Dragonsteel Nexus 2024 - Tiff’s Booth
Hello Dear Reader!
Apologies for not posting last week. I was on my way back from Dragonsteel! So today I wanted to spend a bit of time talking about my experience at Dragonsteel Nexus as an exhibitor! For those of you who don’t know Dragonsteel Nexus (formerly just Dragonsteel) is Brandon Sanderson’s fantasy book convention. It essentially serves as a gigantic release party for whatever book he has coming out that year. (Or, one of the books he has coming out that year, if you know anything about Sanderson…)
Like most conventions there are panel talks, cosplay, an exhibitor area, and then I don’t know how many other conventions have this, but there is also a crafting space where you can make little craft kits, a game room/arena to play board and card games with other people, and more. I will admit I haven’t been to too many conventions in the past several years, so I only know how it compares to the ones I went to in high school… (Which was longer ago than I would like to admit… 😅)
Again, not sure how this compares to other conventions, but Dragonsteel offers an “Indie Row” option, where you can get a booth for just one, two, or all three days of the convention. It is a smaller booth than the standard exhibitor booth and designed to give smaller authors a chance to exhibit and get their name out there. I think this is the coolest opportunity ever and I jumped on it. I signed up for just one day, just to dip my toe in the water and see how it went.
My booth before the exhibitor floor opened.
It. Was. Amazing.
Up close image of a shelf my grandpa made for me, my banner, and all our books on display.
I only had a 4 foot table. (I had been under the impression that we would have an 8 foot table, so we had to modify plans at the last minute, but even so, I think the table turned out quite lovely.)
Exhausting, but amazing. There were over 6000 attendees at Dragonsteel not including staff, volunteers, and other exhibitors. I have no idea how many of them stopped by my booth on Friday, but it felt like hundreds.
I will probably type up a more extensive version of “lessons learned” in another post with tips for first time booth renters, but for now I just want to say that it was such an encouraging experience and I had a lot of fun. Your milage may vary, but here are some of my biggest takeaways if you’ve never had a booth before and are looking to have one:
Bring more business cards than you think you will need, or have a QR code for your contact information. I ran out of business cards in the first 2 to 3 hours. Luckily I had bookmarks I was planning on giving away with the purchase of a book that had my contact information on the back, so those just ended up being my business card replacement. I think I had at least 50 business cards and I know that I went through almost all 150 bookmarks.
Have an e-mail sign up list! I actually got around 20 people to sign up for my newsletter! (I had people write it down, but in the future, I think I may direct them to a QR code link, because I had trouble reading people’s handwriting. I hope everyone who signed up gets my newsletter, if you don’t, I apologize 😣 )
Bring Snacks and throat lozenges. It was nice to have some snacks at the table to munch on and I am not used to talking 10+ hours a day, so my throat was very sore and tired by the middle of the day. Having some throat drops was a life save. Someone else made that recommendation to me and it was so helpful, so I want to pass it on to you!
Have someone go with you to help! We were pretty busy so it was nice to have someone to watch the booth so I could step away for a couple minutes to, you know, do things like go to the bathroom or eat my lunch.
Get a wagon. This was the best thing for carrying stuff ever.
If you can, really invest in good artwork for your book cover and your advertising materials (like signs or banners). This will draw people’s attention to your booth.
Go in with no expectations! My goal was to just get practice talking to people about my book and to have fun. I mean, of course I was hoping to sell my book (and Dustin and Phil’s books) as well, but for someone like me who is pretty much an unknown author, I really went into it just hoping to get some practice and some exposure. For me personally, I decided not to measure how successful the day was by the number of books I sold and instead measure it by how I felt about talking about my books, engaging with people who stopped by the table, and of course, just wanting to have a good time. I definitely met all those metrics.
If you have any thoughts about whether you want to take the leap and get a booth at an event or no, I’m here to encourage you! You can do it and you’ll have a great time. It was so much fun. I felt so fortunate, I had so many compliments over the course of the whole day and it was just a really neat experience. As someone who is primarily introverted, I know people can be scary, but if you pick your convention well (make sure it matches your book’s audience) then everyone there loves a lot of the same things that you love, which will make it all the more easy to strike up a conversation.
Till next time dear reader, this is your friendly push to keep chasing your dreams and to take the next step, even if it feels scary. Wherever you are out there, I believe in you! <3 Tiff
I had not one, but TWO wagons, and this made life a breeze. We had to set up and tear down the same day because I only had the booth one day, and this made it super easy to get everything in one trip.
