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Greetings from Colorado Springs!
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I’m writing this Sunday. We arrived here last Tuesday night. We were really lucky on the drive down. The weather was sunny and clear almost the entire two day trip.
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As we traveled down the coast there was a lot of rain, but as it was very early on a Monday morning, traffic wasn’t too bad. We drove down to Portland then took I-84 going east. Really pretty drive along the Columbia River. After an hour or so along the river, we left the rain.
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I had smoked a lot of meat for the trip, which we ate for lunch on the way down. Had dinner out, because I wanted a hot meal. Only drove a little after that, as there just aren’t a lot of towns big enough to have hotels in that part of ID.
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The first night, we stopped in Burley, ID. We might stop there again on our way back, as it’s about halfway. Took us a little over 10 hours to get there. We were both pretty smashed at that point.
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The next morning, headed out very early. Agreed to meet Dorn Hetzel in Laramie, WY, for lunch. (If you’ve read Blaze’s Science Officer series, you should recognize the name. Yes, that Dorn Hetzel.) We ate breakfast from the food we’d brought, had a small snack, then ate a late lunch in Laramie.
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Coming out of Laramie, and before Cheyenne, we hit a couple of squall lines. Lots of blowing snow, nothing sticking. Drove around Denver instead of through Denver, and encountered a little rain.
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Eventually reached the resort in Colorado Springs. It’s been a lovely, amazing place, despite the fact that I feel as though the dry air is trying to squeeze all the moisture out of my skin, and the altitude is trying to deplete all the air from my lungs.
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We arrived a day early for the general con. The first day is just the Skills workshops, which are supposed to be higher-level talks about craft and publishing. We just hung out and recovered because we’d been driving for two days.
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selling their books. I don’t know how individual authors did, but I know the store made a lot of money. I could not have done the live book sales event and then the con after driving for two days. It was still fun to attend.
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Then, there were panels! And talks! And so many hallway conversations. And more talks!
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One of the things that Superstars prides itself on is its culture. Everyone was friendly. EVERYONE.
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Blaze came up with the phrase, “Ambushed by kindness.” He’d go up to the general area to get his first cup of coffee early in the morning before things started going, and complete strangers would come up and ask how his con was going and then they’d have a 20 minute conversation.
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I also experienced this regularly. And when people are that generous with me, I’m going to be that generous in return.
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One of the things that Blaze and I (and M.L. Buchman) talked about was “re-railing” writers. We didn’t de-rail them and their lives. Instead, we “re-railed” them—setting them off on a different tract or adventure.
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Will we see any impact in our sales from attending a con like this? I have no idea. I’d like to think so, but we’ll see.
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I believe we made a good enough impression that we’ll be invited back. We’re kind of planning and hoping for that, because this was one of the best conventions I’ve ever been to.
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So now I’m going to put in a bit of a different plug: if you’re an author and you’d really like to have someone lead you through all the aspects of indie publishing, I would recommend looking into the program that Kevin J Anderson created and getting a master’s in publishing.
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It’s a fourteen month program, all online, except for the last week that’s in person.
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Feel free to reply to this newsletter if you have questions.
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And I think that’s it from me.
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Daring starship captain? Check.
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Best friend/deadly assassin? Check.
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Though it was never Rosey’s dream to make first contact with living aliens, she seems to have stumbled into it.
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Which side do the Humans get involved with? Can they avoid this conflict all together? Or is their introduction to alien politics going to involve space fleets and battles?
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Alien War—the last of the Live Alien Contact series—brings all the conflicts, cons, villains, and good guys to a final resting place. Dreams are fulfilled, romance blooms, and oh, yeah, the bad guys finally get their comeuppance.
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If you need to catch up, we're putting the Jessica Keller Starter Kit on sale for just $2.99. If you've already read it, consider gifting it to a friend. Purchase the books, email info@knottedroadpress.com with your friend's email address and we'll send it to them.
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Begin your adventures with Jessica Keller and the Alexandria Station universe in this epic, military space opera box set.
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This box set is available ONLY on Knotted Road Press.
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Jessica Keller could win the war--if only they'd let her!
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“Edge of the seat excitement...a wonderful tale.”—Philadelphia Weekly Press
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Contains the following complete novels:
Auberon
Queen of the Pirates
Last of the Immortals
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