Eternal Con, June 14–15 at the Cradle of Aviation Museum, in Garden City, Long Island; and author Richard C. White’s appearance at Origins Game Fair, June 11¬–15 at the Greater Columbus Convention Center, in Columbus, Ohio. Stop by and say hi!

Coming tomorrow: For BookCon attendees and book lovers in general, we begin a multipart review of StarWarp Concepts’ backlist of available titles. Find out what fantastic books you may need to add to your collection!