You can’t get me to admit I got teary-eyed. And I stand by that!

I talk about dissociation sometimes, and I don’t mean that in the sense I think it’s used in other settings. By that, I just mean that aside from family and people I work with, I have never met a fan of The Wandering Inn in the wild.

In some ways, I think it keeps me grounded and from having an ego, and I exist in my happy hermit shell like Valeterisa and get to say ‘well, they might not exist, but I’m gratified I keep getting paid.’

But there is a surrealness to seeing someone looking at you and them being real and thanking you for writing or finding meaning in your work. I hope it never stops being surreal and amazing, but I don’t know how to respond to it.

No, I won’t be giving you context. But here is a video:

https://www.tiktok.com/@thewanderinginnverse/video/7662200692643237142

This was taken at LitRPG con, where one of our awesome team members, Damien (he’s done the pre-order campaign, you can see him in Discord, and he does other marketing stuff, he’s great), headed down with other members of the team to LitRPG con to run a booth.

Everyone worked super hard there, and it was our first con. We were lucky to have a case of books ahead of the launch, so we gave away around ten to lucky readers and learned a lot of lessons! Like exclusive merch for conventions might be cool, how much work it is, logistics–please comment and let me know what you’d like to see! More awesome huge art like the Creler?

And that doing it is important.

I’ll be honest, I’ve never been to a convention before. So seeing people so enthusiastic to meet Erin Bennett and Andrea Parsneau was amazing. I’ve always thought that voice actors and narrators are the most tuned in when it comes to conventions and interacting with fans–something about how their job connects and has them travelling to such events makes them really good at it.

But seeing that convention work makes me think we should do more of these, not just in the USA, but elsewhere if we can. It means something, though I don’t think I’d ever be brave enough to go as a feature. If I ever went, I’d sneak in and out. A shadow in the night. At least to see what it’s like.

Anyways, I wanted to say thank you to the fans who made it out there. We didn’t advertise the LitRPG con hugely because, well, I wouldn’t want people to make so many plans and go if we didn’t provide the best experience–and going to a con is a huge endeavor! This was our trial run, and we’re learning, but to the fans who were there at the event, I saw the video with your messages shot by Nicholas Trager.

I definitely didn’t cry.

The fact that people like the physical books makes all the effort and a bit of stress worth it, too. We’ve just finished Level 6 on the Pre-Order campaign, and are on Level 7, too! The publisher and retailers can really tell you guys are showing up–and it’s all thanks to the fanbase here! Remember to pre-order if you haven’t and that there’s only one month left for the campaign! Plenty of rewards await. Thank you,

–pirateaba