What I like most about ConDFW is … well, that it’s so close to where I live. But besides that, it’s a literary con. It’s for us writers.

I spent the whole weekend hanging out with my good friend Bill, who’s a Campbell-nominated SF author as well as the president of the Dallas chapter of the National Space Society. Day 2 found me hob-knobbing with NASA guys, space enthusiasts, and preparing for the NSS room party, while outside a huge dust storm made the Dallas sky look like doomsday. This segues right in with the fact that I spent some fun quality time with the Four Redheads of the Apocalypse. Yeah. Not only did they do interpretive dance to my reading Friday night, but Saturday they all four signed a copy of their book for me.

Yard Dog Press Sci-Fi really does kick ass. If Selina Rosen had her way, SF&F authors would all be more like rock stars. How can I argue with that?

After the panels and dinner, we proceeded to party far into the night … er, morning … and I ended up staying in the party room. Bill and I got up this morning, hit Starbucks, and then jumped right back into it with another NASA panel.

Then lunch, then the final panel of the day. This one interestingly enough was titled “The State of the Industry” which, instead of being about NASA (this was a SF&F con, after all) was about the publishing industry. In a gesture of unintentional but deadly accurate symbolism, only one of the panelists, Teresa Patterson, bothered to show up, and so she grabbed Robert Aspin to step in and help her. She and Robert then proceeded to paint pretty much the same picture I did a few posts back: print publication is choking to death, and while it’s never really going to die, the sad fact is there is far less money in it.

So I stand firm on my resolution. The future of writing is online, and the money is in contextual advertising. You do your best, write your best, edit your best, and you GIVE IT AWAY. Hopefully this draws in readers who will click ads. Your pay comes from the ad clicks.