Additional World Fantasy thoughts

[mrissa]

1. It was neat to see people together whom I had previously only seen separately. It wasn't so much that there was mushy schmoopiness as that there were sometimes visible waves of happy coming off them. Like sort of virtual T-shirts reading, "I'm with Awesome -->." This is a good thing to see between one's friends.

2. johnjosephadams and I were both worried that my part of the reading for the Shimmer Pirate issue (available here!) would not go very well, because it's a rather visual story. There is nothing more dire than a story that's meant to be funny and isn't coming off that way, as the sad author pauses for laughs that never come, or come belatedly and with a forced courtesy. This did not happen. People laughed in the right spots. Also I was able to finish my story in the time available, and I am fond of having at least one complete piece in a group reading, so that was a happy thing. Yay reading. It was good. Also there was a pirate hat for the person who was reading at the moment. Yay hat. (I am generally a fan of hats, not pirate hats as a particular thing.)

3. I went to a couple of other official programming-type events. I went to hear stillnotbored read poetry with a bunch of other people, and some of them were really good, and some of them were not so good, but this is what we expect of an open mike event. If you go into an open mike expecting wall-to-wall fabulous, you will be disappointed. But stillnotbored was not the sole highlight of that event, so yay. Also I went to a panel on Gilbert and Sullivan as fantasy. I was a great deal more interested in Gilbert and Sullivan in fantasy, but sidetrackable Gilbert and Sullivan enthusiasts are not the worst people to put on a panel. There was, I think, too strong a correlation of whimsy with fantasy. Just as unrealistic and non-realistic are not necessarily the same thing, non-realistic is not necessarily the same as fantastical. We don't get to claim everything that isn't aimed at being strictly and solely representational -- nor would we want it if we could. The fact that people don't spontaneously break into song in the middle of conversations -- at least, markgritter usually doesn't -- does not give musicals a fantastical setting or a speculative conceit as such, any more than the fact that people are not attached at the back to stone makes a bas relief speculative. Nor is satire inherently speculative. So -- yah. Not much talk of peris or potions, not much talk of the tension between Gilbert and Sullivan on the use of magical elements in their operettas (Arthur was agin 'em), but lots of laughing and discussion of social roles in G&S, which was fine with me, especially since I got off on a mental tangent about my own librettist and composer characters in What We Did to Save the Kingdom and scribbled notes happily for awhile.

4. Business cards are a fine thing, people. They serve their purpose in a minimalist sort of way; they are not thrilling, perhaps, but they get contact information between people in a way nobody has to think about too hard. There are advantages to cultural standards sometimes.

Business cards are not generally useful for reminding people of specific books, though, and I have opinions on two of the things people often use to do so (without going into the temporary tattoo/fridge magnet/ballpoint pen/other object of use and/or interest territory). Bookmarks are good. Approximately everyone at a convention uses bookmarks. You don't have to explain what they're for. Probably a lot of the people at a convention will use anything else paper you give them as a bookmark anyway. I am fond of bookmarks. But the one I really wanted to mention, because it's so darn common, is postcards with your book cover on them. People. Will you please consider making them useful as postcards? Because you may well want to send a postcard with cover copy and release information taking up the whole of the side that doesn't have the shiny picture on it, but you are the only one. Even if you meet someone and talk to them about your book and they think it sounds awesome, they are not very likely to pick up a stack of your postcards and address them to their college roommate and that one co-worker who reads this sort of thing and Eccentric Aunt So-and-So if there's no room to write on the card itself. If your cover is truly awesome, someone might say, "I must have this lovely and fascinating image!" and pick up the postcard-sized object with writing all over the back. But odds are not good. Take a page from the people who have the postcards of Niagara Falls: put three lines of explanation up in the far left corner and leave the rest useful. Then there's some chance that people will send the postcard to someone, thereby thinking of your book while carting it around writing it, putting it under the eyes of postal employees, and then putting it under the eyes of someone else completely on the other end of this thing. If you hand out pens, you make sure they write; if you hand out magnets, you make sure they stick to things, because nobody wants a thin bendy piece of metal that doesn't stick to the fridge. So if you hand out postcards, make sure people can blather about the awesome pommes frites they had on Saturday on the back of them. This is what postcards are for.

Comments

[zalena.livejournal.com]

I have a version of 'calling cards' that I carry around in my wallet. They have my name, phone number, and email on them. They are usually handed out with book recommendations scribbled on the back.

The postcard idea is awesome. But I need to publish a book, first.

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

>Will you please consider making them useful as postcards?

*\o/*

I do sometimes use postcards as bookmarks, but I don't pick them up with that intention.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

This is the first step for many of us, yes.

