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Las Vegas

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Last week I went to 20booksto50k in Las Vegas. My first-ever writing conference. It was fun. I learned a lot.

Las Vegas

Las Vegas isn’t messing around. I saw several folks forcefully handed masks when walking into casinos. I did see a fair number skate by or do the ol’ mask under the nose thing (Talk about next-level asshole), but overall Vegas isn’t taking chances.

I can’t blame them, I’m sure 2020 was devastating. Even now we saw lots, I mean LOTS of empty retail spots and almost as many “we’re short-staffed, sorry.” signs.

That said, Vegas is already back to bro clouds and woo girls. Nights are crowded and loud, days are chill outside those doing walks and crawls of shame. Each morning walk to the nearest Starbucks, we saw the vomit and spilled drinks of the night before being hosed off as the city reset.

Neon

Nicole went with me as a little mini-vacation since we haven’t done much leisure-ing in 2021. We hit up the neon museum, which is 100% worth it. It’s just outside the strip central, a short Lyft ride away. Go at night, seriously. It was a blast. So much amazing and interesting Vegas history.

20booksto50k

The reason for the trip. So the gist is that when the (facebook) group started it was around the idea that if you wrote 20 books, and each made like $7/day/365, you’d make $50k/year. While the group is strictly the business of writing the conference tackles both business and craft.

Craft

I have to say the craft talks were actually the weakest. I suspect some of that is simply the pool of talent the organizer uses. While the presenting authors are indeed quite successful, many found success early on Amazon and have successfully ridden that wave (Almost exclusively via Kindle Unlimited). That’s not a knock at all, but also I don’t think some of them have as firm a grasp on their genre’s as they might think, based on their talks.

Again, not a knock on anyone’s skills or anything, just an oversight I think in the organizing. There are a lot of folks who’ve started more recently, that could have probably presented more interesting and timely information. One talk about writing a long series was really just a “My writing journey story” Which was ok, but not what was advertised and as Space Rogues 10 is almost finished, continuing a long series was front of mind for me.

My name tag from the panel I sat on
My brush with fame (Another post)

Craft is tricky, which is why the group doesn’t deal with it. One session, in particular, was about writing space opera, a topic near and dear as that’s what I write.

The panelists, to a person, were writers of military Scifi, and a lone Hard Scifi author, all of whom simply drop their stuff in space opera because as a category on amazon it helps their sales.

The entire panel was each of these authors, explaining how they justified their stuff being space opera. I’ll grant that ‘space opera’ as a category is pretty nebulous, but military scifi isn’t space opera. The fact that two of my characters are ex-military, doesn’t make my stuff military scifi.

Such a missed opportunity. There weren’t many like this, but there were a non-zero number and each one just reinforced my decisions (Decisions and reasons why, below).

Business

The business talks were far less hit or miss. I took many, many pages of notes around how to improve my newsletters (Something I plan to work on for the conferences as well), direct sales, in-person sales, and more. This week I’ll be trying to sort all my notes into actionable to-do list stuff.

There were a few business ones that were nearly “Be in KU, end of session” but by and large the business talks were by authors who take this business seriously.

Cool Kids Club

20books is very much a cool kids club. This isn’t wholly bad, but definitely leads to blind spots. Several sessions were essentially the speaker or panelists talking about themselves or filling time with barely formed ideas and as I said above, “Be in KU” type things that showed a lack of any truly deep understanding.

The reason I say it’s not wholly bad is that it the conference is Craig’s and he can do what he likes. It’s centered around the community that has formed around the group, and that’s the garden from which he picks talent.

As someone involved in community, it bummed me out. There was very much a cool kids and everyone else vibe. The everyone else’s spent the week scrabbling for attention and fawning over the ‘celebrities’. Something that always rubs me the wrong way.

Decisions

So, will I go back? No. Craig goes to great lengths to make sure the conference is accessible. Sessions are live-streamed on Facebook and made available on youtube later. While the sessions can be hit or miss, I’m not looking for ‘my tribe’ or new friends really (new friends are great but I have lots of ‘online only friends’ already).

I’m in this to make a living and learn from those doing better than me, and that can be accomplished with the livestreams/recordings. I’ll post about my opportunity to be on a panel and why that might be the only reason I’d entertain going back to Vegas, in the next post.

My Not a Hot Take on Basecamp

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A friend shared this.

You should 100% click on it and read the thread. Do it in another tab though, I’m not done here!

Matt’s thread reminded me of something. First, I don’t care for DHH, I never have. He struck me as a white tech bro that thought he could do no wrong, and that his hot takes were printed on gold foil.
But whatever, there’s plenty being written about Basecamp’s implosion, go find it. What this thread reminded me of is an interaction with someone I consider a friend now.

