Wow. ORF. It was everything I imagined and more—even if I was told that we weren’t in a great spot. I was disheartened at the beginning, because I didn’t fully realize that it wasn’t telling to have no visitors an hour in when our booth was in the back. This after stopping for The Swordsmen first thing every single year as an attendee and barely making it away from the front gate in the first hour!
Something I have always loved about Scottish festivals and ORF is just how unflinchingly kind so many people can be. When I was in middle school and attended a festival, I wanted to get an English/Scottish Gaelic dictionary from a shop, but I needed to ask my parents at the clan tent first. The vendor told me to take the book and show it to my parents and come back. It was completely out of sight, but I took it to my parents, they said yes, and I went back and paid. At another festival, an angry wind came through and made the canopy buckle up over itself. It was raining, and it was nasty, but everyone in sight ran to our clan tent to help us pull the canopy back down and secure it.
At ORF, I had one of each of these instances as well. We had issues with wind and were unprepared due to this being our first event. The experienced vendor next to us offered us a tarp and gave us binder clips to use to hang my forest tapestry. He even checked in on us a couple times throughout the day. (Thanks, Jack!)
The most heartwarming, however, came from the issues we were having with the Square terminal. Even though there was a good signal, the amount of devices on the tower bogged things down, and the Square didn’t work at all. So we could only accept cash purchases. We learned this after our first reader had been in the booth about half an hour. He’d expressed interest in playing D&D, he’d looked through all the materials on the table, and he’d decided to get the full Dragonwolf trilogy. I signed his books for him … and then the Square wouldn’t work. We tried and tried. Now, a testament to my poor business sense: I decided to just give him the full series. He was really interested in them, and it wasn’t his fault the reader didn’t work. I’ve always said I don’t care about making a profit; I just want my books to be read and enjoyed. So I gave them to him. Then his companion tried PayPal (which needed to update, of course) and Venmo (which I didn’t have). They took the Tales of Ambergrove email address so they could send money via PayPal when they had a reliable signal. I figured that was the end of it, but no. A few hours later, back into the booth they came. They’d gone to the onsite ATM and come all the way back over just to make sure they paid me for the books. Talk about heartwarming!
I had dozens of other positive interactions throughout the day. I had a mom come in looking for clean fiction for her eleven-year-old daughter who reads above her age level and can never find anything without sex in it. I saw myself in that interaction, and when she didn’t have cash, I tried to give her a free book, too, but her companion shook her head and they paid. Three people I’m aware of made the long trek to the ATM and back just to buy the full trilogy, and most of the sales were for the full trilogy as a set. There was so much interest for Dawn of the Dragonwolf and Ember in the Forge, and so many D&D lovers came through and tried to throw a group together to play at my table. One girl was visibly upset that the playable D&D wasn’t on the ORF website.
I did have a group play Paeor’s Game with me, despite the 90-minute chunk it took out of ORF for them—and despite my lack of experience as a DM. We still really had a lot of fun! Especially the boy who played Finn (a rogue for DotD), who just had to collect all the loot and chucked a skeleton skull at an identified trap just to see what would happen. They even earned the bonus XP for making the right choices in battle. The kinds that come from goodness. They also didn’t complain when I stepped away from the game every 5-10 minutes to sign books at the booth. When the game was over, the man who played Toren gave me DM pointers for next time, and the lady who played Ashroot decided to go ahead and get the full series. It was just all-around a positive interaction. I was so worried about DMing for the first time and what the players would think—or if they would just hate it more as time went on because they wanted to do other stuff. But this group just went with it and seemed to enjoy themselves. And young “Finn” walked away with the Finn character bookmark.
I also had someone make the drive all the way to ORF just to support me and to check out the festival at my recommendation. She has all the books; she got the latest a couple weeks ago, but she came anyway and came to my booth.
I also learned that ORF does a trade system with kids with voluntary vendor participation and am now the proud owner of two rocks, a blue stone, and a plastic coin. Two boys also came into the booth and were looking just at the merch. One wanted a logo coaster and borrowed money from his grown up to check out. The other one grabbed a coaster set because the Teddy one was on top, and when I told him that was part of a $10 set (thinking that would deter him), he said “Ten dollars? That’s CHEAP!” and proceeded to buy them—and grab a Teddy bookmark.
I also talked to a few potential readers about local availability and partnerships, library listings, and the audiobooks. I’ve decided to have the audiobooks on flash drives at events from now on. All-in-all, we walked away with 50 fewer books and half of the business cards! It was a wonderful event made better by the personal interactions with new readers—and attendees who came to chat without becoming new readers, like “Dumb Odin”—and the unwavering support from my lifemate. ORF was absolutely magnificent, and I’ll be coming back next year for both days rather than just Saturday. Check the events page next summer for dates!
Another thing I learned whilst co-running the booth … there is quite a lot of interest for a story like Ember’s. Talking with people at ORF just made me want to work on Ember in the Forge even more! I have a few things on the docket before then. We’re tearing down a building on our property and have decided to do a mass junk purge at the same time. We’re also going to be hosting our first D&D game day in a dedicated D&D room next month—once we convert it into one. I have a plan for tomorrow to do as much as I can in one go, and I’m hoping to use that dedicated time for EitF as much as possible the rest of the year. I’d really hoped to have EitF completed and ready to pitch by mid-November. There’s no possibility of that, but I have my fingers crossed for 2022. I’m also going to be working on getting into other events at the same time. I currently have my sights set on GenCon Indianapolis, but it’s too early for 2023 sign-ups. The gears are turning, though, and the cover artist is making progress with the art for EitF.
Good things, good things! As the year winds down, I’m hoping to do some organization, event planning, and to get EitF ready for publication. It’s a tall order, but I adore Ambergrove, and I can’t wait to see the next story come to fruition.
Until next time, adventurers!
Tales of Ambergrove 