RomCon 2015 Report–Part 1

Fun, fun, fun times in Denver, Colorado Thursday, Sept 24 through Sunday, Sept 27.

Denver International Airport Hotel.

RomCon is a conference primarily for readers. Sixty authors attended with about 230 readers for all or part of the weekend. I don’t know of another conference like this one, which focuses on readers the way this one does.

Good friends Jerrie Alexander and Kym Roberts and I flew from DFW (Dallas Fort Worth International Airport) on a 2:15 flight. With the time-change we arrived before we left! Weird, huh? Caught the shuttle in to the Renaissance Hotel where the convention took place and we had rooms. It was one of those tall buildings with a hollowed out center and glass elevators running from the basement to the top floors. Fortunately, because neither of us is good with heights, Jerrie and I were only on the 4^th floor. Kym was on the 8^th, but that didn’t bother her. Even with only being on the 4^th floor, there were a couple of times when I didn’t keep my gaze glued to the carpet, and I got a bit dizzy from the overlook.

After unpacking, we collected our boxes, which we’d shipped containing “SWAG,” all the goodies we’d be giving away to the readers, and our books we’d give away or sell.

Thursday evening was a reception for the authors. We had snacks, got our badges and programs. We ate supper with another North Texas author, CA. Szarek & her husband, and friends of Kym and Jerrie’s. They are part of a Chick Swagger group and had short novellas they’d just brought out in honor of RomCon. The stories all take place in a Colorado resort.

No wine for any of us and plenty of water and Asprin in an attempt to combat the effects of altitude. I’ve experienced altitude sickness before and it’s the absolute pits! Unfortunately, it still hit Jerrie hard. It’s so unfun to be sick and away from home.

Pretty water supplied by hotel. It had fruit in it and was very refreshing.

Fortunately, she didn’t have an early morning activity on Friday. I had the game Pictionary with a number of other authors. Readers were divided into teams and won tickets for the $100 Amazon Gift Card plus books and goodies from all of the authors. Everyone had a great time.

I had a break followed by box lunches and a good visit with authors and readers.

My next activity was Charades in the late afternoon. The readers who attended were obviously big fans of this game. They quickly acted out their title and the others guessed just as quickly. The other author at our table and I took one quick turn. The point being for the readers to laugh a lot, have fun, and win prizes, which they did.

On to Speed Date an Author early on Friday evening. Oh my gosh, that was intense. We had two minutes with a reader before they moved on to the next author. Sometimes, you’d get a break and not have someone come, but it was really exhausting. Fun to be able to talk about our books and to meet people from all over—including Australia and Great Britain.

Afterwards, I was totally bushed. I was going to eat supper entirely by myself, but when I got to the restaurant, I ran across an author from Florida I met during the Speed Dating. I didn’t have the energy to be “on” with a group. I ate a scrumptious appetizer of butternut squash ravioli and a salad. Then hit the room and crashed early.

Part two next week.

Book Update.  I’m still waiting to hear from my 3rd Beta Reader, but we’re making progress. Will print out so Bob can read it this weekend.

What’s your weather like right now? We’re having gorgeous fall temps. No leaf changes of course. Heck, I heard we’ll hit in the low temps next week., but the past two weeks have been awesome.

Praying  for all the folks in South Carolina with the dreadful floods. Love to hear from you.