Our Adventures at Syfy Bartow

We knew getting to Bartow would be tiring. Neither of us have been at our best the last few weeks, so we started the weekend tired and a little overwhelmed. For one thing, we were both still working on ‘Bartow Projects’ right up until we started packing the car. Scratch that, my hubby was still working on projects even as we started packing the car on Thursday.

One of our neighbors saw us trying to get a folding table and a gazebo in the car and came over to see if he could help. Those were the big, awkward things we were trying to pack first. Most everything else was smaller and lighter, and we could manage them. But it’s nice to know we have nice neighbors.

We got most things in the car on Thursday, and decided we had room to take a fellow Klingon who otherwise did not have a way to get to Bartow. He showed up on Friday about 11am and helped get the rest of the stuff in the car. Then we got on the road about 2:18 pm.

I’m a little bit of a nervous driver these days, especially when I’m driving roads I don’t really know well, so it was tough for me to keep my speed up near the speed limit. It should have taken us an hour to get to our hotel in Bartow, but it actually took 1.5 hours. We found our stuff we would need for the night and settled into our room. About 7, we walked over to Mike’s Grill for supper.

We got up about 7 on Saturday, and went to Mike’s Grill for breakfast, because we knew it was going to be a long and hard day. People who come to the street festival can go home when they get tired, but vendors have to unload their vehicle, pitch their gazebo, set up their table and get their wares displayed by 11AM, when the festival starts. Then they are expected to man their table until 6PM, when the festival ends, when they tear down their display, strike their tents, retrieve their vehicle and pack everything up.

We had to do this twice, once for MoonPhaze and once for the Klingons. Happily, my booth space was right next to some friends, so I had help setting up the gazebo and taking it down. And there were many Klingons there for this event, so it looked like a mild case of bedlam when I dropped off my two Klingons and all the Klingon stuff we had brought, but I knew they would soon have things up and running.

I assume the Klingons had fun. I had a great day for MoonPhaze. I had 50% more book sales than I did at the previous best event, which was a 3-day sf convention. I was very happy.

About 3:30, the organizers told us that rain was expected in about an hour, so if we wanted to tear down and bug out, that was acceptable. Around 4, it started misting, and people started packing things away. By 4:30, it was raining, and the organizers called an end to the event. By then, most of the visitors had left. I packed all my stuff up and stored it temporarily under a store’s overhang while I walked over to the Klingon area to get my car and load up the Klingon stuff. Then we went back to my booth area, where our passenger repacked the car to get everything in, and we helped our friends in the next booth take down gazebos and load their van.

We were all cold, wet and worn out when we got in our car and headed back to the hotel. We got there about 7 and stopped at Mike’s Grill for supper, which included some wonderful beef noodle soup.

Tired as we were, we count this event as a success!

Should it be it, its, or it’s?

I don’t know what this collection of words is called, I don’t think they fit the definition of homonyms. But there certainly is a bunch of confusion about them, so why don’t we try to figure them out? The truth is, I even catch myself trying to use the wrong one from time to time.

It

It is a pronoun used to refer to an inanimate object or animal that has previously been mentioned or is about to be mentioned whose gender is either unknown or disregarded. I think we all have a pretty good idea of how to use it, but the other versions leave us confused.

It’s

Let’s look at the contraction next, it’s. This is not the possessive of it. As a contraction, it always stands for it is or it was. If you have a sentence with it’s in it, and substituting in it is or it was turns the sentence to nonsense, it’s is not the correct word to use.

“It’s décor was unusual” is wrong because “It is décor was unusual” doesn’t make sense.

“It’s a shame she did so poorly on her test” is correct because “It is a shame she did so poorly on her test” does make sense.

Its

I’ve had people tell me that its is the plural of it. But if you have more than one it, you usually switch pronouns to they or them, so its is not the correct plural to use for it.

Despite its not having an apostrophe, its is the possessive form of it. “The dog wagged its tail” is correct. “Its a beautiful day” is not correct because it doesn’t possess the day. In fact, if you substitute ‘it is’ for its, you’ll find the beautiful day sentence makes sense, so the correct word to use is it’s.

I hope I’ve cleared up any confusion you might have had about these words. Usually, if I run across its or it’s in a sentence, I simply substitute it is to see if the sentence makes sense. If it does, then it’s is the correct word to use. If not, then I look to see what it possesses in the sentence. And if that doesn’t work, then I will probably rewrite the sentence.

 

SyFy Bartow!

MoonPhaze will have a booth next Saturday (Feb 17) at the Syfy Bartow street festival. This is a festival we try to attend every year, but sometimes, life intrudes, and we don’t get there. For instance, last year, my husband was sick in February, and we didn’t make it.

