RT Rundown, Part 1

Having recently attended the RT Booklover’s Convention in Houston, Texas, I thought I might share some of my experiences as a reader/reviewer, instead of as author/bookseller, as, surprisingly, very few reader reports have surfaced.  

Never fear, Kate’s here, and I’ll tell you all about it.  

However, I must warn you, I had lots of experiences, so I’m going to split this into a couple of entries. So without further ado: 

Part 1: Conference Overview

First, the Regency Hyatt in Houston is a very nicely designed hotel. The bar and restaurant are located in the middle of the lobby, and the rooms (28 floors) tower in a square around that area, so you can walk out of your room and look down – in my case 25 floors down – to see what’s going on. The elevators take advantage as well, being glass on one side, so one set looks out over Houston, and the other into the lobby area. With gold lighting and lots of greenery, it was really very beautiful to look at.  

The conference officially started on Wednesday, with check in. I travelled over with 2 friends, Elle and Heather, from Australia, and met another, Lila, from LA there. We checked in early, as Heather, who’d been there before, told us the best time to get into the goody room is right away. For those uninitiated to RT, the goody room is a room packed full of books set out on long tables. Basically, it’s like an all-you-can-eat buffet for readers. Pick and pick and pick until you can’t pick any more. Hint for future attendees: work out before hand. You’re going to need all the upper body strength you can get.  

The first day doesn’t really get going until the evening events, so we took a tour around promotional alley, where bookmarks, postcards, posters, pins, and every other manner of promotional material you can think of abounds. At least it does if you’re not writing gay romance. More on the Manlove scandal later.  

The first night: Moulin Rouge! But Moulin Rouge meets Ellora’s Cave. Which mean lots and lots of red and black and a huge number of corsets. Seriously. Loads and loads of corsets. And fishnets. It’s a wonder the Mr. Romance contestants didn’t explode on entry. But the boys did very well, dancing and flirting and working their assets through the night. We met our favourite, Fred (real romantic name, huh?) that night. Both Lila and I were carrying riding crops (for $5 I’ll show you a picture J ), and Fred kept returning every now and again to tell us he’d been bad and required punishment. Lila and I, we were happy to oblige! 

The next day, the convention began in earnest, and here in lay our problem. Now Lila is a published author – her beautiful, haunting first novel Forbidden is available in e-format and print from Liquid Silver – but Heather, Elle, and I were at the Booklovers convention as, well, booklovers. Readers. Not industry professionals. And therefore, apparently, sitting lowest on the romance convention ladder. Because there was little to nothing for readers at this year’s convention.  

Now I don’t want to insult any of the authors who took time to run programs for the readers. They put in a lot of effort and the time they took is appreciated.  

But, really people, Booklover’s charades? Unscramble the book title? And my personal favourite, the seminar that was, in actuality, a 2 hour advertisement for Sony Readers? Give us a break. For each session on each day there was 1 choice for readers. Just 1. And the authors sponsoring or hosting the events were not the names that most readers were there to see. Now, readers could attend the author sessions (4 to 5 per session, so lots of choice there) but very few readers care about finding an agent or promoting their work. Which meant that if you weren’t an aspiring author or interested in playing 80’s trivia, there was pretty much nothing to do all day. At $500, conference fees seem a bit excessive for the privilege of doing nothing.  

Other areas of the conference were poorly organised as well. Elle has a severe food allergy, and she filled out a special dietary requirement card before the conference. However, it was just so much air, as she was not given any special meals – or any way to identify herself as requiring special meals – which meant high room service bills as she spent most of her time hungry. The bar was overpriced and limited. Tables were arranged poorly. As readers we were shuffled to the back of the room as all the tables near the front and centre of the rooms were always reserved for authors and booksellers.  

Finally, and the last thing I’m going to complain about, I swear, the evening entertainments. Now, 2 hours in, these eventually became a lot of fun, with music, dancing, and laughter. But sitting through the program? Blessed Heavens. The evening parties were sponsored, and they were obviously expensive, as most had numerous sponsors. And the sponsors, also obviously, wanted their money’s worth, and that meant promotion and recognition. Fair enough, I support that. But the way that recognition was set up led to an hour, sometimes an hour and a half of parading across the stage as names were read out. Do I remember any one of the authors that paraded across the stage on the arm of a Caveman? Nope. And trust me, those of you on the Faerie Court, putting the authors’ names into verse did not help.   

I do, however, remember the names of the authors projected on the screens, and I kept the various programs, where the names are also prominently displayed. Just a small hint: don’t annoy your reader. And don’t keep your reader from eating in order to get some promotion in. A hungry reader is not a happy reader. Unhappy readers don’t buy books.  

Luckily, even if the program was terrible, the people weren’t. We met so many people, had great conversations, have kept in touch with them since. The opportunity to turn to every person you run into and start a discussion about your favourite romance novel – well that’s not an experience I’ve come across too often. I have a list longer than my arm of new authors to try, new books to search down, new avenues of book-buying to try.  

And the book fair. Oh the book fair. Tables upon tables of authors, with books piled high in front of them. If the goody room is an all-you-can-eat buffet, the book fair is mana from Heaven.  

Probably, at this point, you can figure out what my overall recommendation is going to be for the RT convention. The people are worth it, the other readers, the other booklovers. But the cost, especially when taking into account plane flights, hotel, food, and the convention fees, well it’s just not worth it. The only event that I’d recommend whole-heartedly is the bookfair, and that’s open to the public (who are given access 15 minutes after the conventioneers). Unless, that is, you’re really really into charades.  

Next blog entry: authors I spoke to and the tidbits and gossip they passed on.

tags: kate  romance novels  

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