Coastal Magic 2014 Wrap Up
Holy Wowza, ya’ll!!!! That was fun.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to everyone who hung out in the gloomy rain this past weekend in Daytona. I hope those of you who came from ice & snow got to see our Florida sunshine on Sunday! Despite a few kinks in the fly-line, we had a really, REALLY good time.
I posted briefly on the convention’s Facebook page, but I’ll expand here, that there were a LOT of people who made this event possible. My book club girls put up with my crazy, and helped with the prep-work to get us ready… ya’ll are rockstars!!! I had a fantastic group of Featured and Registered bloggers who helped with promo during the year, and pretty much ran the show during the weekend, MODing all of the panels. Nicely done, ladies. I would have been fangirling everyone all by my lonesome if it wasn’t for the other readers who came from all over to join us. It was really amazing to me to see the connections as they were being made. Our sponsors, who helped provide the things we needed, and a few things we wanted :-). And of course, the inspiration for the weekend, our Featured Authors. Your words move us to do wild things… they grow our imaginations, they motivate us to create friendships and communities, and they convinced this wee little blogger girl to throw a beach party and invite the cool kids. Thanks for coming to my shindig.
I know there were a few mishaps (last minute book deliveries, OY!… and, Rebecca, not only do I owe you a sunny vacation, but I hear I owe you breakfast, too?? *hugs*), and a few misunderstandings, but all-in-all we had a good time. I was looking through the feedback forms and have some ideas about ways to improve things for next year (last year you guys said you wanted an evening for all the authors and all the readers to hang out and really chat and such… no one said ANYTHING about a dancefloor, lol!!! But… message received… next year, we’ll have a dancefloor!!) I’ve also got some ideas for panels you’d like to see, and authors you’d like to have attend (MORE URBAN FANTASY and MALE AUTHORS!!!)… I’ll do the best I can 🙂
I want to say a special thank you to all of the authors who sold their own books at the signing, and offered our charity (Habitat for Humanity) a portion of their sales. (Books-A-Million donated 10% of all sales rung through our on-site register that weekend.) Your support means the world to me, and it will do so much good in that community. As a whole, we sold over $5000 worth of books ($1000 more than last year!!!), and the raffle baskets raised almost $160. That’s over $600 from our little(ish) group, I’m pretty darn proud of us.
I’ve seen a lot of pictures floating around (I need to upload mine to my computer to share), and I’ve read a few wrap up posts from others who were there. I’m going to start a running list of what I find over on the media page. I’ll update it from time to time, so check back if you’re interested in some of the shenanigans.
In response to those who’ve already emailed me to ask…
- Yes, there will be a convention next year… Feb 5-8, 2015
- I’m 95.5% sure it will be at the Hilton again
- I’ll start contacting potential Featured Authors around the middle/end of March. (If you’re an author who’s emailed me at any point and asked to be on the waiting list/contact list for 2015, or if you were mentioned as a request on the feedback forms, I’ll be emailing you.)
- I’ll start looking for Featured Bloggers around April/May – watch the website for more info
- YES, there will be a dancefloor!
I think that’s it for me. I had an incredible time… met some really amazing people and got to hang with good friends. I think I’m finally NOT tired anymore, so that’s a good thing. Today I’m off of work, so I’ll be loading all of my new books onto my bookshelves and figuring out how I want to scrapbook my swag.
Thanks, again, for doing this with me… hope to see you all soon!!
Jennifer
6 Comments on “Coastal Magic 2014 Wrap Up”
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Coastal Magic 
Thanks for a wonderful time at the convention. One thing I think would help is having meet & greets separate from panels. That way we can do it all. 🙂 It was an awesome time & hopefully next year we will have more sun. 🙂
I have a plan for that, Maranda 🙂 But unless you have a time-turner, I’m afraid you still may not be able to do it all. I’m working on a way that you can do MORE though… so… happy medium?? 🙂
Woo hoo! Can’t wait for next year!
Glad you had a successful conference!
I am very interested in attending next year, and you were calling for more male authors. Not sure what you are looking for in “Featured Authors” but I’m game if you are.
The only reason I didn’t go this year was that I learned of it too late to get my poop in a group to go to Florida.
Daniel A. Willis Author, Chronicles of the Mages series The Archduke’s Secret Family Romanovs in the 21st Century http://www.danielawillis.com/ Facebook: http://facebook.com/DanielAWillistheauthor
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Yet again, you threw a kick-ass convention, Jennifer! I had a blast and I can’t wait to do it all again next year :0)
Great convention. I’m so glad I attended. I met some great authors. Next year, I hope to attend as an author.