Years ago, 10 or so. An attendee at one of my conferences had an issue. I don’t remember it was, some confusion around something. He wasn’t entirely right, nor was I. We went back and forth over email for an hour one morning of the event. It was getting more and more heated. I’m sure had it continued he’d never come to another of my events again, likely making sure everyone knew how he’d been treated.

I didn’t want to be wrong, I technically wasn’t. I certainly didn’t want him to have the last word.

As I said, this was happening during the conference, I was at the registration desk, he was somewhere in one of the rooms. Something in my head clicked and it occurred to me that I was being dumb. My ego had stepped in and wasn’t letting any other part of me get a word in. I could feel the flush in my cheeks as I typed out angry responsese.

somehow, thankfully, I realized there was no downside to “taking the loss” on this. The customer wasn’t entirely wrong and making him feel whole on the issue cost me nothing beyond being “Wrong”. At the end of the day, who cared? My customer did, but did I? Or was I just reacting to a perceived attack? It was the latter, and it took over an hour to realize that.

During the next break, I tracked him down and apologized. I addressed the issue, we agreed on a resolution. Like that it was done. He was happy his issue was addressed. I was happy that a customer was happy. We’re friends now, he comes to my conferences still all these years later. I know if I need something he’ll do what he can to help, same as I would for him.

I don’t know all of what’s going on at Basecamp, but do know this could all be solved if DHH and Jason took a minute to take their heads out of their asses. To listen to their employees openly without commenting. Without digging in. They’ve built a team of outrageously talented and passionate people. By now they’ve lost a lot of them, and that will continue.

My heart breaks for the Basecamp folks now looking for new opportunities. I’ve talked to enough of them over the years to know they loved what they did and who they did it with (and for).

First Impressions of Clubhouse

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tl;dr; Meh.

Part of that is on me. I hadn’t paid much attention due to the whole secret society, invite only non-sense. As more people started to get in and it seemed like getting an invite wouldn’t be hard, I jumped in. A friend invited me a day later.

I saw the name of the app. “clubhouse drop in audio chat” it didn’t register in my head.

Then I got in. Oh… Audio….

I don’t dig it. I don’t see why it’s any different from apps that have been out a while and were voice based (I forget the name of the more popular one).

I fired it up and went through the on-boarding steps, helping dial in people I’d like to hear. It was amazingly VC heavy, blech. But I found 50 odd folks to follow, many pre-selected as “I might like”

The team behind the app do town halls, then do town hall reaction chat. Smart. I tuned into a reaction chat. It was not bad, very orderly every spoke one at a time, etc. I could see a little outline of who was talking, etc.

But, it was all I could do. Facebook, twitter, etc while demanding my attention, don’t require it. Clubhouse does. To actually participate, you have to be listening.

Jump ahead a week.

Ok, now I’ve played with it more and still don’t get it. For one thing, it seems to be lots, I mean LOTS of “get rich quick” business charlatans talking to each other about their shitty businesses and encouraging others, etc. Yay?

Clubhouse, uninstalled. It’s not a replacement for anything, and it demands your undivided attention, which is great for it, but horrible for the user.

Selling when things are shit

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I won’t lie, two weeks ago, we wrapped up Ignite Denver a few days before social distancing was the order the day (we were about two days before the venue decided to close up). I thought, “You know this sucks, but things will continue like normal, more or less. It’ll just be inconvenient for a while.”

I couldn’t have been more wrong. We’re now in week two of social isolation and self-quarantine. Everything is closed except grocery stores, pharmacies and (here in CO) dispensaries. 180,000 people in CO filed for unemployment last week. Things are shit.

People (rightfully so, I mean tomorrow is scary, four months might as well be four years from now) aren’t thinking about conferences. They’re not buying tickets, not signing up to speak. Sponsors are waiting to see what events are happening before they write checks. All perfectly understandable because things are shit, but not helpful.

And I can’t file for unemployment. Well, I could if I fired myself, which would be closing down 360|Conferences. So I’d prefer to not do that!

I sent an email to one community earlier this week, another went out today. Essentially begging folks to buy tickets. I hate sending emails like that. I hate asking my communities for charity. I’d rather support them than ask them to support me. I’d rather be the one to bring them together. Help them grow, meet new people, do awesome things. Not beg for their time. I did it because things are shit.

No ticket sales, no sponsorships means no payroll for me.

Mr. Brightside

Writing is a bright point right now. I’m hard at work on Space Rogues 7. Space Rogues 6 comes out next month. Pre-orders have surpassed book 5 numbers, so that’s awesome. I’ll have book 7 ready for pre-order when 6 launches, so that will be awesome.

