Photo: An advance copy of Deviations: Covenant sits on my laptop keyboard in the Hyatt in downtown Tampa, Florida.

Mary and I got back from Necronomicon (Tampa's annual science fiction/fantasy/horror convention) on Monday afternoon. There I made five direct sales (first time I've staffed a dealer table), brought copies back with me to take to local events, and have so far sold two more just around the neighborhood. Necro moved to this past weekend after years of being held at the end of October, and word from the dealers was that this was a slow year for everyone as a result, but I'm very happy with the sales. More orders (I don't know how many more) have come through on the Aisling Press website at www.aislingpress.com .

Official street release is scheduled for November 28, but copies can be pre-ordered at a discount through Aisling. Covenant can now also be pre-ordered at Barnes & Noble. There will be a hardcover edition, though I don't yet know when the release date for that will be.

My table was one of four representing Aisling Press/Oculus Media Group, with the full cost of those tables covered by the publisher. Aisling also provided framed 20x30-inch posters for new titles, plus brochures for each title on display. I brought my own postcards, flyers, magnets, and my T-shirt imprinted with the cover image and Aisling's URL writ large. A couple people (including one who bought a copy) told me that the postcards I'd left in the registration area brought them to my table. The one who didn't buy was looking for material for young adults. Aisling has several YA titles, so I was able to refer her to other authors.

I also brought a 3-ring binder (supported by Mary's hefty metal typing stand) that held copies of "Lazuli" (Asimov's, November 1984), which got me on the final ballot for the John W. Campbell Award (given at the Science Fiction Worldcon to the best new sf writer of the year); and "Moments of Clarity" (Full Spectrum, Bantam Books, 1988), which reached preliminary ballot for a Nebula Award (given by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America). Eventually I removed and laid out the copies of the publication covers. Several people remembered one or both of the stories, and one immediately recognized the cover from Asimov's because she'd saved her old issues.

That gave me a thrill. :) Of my published stories, those two had gotten the most attention.

Bringing copies of those stories had been a last-minute brainstorm. I'm still learning this whole marketing gig as I go along and I now have a to-do list based on various discussions. I keep hearing in my head Mel Brooks's pronouncement as Yogurt in Spaceballs: "MOYchendising!"

The true test will come in what readers think. I've passed along one review copy and will send out more. Before I do I'll get a list of reviewers to whom Aisling is sending copies, so that we don't duplicate efforts. A while back I'd sent a three-tiered list of my preferences.

Aisling is also doing book trailers -- something I'd heard of only recently, thanks to the Poets & Writers Speakeasy forum.

Except for one panel I mostly lived at the dealer table. On Saturday morning I was one of six people on the "dark poetry" panel. Following a format Bruce Boston ( hometown.aol.com/bruboston/ ) proposed, which worked very well at Oasis in Orlando earlier this year, we each read a poem written by one of the other panelists and then engaged the poet in discussion about the poem.

Our audience was fairly sparse (it was a 10 AM panel after a night that included a 2 AM dance and all-night videos) but we had good audience participation. I chose to read Malcolm Deeley's "The Red Pyramid," which can be viewed at www.gromagonpress.com/librarytwelve.html . I love the world-building in this poem and the juxtaposition of mythic and everyday images -- and I thought it was a great performance piece.

We got together for lunch afterwards. In a discussion sparked by Marge Simon ( hometown.aol.com/margsimon/ ) about how we each got into science fiction, almost all of us cited a work by Robert Heinlein. (My grade school library had a science fiction section and I remember reading my first sf book in the fourth grade. The first two -- and I forget which order they came in -- were Heinlein's Starship Troopers and Murray Leinster's Time Tunnel.) That's quite a legacy.

Earlier today I picked up the Florida State Poets Assn. anthologies and have prepared to mail out those copies that need to be shipped. Others will be distributed at the FSPA conference at the end of the month.

And, in a couple of weeks or so, I should be receiving the contract for Book #2, so that we can start that process rolling. :)