So I did a book sign­ing this week­end at Rob-Con, a comic book con­ven­tion that’s held every July in Bris­tol, Va. The event is spon­sored by Moun­tain Empire Comics, and I want to give a shout-out to Rob, the owner, for hav­ing me back at the con again. Thanks, Rob!

Yep, that’s me on the right, telling some­one all about the Ele­men­tal Assas­sin urban fan­tasy series. Many thanks go out to Whee­z­ley, my sig­nif­i­cant other, for snap­ping the photo.

A cou­ple of weeks ago, I did some posts on book pro­mo­tion, and one of the things that I men­tioned was that I don’t do any book sign­ings at chain book­stores any more. Why not? Well, I just never seem to have any inter­est or sell more than a book or two.

But going to Rob-Con is totally dif­fer­ent. There, folks know all about super­heroes and fan­tasy books, movies, and TV shows. So even if I don’t sell any books, I can still have a good time talk­ing to peo­ple. I much pre­fer doing events like Rob-Con or group book sign­ings rather than sit­ting by myself in a chain store for two hours. And yes, peo­ple will think that you work at the store and ask you where the bath­room is when you do those kind of sign­ings. Sigh.

So how did I do at Rob-Con? Well, I sold seven books, and sev­eral more peo­ple came over and got me to sign copies of the books that they already had. Any time I can sell more than five books in two hours, I feel like I’ve done okay. And of course, I handed out some book­marks and fly­ers to every­one who stopped by my table. Over­all, it was a fun way to spend a Sat­ur­day after­noon.

For those of you who might be inter­ested, I’ll prob­a­bly be doing a sign­ing for Venom at Moun­tain Empire Comics some­time in late Octo­ber, when the store has its big Hal­loween sale/party. I’ll post the details when I get them.