The downside is that…

  1. Sales are slow. Makes sense, a lot of folks suddenly have far less disposable income. I certainly do, I’m not buying much of anything. I get it, things are shit.
  2. Next month, when book 6 launches and those pre-order process, I’ll get paid in June for that. Such is publishing.
  3. Amazon is giving away 2 months free Kindle Unlimited, which has blown the bottom out of the market. Why buy a book, when you can read thousands for “free”? Even if only for the next two months.

 

What can you do?

Well, if you’re so inclined, you can directly support me. Buy books (or merch) directly from my shop page. I get paid immediately for those purchases. If you’ve read all five books, tell people you know that might like them. Gift them copies, send them the URL with “Buy this book” all of it helps, because right now, writing income, will be supplementing conference income.

A Year and Decade in Review

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Welp, we’ve passed the Winter Solstice, and in just a few hours we’ll be saying goodbye not just to 2019, but to the 2010’s. I’ve never been a resolution maker but I do like to look back on what I’ve done, what I wanted to do etc.

So where are we (the royal we)?

The 2010’s saw the birth of my professional writing career. Technically I’ve been paid for my writing for years, as a copy and tech writer, a resume writer, etc. But fiction, that’s new. Plus I stopped selling my non-fiction writing services years ago. If you’d asked me ten years ago if I thought I’d be a writer that makes money I’d have laughed. If you’d asked if I thought I could ever make a living as a writer, I’d have laughed harder. But here we are.

On top of my writing the 2010’s were a pivotal and volatile decade for 360|Conferences.

On a personal level, Nicole and I moved from our downtown townhouse in the “Hottest ‘hood in Denver” (Blech) to just outside downtown to a neighborhood that doesn’t suffer year ’round construction, unannounced music festivals, and other nonsense. I haven’t had to step around vomit once, and it’s frankly glorious. Suck it RiNo.

We love our home and the neighborhood, we actually get out more to the nearby arts district than we did in RiNo where drinks came with a loan application and snobbery.

Nicole and I also visited some amazing places.

The Netherlands. We got to visit our dearest friends Mike and Judy in their awesome adopted home of Amsterdam. We’re overdue for another visit as they’re now homeowners!

Germany. We did Oktoberfest! The real one! It was amazing. We had a big group which was tons of fun, drank and ate lots, saw a ton of things. Did NOT snort menthol (which we thought was cocaine and that Australians gave zero fucks). We’re planning to go back in 2023.

Egypt. To close out the decade (sorta) in 2018 we spent 10 days in Egypt, visiting all the things, drifting down the Nile river. I wrote a large portion of Space Rogues 4 on the deck of a Dahabiya watching the Nile drift by. It was an amazing trip!

We Renovated our house. Thankfully we were in Egypt for some of it. But the house we moved into had a few less than perfect things about it. Namely, a kitchen that was too small, a dining room we didn’t need, and a master bathroom that was anything but masterful. So we gutted. We have an amazing open kitchen now that we love. We have a master bathroom that’s stunning and we couldn’t be happier. The house is much more ‘us’. It was neat to see the house torn back to studs and in the case of the first floor, the original brick. I’m so bummed we had to re cover it but someone in the past through you could nail plaster and lathe to brick… Same for the original hardwood floors (no I’m not Karen from the 80s, we put down new wood #carpetsucks).

And we will likely never do a renovation project again. That shit is stressful. But I did find a wizard staff hidden in the wall, so there’s that.

A few 2010s Numbers.

Number of Space Rogues books released: 5. 7 if you count the two short stories.

Number of non-Space Rogues books released: 0

Number of non-Space Rogues books written: 1

Number of eBooks sold: 23,197

Number of Paperbacks sold: Not many, Hard to break out past about 90 days, but about 200.

Number of eBooks given away: 46,552

Number of Books put to Audio: 1

Number of conferences created: 3

Number of conferences put out to pasture: 2

Number of moves for Nicole and I: 1

Rogue Publishing LogoWriting.

I’m pretty excited that writing is going so well. People seem to really like the Space Rogue series. The 5th book was just released with the highest number of pre-orders yet. Book one has been hanging around the top 500 or so free Kindle books for the last two months (It’s going back to full price 1/1 if you haven’t grabbed it yet!). In 2019 I made about 5x more than I did in 2018. I don’t want to jinx things but can see “Full-time writer” as my occupation in a few years if things keep going well.

Mid-2019 I wrote what I hope is the first book in a new series. It’ll be released sometime around the first of the year, in addition to Space Rogues 6. I’m excited to try something new, to branch out, and I HOPE, add a new revenue stream to my business.