[aet.livejournal.com]

So true about postcards! What I most loved about pre-election postcards from Helsinki was that most of them had enough writing room on the back! (unlike the local ones, where the back is used up usually)

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I ordered business cards two years ago. I have yet to remember to take them. (But then, the only people I meet are ones I already know, or new people who are LJers or fan connections. I cannot imagine being in a situation where a business card would actually be useful.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

The thing about business cards is that you can write, "remember to send link to quantum zen comic," or, "Hockey fantasy???" on the back, so then the ljers or fan connections know what they were supposed to remember upon their return to civilization. As it is I have things scribbled on my program book, my airline tickets, and the back of my name badge, which will do in a pinch.

[stillnotbored.livejournal.com]

You are so right about the postcards. Some of them would be awesome to send quick notes to people if there was only room to write on them.

And thank you for thinking I was a highlight of something. *g* You made my day.

[the-flea-king.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the rant on postcards. I just did one of these for a friend, and the back had enough room for an address and nothing more. We should have took less blurb and left more space to be usable in the way you describe. I'll do so for any I design in the future. Kind of a "duh!" moment for me.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I never thought of that! Awesome.

[retrobabble.livejournal.com]

I did not have enough M'ris time. Does that qualify as mean-ness?

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

I would like to see people be a little more discerning when handing business cards out. I'm delighted to get them from someone I want to stay in touch with, but there are a couple of folks that I'm now going to remember only as, for example, "the guy who gave me a business card for no apparent reason."

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yah, I don't think they make much sense as a substitute for shaking hands, because you don't have anything to attach the information to, mentally. No reason to know if you'll want it.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

You were a highlight of lots of things!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It's just so commonly done that way, with the text filling the entire back of the card, that I'm not surprised when people continue doing it that way. Glad you like the idea, though!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I don't think so, unless you're going to somehow be mean about it. I called out to you Sunday morning when you were too far away for me to physically grab, but you and sksperry were off and away at full speed.

[the-flea-king.livejournal.com]

The problem is,we're calling them postcards, but I don't think the postcard-sized things that authors have printed up to advertise their book are ever meant to be used in the way that a postcard usually is. I mean, does anybody ever actually mail them? Mike had me make them so he could leave them on tables for people, but also because he was going to drop them in to mail to people he knew, I think. So no space needed because the postcard was all he had to say, I guess?

They're probably generally just fliers that are made in the size of postcards because it's a cheap size to get printed.

[retrobabble.livejournal.com]

Awwww. You could have chucked something. *grin*

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That makes sense, thinking of them as a convenient cheap size rather than as an actual postcard.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I probably would have hit Suzy Charnas in the back of the head if I'd tried, and she reminds me of all my aunties in the "do not hit her in the back of the head, because 1) you don't actually want to take her out permanently because she's cool but 2) if you don't, she is perfectly able to take you out permanently" sort of way.

[retrobabble.livejournal.com]

Clearly we have the same aunts. Are you sure we're not related?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Sure, why not? I can't be held responsible for keeping track of how many coasts we've raided over the last millennium or so....

G & S - In which I am *almost* on topic

[mamapduck.livejournal.com]

I watched all the Star Trek: TNG movies last weekend and was reminded how much it cracks me up that Data sings G & S tunes. Not quite as much as I adore the fact that the Mercedes Lackey urban elves books (the ones co-written by Rosemary Edgehill) have a fair bit of They Might Be Giants, but then I'm overly partial to TMBG, so I'm biased.

The postcard thing is sad because what they've done is essentially taken a useful item (and marketing tool) and turned it into an expensive flyer. If it were functional, I'd be inclined not only to use the postcard but to send it to someone who I thought would like the book.

[zwol.livejournal.com]

But ... but ... I can think of lots of uses for thin bendy pieces of metal that don't stick to the refrigerator! Rulers, leaf springs, props for wobbly tables, jimmying bad door locks open, scraping down the globs of wax stuck to the kitchen counter from the last time I made candles, ...

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

This, I think, is part of the same problem that results in the postcards with no writing space: something being done for some nebulous sense of connection without any real reason why it would serve to connect the people or things involved, or why they would want to be connected.

This is one of the reasons people who think of "networking" as a thing in itself are such total pains in the ass: because meaningful connection between people doesn't just spring into being because they were at the same con party.

Monkeys. Sigh.

[aszanoni.livejournal.com]

I've noticed this also. When I was a kid, I had a fascination with business cards, and collected them. Now, I'm not sure why, but business cards no longer fascinate me.

In your case, I'd say it was because they saw your nifty pirate picture for _Shimmer_, but I may be biased. ;]

- Chica

[aszanoni.livejournal.com]

Agreed. I prefer having space to write a note.

Someone last month had me write a note for her, because she'd injured her hand. I remember her clearly for that reason - because I remember the act of writing, and why. And I'll get a note to her because I remember what we discussed.

Thanks, M'ris; I agree entirely with you on the postcards. (Pretty! Now what do I do with it?) I've seen some postcards that I'd have to put in an envelope to send... :/

Bookmarks are better. I never have enough bookmarks.

- Chica