I had high hopes of blogging my first San Diego Comic-Con as it was happening (or at least, at the end of each day) but I woefully underestimated the sheer craziness going on every minute of the day and night. Even prepared with multiple cameras and an iPad, there wasn’t a spare minute to post! So, I’m going to be catching you all up now, categorically.

There is so much thorough SDCC coverage around the web that I’m going to try to keep this stuff edited to unique pics taken by me (or Orbit/Yen team members) and try to keep it edited down to a few topics. But don’t doubt for a second that I have a bajillion pics of bespandexed cosplayers posing like they practiced all year…and you know they did.

First, and most importantly, we’re going to focus on the official Orbit Books and Yen Press Booth. We had some signings and a lot of giveaways going on, so we were pretty damn popular. The best thing about working the booth at a convention is getting real fan feedback on books. A lot of people remembered books recommended at cons past and specifically came up to thank us. So cool! It’s fun to chat a bit with people and match them to a great book that you know they’re going to take home and love…

Above you can see Brent Weeks signing The Way of Shadows and giving away bookmarks for The Black Prism (out August 25th!). Brent signed over a hundred books, and I have to say I think he’d better train harder for next time – he was showing some serious wrist strain by the end of the session. He was a trooper and no fan was turned away unhappy!

Brent was a Comic-Con superstar, doing not one but three signings, and making an appearance on an Epic Fantasy panel with Christopher Paolini, Patrick Rothfuss, and Brandon Sanderson, among others.

We also held a signing for Mira Grant’s Feed, which was a serious buzz book of the Con – I can’t tell you how many people came up to me  and tried to guilt me out of a copy before the signing. And that was before she appeared on the panel about the “Unrelenting Stamina of Zombie Fiction”! One happy mom reported her daughter had to read Feed for her high school’s required summer reading list. How exciting! I gave the woman my card to pass along to obviously the coolest teacher in the universe, but if said teacher is you then stand up and get props! Or at least some “Ryman for President” buttons! I wish my English teacher was that awesome in high school. Then again, we did read Beowulf, so I can’t complain too much.

She was either a zombie…or another victim of the dreaded Hall H!

Nadine from Team Sales doing her best Wolverine impression.

The calm before the storm…Abby from Yen Press protecting piles of free posters.

I was hoping for some cosplayers inspired by Orbit books, but Yen’s fans definitely took the cake. Here’s a team in costumes from Yen’s wildly popular Black Butler.

And an impressive show of group posing as characters from the popular Yen title Soul Eater.

and finally….a tip from Mira Grant on “How to Make Sure the Second Cover in Your Series is as Good as the First”*

(* Answer: Find out your cover designer’s secret geek obsession and encourage it. Haha, ok, no, really, I don’t take bribes. Really. No, really, I mean it.)

To be continued in “SDCC Part the Second – When Cosplayers Drop their Guard…And Their Hair!”