There seems to be a lot of enthusiastic support for the idea of a convention, but one theme ran through almost all of the replies. Money and travel distance is an important consideration. I understand perfectly; it is for me as well. We DO have one person willing to fly in from England, which is really cool. But for many of us, it will have to be close by or they cannot attend. I'm in that group. After all, this is a hobby. A wonderful hobby, but a hobby nevertheless.
The following ideas came up:
- Glomming onto another convention. I think this is a wonderful idea. However, since the cost is such a consideration, it would have to be a convention that costs about 100 dollars or less.
- Having all attendees vote for book and artist awards. This is a great idea and could attract some attention.
- Having the convention more toward the center of the country. However, for those of us in the corners, almost everywhere in the heartland will be too far.
- Have BloggerCon East and BloggerCon West (for lack of better names), probably at some points midway between the Heartland and the coast in either direction. For the east, that would probably mean somewhere in Tennissee, and for the west, that might mean Colorado, Navada or Utah.
- Have an online, virtual convention or at the very least, a convention blog.
Due to the problem Blogger is having with backlinks, I'm having trouble tracking down everyone who linked to the previous post. It will help if you click the link once the post is live. That way, your site will show up in my referral list in Google Analytics.
Let me know if you want to be invited to join a convention blog I'm about to create. I'll invite everyone who volunteered to help out in the last post, and everyone who joins will have the authority to create posts. That way we can move the conversation from this blog to a place where we'll all feel comfortable--another blog.
6 comments:
Could I recommend that west coast people check out Potlatch, which is taking place in the Bay Area at the end of February. It is a relatively small event, heavily book-focused (it even has books of honor rather than guests of honor), and advance membership is only $55.
It is probably a very good model for the sort of event you want to run, and would not be too hard to clone in other regions.
Potlatch is a traveling convention, moving between the Bay Area, Portland and Seattle each year in order to broaden the base of attendees while giving those who can't afford to travel a chance one year in three.
I want to attend Potlatch this year for my research project, but not sure if it will fit. Maybe, maybe not. I need to check the guest list.
Also, feel free to send me an invite, Tia, and on the subject of East/West BlogCon, or whatever we will eventually call it, I think this one is the best option and ultimately if each con proves somewhat popular we can all sit down and plan some sort of every-other-year-meet-in-the-middle thing. The big point I would make with that is that we should push to give people time to save the money to be able to go. If you know in X years there will be a midwest blogger con or some such, then you know you need to save up for that. Much easier.
However, I think our focus should be in figuring out what we're going to do at this current point. What sort of con, when, where, etc. We can deal with other issues later. After all, this is, in theory, the first of its kind, and everyone will have different opinions, etc.
Anywho.
I've created the Book Blogger Convention blog.
BookBloggerCon
If you want to be a member, please email me at tia dot nevitt at gmail dot com.
I'd love to go but I wouldn't be able to make the trek south -I'm in the Boston area. It's a great idea though - wish I could go!
Hey Tia count me in for the convention blog!
Ok; sorry it took me a while to get back to you with this!
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