This year, we will be located in the next to last block on the east end of Main Street in downtown Bartow (FL), between Florida and Hendry Avenues. This will be a new area for us; we have mostly been located on the western end of the festival. Booths will be lined up along Main Street and several side streets.

We are planning to take books and some small cosplay prosthetics (ie, wounds, cyborg pieces, and so on) to sell. But our vehicle also needs to carry displays and stuff for the KAG (Klingon Assault Group) area, so I am limited in how much I can take. I also have to take a table, at least 2 chairs, a gazebo to provide shade, a cooler of cold drinks and some snacks to get us through the day.

The festival runs from 11 AM to 6 PM. Hundreds of vendors, cosplay, a costume contest, food trucks, a car show, music and other entertainment… what more could you ask for? Attendance is free. Cosplay is encouraged. Hope to see you there! 

Our Adventures at the Book Festival

We spent last weekend at the Sunshine State Book Festival in Gainesville, FL. This was the second time I was there, and the first time for my hubby.

We drove up Friday afternoon, arriving just around supper time. We unloaded our car (except for the books we’d brought) to our hotel room, and then went to the hotel bar to have supper. The hotel also had a restaurant, but after seeing the prices at the bar, the restaurant was probably too pricey for our budget. At about 7 pm, we went down to the conference center for the meet & greet reception. We talked with several other authors, and ran into Joe Haldeman and his wife, Gay, which made hubby happy. But before too long, hubby either got uncomfortable or tired, so we went back to our room, watched a little tv, and went to bed.

Check in for the festival started at 8 AM on Saturday. Our tables were supposed to be set up and ready to go by 10 AM. I wasn’t worried about getting there right at 8, because I knew it wouldn’t take very long to set up our table. Hubby must have been tired, because he didn’t get up until 8, and he was worried about missing out on the breakfast that the festival was providing for the authors. So we went down and found our table, then I sent him off to have breakfast while I unloaded the books from our car. I wasn’t worried about breakfast, because I’d had a couple pop tarts with my morning pills.

After I brought in our books, I unloaded the 3 boxes and began to set up the table. Hubby arrived in the middle of that, so we were all done by 9:30, ready for the crowds of customers to come in.

At noon, I sent hubby to the buffet being supplied by the festival. When he got back, he sat at the table and I went to get some lunch. Lunch consisted of build-your-own tacos, churros and key lime pie. When I got back to the table, I could tell Hubby was tired, so I sent him to our room to rest. He came back a couple hours later, feeling a little better.

Throughout the day, we talked to various people. One children’s author told me where he got his books printed for a lot less than anyplace I had found. Of course, getting them printed is only half the battle; then you need a distributor to get them into the book stores. He was negotiating with a distributor.

Another author told me how to indicate the reader was going into a flashback. One of our books has multiple flashbacks, which at least one reader found confusing. Now I can fix that problem.

Another author gave me information on two cover artists he’s worked with and recommended. He also gave me some information on potentially getting our books in his wife’s bookstore.

And then a potential customer stopped by, and we started talking about book covers. I always thought the book cover should be an indication of what you would find inside the book, which should make it fairly unique. She agreed but had gone to a publishing seminar a few months ago where everybody was saying, “No, you want the book cover to look like every other book in your genre.” In any case, she had nice things to say about our book covers.

And then, at the very end, the President of the organization that hosted the festival came to us and said, “I sold 2 books, how did you do?” We told her we hadn’t actually sold any books, but we did hand out lots of coupons to get our eBooks at a discount. At least one person came by and picked up one of each coupon, while her mother picked up one. We ran the gamut of coupon dispersal; some took several while others took only one.

In the days before the festival, I had repacked our books, trying to get it down from 5 boxes to 4. I actually got them down to 3. But, when it came time to pack them all up again, I didn’t have room for the two coupon holders. I had to put them in with my laptop and hope they didn’t get squashed and broken. (They didn’t.)

We took the books back to the car, had supper in the bar, and went back to our room for the night. Hubby doesn’t seem to think that selling our books face to face is the way to sell our books, but he doesn’t want me to ‘waste’ my time studying marketing, either. But I’m not ready to give up.

Believe it or not, I had fun. I also had a disadvantage. We were located near one of the entrances, which was good. But sitting right next to me, even closer to the entrance, was a very out-going author who greeted every potential customer with, “What do you like to read?” Which is what I usually say. And then, depending on what they said, he would regale them with some variation of his elevator pitch for his series of 5 books. I felt a little silly asking the same question as him, and so I fumbled several times, looking for something to engage their interest. Also, he had dragon stickers he was giving away, and I only had boring coupons.

I’m still processing what I can learn from this experience. I’ve often thought of having things to give away, but I’ve never gotten around to doing it. Maybe it’s time I do that. Among other things. Then if the person next to me is asking, “What do you like to read?”, I can fall back to “Would you like a free sticker/trading card/temporary tattoo?”