I will be at Capclave in Gaithersburg, Maryland this coming weekend. I’ll have a Clarkesworld table in the dealer’s room (and plenty of copies of UPGRADED). I’m also scheduled to be on a few panels. Not sure why they all have six participants. That will make things a bit different.
Friday 5:00 pm: Small Press Publishing
Panelists: Danielle Ackley-McPhail, Scott H. Andrews, Neil Clarke (M), Shahid Mahmud, Ian Randal Strock, Sean Wallace
Running a publishing company, publishing a magazine or semi-pro zine. What’s worked for you? What hasn’t? How do you handle the intellectual property rights? How do you publicize your product? How do you get it into stores? What should your website look like? If you’re publishing books do you want to do print copy and e-books? Only e-books (and maybe some POD)?
Saturday 11:00 am: Anthology Builder
Panelists: Neil Clarke, Ron Garner (M), Robert Greenberger, David G. Hartwell, Mike McPhail, Alex Shvartsman
So you want to edit and publish an anthology. How do the stories get picked? How do you come up with a theme? What sells and what doesn’t? How do authors produce readable fiction in the straitjacket of an original themed anthology? How do you properly curate your anthology?
Saturday 1:00 pm: Crowdfunding Dos and Don’ts
Panelists: Danielle Ackley-McPhail, Bill Campbell, Neil Clarke, Jonah Knight, Alex Shvartsman (M), Lawrence Watt-Evans
So you have a fabulous idea or product and a shortage of funds – what do you do. Panelists will discuss successful and unsuccessful crowdfunding campaigns, either their own or those of other people. Topics include how to set reward levels, how to budget how much money you need and the merits of various crowd funding sites such as Kickstarter, Indiegogo and Pozible.
Saturday 7:30 pm: Mass Signing
Saturday 8:30 pm: WSFA Small Press Award Ceremony
(“Bits” by Naomi Kritzer, from our October 2013 issue is a finalist)