I decided in 2019 to start putting myself out there more in person, so I have been applying for author alley’s or paying for booths at conventions. I’ve written about that already so won’t rehash it here, but I’ve signed a couple of dozen books now for people, which is pretty fucking cool, even if I still haven’t found “my thing” when signing. I’ll be doing more in 2020.

The last bit of writing news is that I spun up a merch store. I’m still working on it, fine-tuning, but I’ve had enough readers ask about shirts and stickers and such that the couple hours it took to get it going, should be worth it. I mean I’ve already sold 2 shirts and a coffee mug so, ¯\_(?)_/¯ . I won’t lie, I’m looking forward to the day I see someone on the street in a Space Rogues shirt.

Lots of Eggs, Many baskets.

I’ve talked about being wide before so I will skip the details but here’s an update.

Amazon now accounts for ‘just’ 74% of my income. My hope is to move that closer to 50% or less. There are a few companies I trust with silos, Amazon isn’t one of them. My books are available on every device and in every store that sells ebooks.

While I dislike exclusivity, I am a bit locked in with Audible. Because I’ve set up a royalty share with my awesome narrator, I’m locked into Audible for 7 years. That’s unlikely to change, unfortunately.

Conferences

360conferences banner

360|Conferences had it’s oh shit moment during the 2010s. Specifically, 2017, where attendance at 360|iDev dropped by 50% without any warning. The hard part there is when you plan, and commit to 400 ppl, and only 200 show up, hotels and vendors aren’t overly sympathetic. It was made worse by having already taken a significant loss in spinning up a new conference. Thankfully the Grand Hyatt (Where 360|iDev has been for 3 years now) are actually really awesome partners. 2018-19 were years of regrouping and figuring my shit out for the conferences. I’m happy to report I might have finally kind figured this out. Still pretty upside down, but not in a way that it feels hopeless.

One big thing for me was that I realized that while being the ‘biggest’ was neat, it wasn’t sustainable, and it wasn’t really what I wanted. Being the ‘best’ is what I want, and think we’re doing pretty good there. 2018 was a record profit year for all three conferences, and 2019 was pretty good (a few stumbles). I’ve made some changes for 2020 that I think will be awesome. Of course after 2017, all this “record profit” and “best year yet” stuff is just digging out a pretty deep hole. I’m thankful I was given a chance to dig out vs. walking away from debt and hosing a partner.

I’m thankful that 360|Conferences is celebrating a decade of existing, not many conference companies get to say that. The communities that I’ve had the privilege of supporting are amazing, and I’ve formed a ton of friendships by doing these conferences.

A Few Highlights.

360|Flex was put to bed. This happened pretty early in the decade. I tried to rebrand, failed. Tried to bring 360|Flex back as more niche, didn’t enjoy it. So I pulled the plug 100%. A shady travel company managed to grab the domain, then lost it, the new owner then stole the twitter account, fun.

360|intersect was born and died. I’m still convinced intersect was just ahead of it’s time, but regardless, as much as I loved it and the content, not enough people were coming. While all my conferences are near and dear, 360|intersect brought together some really awesome people to tell their stories.

360|AnDev was born. Dave and Chiu-Ki approached me about doing an Android event here in Denver. I was hesitant since I’d said Android wasn’t really for me, but with their help on the community side, we’ve created a world-class event.

Chicago Roboto was born. Ryan and Jerrell reached out after 360|AnDev about doing another Android event, this time in Chicago. I still wasn’t sure, but again, they managed the community aspect, and I executed. Chicago Roboto has quickly caught up to its sister 360|AnDev in terms of size and speaker quality. I couldn’t be more proud of what we’ve done.

360|iDev has continued to lead the iOS developer event pack. A few more events have closed up shop (This ain’t an easy business!). I made the conscious decision that 360|iDev was a 200 person event. no more creeping up to 300, then 350, then 400. At 200 it’s sold out. The end.

AltConf is still THE community event at WWDC. I love working with Rob and Anna and the rest of the AltConf team. We execute a truly massive (Thousand of attendees, dozens of sponsors) event, that is free to attend whether you’re a WWDC ticket holder or not.

And of course (not 360|Conferences) Ignite Denver is still something I’m super proud of. The first Ignite event in CO, and the longest-running.

 

So…

That’s the 2010s for me. I’m exceptionally excited or 2020 and the decade it brings. I’m excited to see where the iOS and Android communities go. I’m excited to bring more stories to the world, who knows, maybe one day you’ll see Wil Calder on the screen (big or small).

 

Happy Holidays, Merry New Year, Successful Festivus.

 

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