I went to the Wild Wild West con (WWWC8) in Old Tucson last weekend. I attend steampunk events to keep tabs on the readers of steampunk. I’m a writer, I have to keep my finger on the pulse of the readers. I also visit with the authors that are selling their books there. There were only four or so authors with booths there so I may try selling there next year. Plus I enjoy going to these events.
I had never been to the WWWC before. It was spread out so I did a lot of walking. The first day was windy and cold. I was lucky I had my rain coat along. It was raining when I left the coast to go to Tucson. The rain coat went well with my outfit. The second day was nicer.
There were a lot of impressive outfit there. Some attendees wore a different outfit for every day of the con.
For the last couple of years I have been taking photographs at these event. Since keeping the photographs to myself would be a waste I offer to send a copy of the photograph to those I photograph. That involves getting a copy of the person’s email address.
I will hand out my steampunk business card when I get their email address. I gave out over a hundred business cards. I took close to 400 photos. I usually take 2 or 3 photos of someone. Occasionally I will take only one photo of someone but other times I will take a half dozen photos. You never know when someone will blink and you will get a photo of them with their eyes closed. When I got back I broke down and started cleaning up the jpeg photos immediately. There’s not a lot you can do with a jpeg. And jpegs are smaller files. Even then I have to reduce the size of the photo to send it out in an email. The system limits the emails to 20 Mega bytes and one of the full size photos range from 9 to 12 Mega bytes.
I do offer to set up a drop box so that anyone that wants a full sized photo can get it.
It’s a lot of work going through 400 photos and culling out the bad ones. Cleaning up the ones that are worth sending to someone, and figuring out the handwriting of someone email address.
If you go to a Steampunk event get and give out business cards. It’s what they did in the 1800s and it’s good manners.
After working on them for three days I got the last of them out last night.
It always surprises me how many people work so hard on their costumes and never have someone take a photo of them dressed up. A selfie will not do justice to all the hard work they put into the outfit.
With all the business cards I handed out maybe someone will stumble onto my web site and end up buying my book. I can only hope.
Would you photograph people for free for a chance to sell your book?
Am I crazy? Well those cowboy boots are rough on the feet and I don’t know if anyone even knew I was wearing them. What an author will do to sell a book.
Stay strong, write on, and photograph those Steampunker.
Professor Hyram Voltage