Advice

Self-Esteem and Fandom

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I'm a proud geek, a professional geek – Geek Upgraded, Geek 2.0 if you would.  I make money with being a nerd, a fan, it's my life.  A lot of us are, or are partially, but sometimes we miss something when talking to our fellow geeks and fans.

We miss that people are often made to feel BAD about their fannishness, what they geek over, etc.  You, the reader, may be a person who'd like to make a living at what you love, but you're used to feeling that your hobbies are a bit silly, or immature, or irrelevant.  Despite shows with geek heroes, it's a bit hard to stand up and say, for instance, that you really want to be a novelist of fantasy fiction (even with the success of say, JK Rowling or Terry Pratchett).

These self-esteem issues are difficult on the potential professional geek (if not the current professional geek).  Most anyone knows that self-esteem issues can shoow down the greatest of minds and the deepest of imaginations.

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Blogging, Bundling, and Brainstorming

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Awhile ago you all witnessed me mitigate my disagreement with the "everyone must blog" feeling that seems to percolate around the internet, especially in the career-sphere.  I admit that I still think not everyone needs to blog, but agree that blog involvement done right IS a good idea – it gets your name outs there, teaches discipline, builds connections, and informs people.

The problem is that a blog requires content otherwise it's really just a placeholder with an index attached to it.  I've been doing this blog with Bonnie for over a year, and as our early readers noticed, we began adding more and more content over the last few months.  So I'd thought I'd share just how I do non-news content.

First and foremost, let me reiterate what I've said before – don't blog about something if you dont have a reason to.  In fact, these techniques won't help much if you don't have any real reason to write.

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Convention Ideas: Roundup

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This is a compilation of all the posts done on this blog about adding “fan-to-pro” elements to conventions.  I will be updating this over time.

If you wonder why conventions are a big idea, I did an entire book career events at cons – and the reasons why I did it explain it better than anything!

GENERAL:

SPECIFIC SUGGESTIONS:

Convention Types:

  • Comic Cons – Comic cons have a unique foundation – but also are evolving n ways that career-minded fans can take advantage of.

Guests:

Events:

Organization:

Miscellaneous

CONVENTION SPOTLIGHT:

  • Ani-Magic, the Autumn Dream – Making a convention an entire professional-skill-building experience.
  • Anime Saint George – Finding good trades for guests, diversifying professional guests, and keeping people informed on how to break into industries.
  • Anime USA – Leveraging geographic advantages, specific deep focuses, and having a staff with professional ambitions and experiences.
  • Daishocon – Getting speakers that wrote “how to” guides and paying special attention to teaching people how to break into careers.
  • Erie-Anime-Experience – Tying history, guests, and ideas together.
  • Hal-Con – Cultivating diversity on all panels, and working with guests and attendees for unique topics.
  • Iowa Icon – Leverages classic ideas, an intimate setting, and specific focus.
  • Mobicon – Leverage your guests and keep your staff primed to develop good profan events.
  • Odyssey Con – Covers areas of professional writing not everyone thinks of, and “subcontracts” events from other conventions.
  • Queen City Kamikaze – Calling on local talent, local education, and making career-specific events.
  • Templecon – Trying a few things no one else tries – including some contrarian elements!
  • Tigercon – Making guest-sharing deals and adding academic elements.
  • WindyCon – Following in the steps of WorldCon and doing manuscript review for writers.

– Steven Savage