Triumphs, Troubles on Webcon’s First Voyage

(Editor’s note: Yesterday saw the unveiling of the Poisoned Pen Press Webcon, the first completely online conference for crime-fiction writers and fans. While there were many satisfied attendees, there also seemed to be a few people disappointed by technological problems. We asked one of the event’s organizers, Mary Reed [who, with her husband, Eric Mayer, writes the John the Eunuch historical mystery series], to look back at the highs and headaches of this one-day Webcon, and tell us what she learned that would make such endeavors easier in the future. Her report follows.)

As clocks keeping track of U.S. Pacific Daylight Time struck 7 a.m. on Saturday, October 24, the world’s first Virtual Mystery Conference was launched and set sail in a blizzard of confetti and streamers, not to mention crossed fingers down in the engine room.

Co-sponsored by Scottsdale, Arizona’s Poisoned Pen bookstore and Poisoned Pen Press, the attractions of this one-day event included a most reasonable cost, no need for travel, appearances by an international cast of authors, and casual dress code, for even if registrants attended in fuzzy jammies and bunny slippers, nobody could stare at them in the virtual hallways.

Provided they were not among those participating via video, that is.

The PP Webcon’s Guests of Honor were Dana Stabenow and Lee Child. Behind the Scenes Guests of Honor were Kate Miciak (editorial director, Bantam Dell), Kate Stine (editor-in-chief, Mystery Scene magazine), and Tom and Enid Schantz (Rue Morgue Press). Adrian Muller, the co-organizer (with Myles Allfrey) of Britain’s annual CrimeFest, was Fan Guest of Honor, and many familiar mystery authors appeared on the program.

The conference turned out to be truly global. Participants logged in from Brazil, Portugal, Iceland, England, France, Australia, Botswana, and Northern Ireland as well as Canada and locations across the United States, from Hawaii, Colorado, Washington state, and Massachusetts to Maine, North Carolina, Vermont, Texas, Alabama, and New York. The modest $25 cost of attendance didn’t seem to frighten anyone off, especially since $20 of that was returned in the form of a book voucher redeemable at The Poisoned Pen bookstore.

This first Webcon strove to provide good value for money, offering an eclectic mix of text, live, and pre-recorded audio and video panels, talks, and author presentations. There were dozens of author interviews and book trailers, and a day-long chat room. In addition, 20 attendees won a chance to pitch their novel to an editor!

Perhaps the venture’s most unusual feature was the electronic goody bag. Its contents included short stories, sample chapters and excerpts, a collection of essays, author notes and samplers, a couple of e-books--and instructions for a pair of ancient Greek party games.

The conference sailed forth with a skeleton crew of organizers. Webmistress Janice Hally managed the electronic side of things from France, I served as a general deck-hand in Pennsylvania, and oversight was provided from the bridge of Poisoned Pen Press in the southwestern United States. A number of authors also generously assisted by participating in panels, serving as hosts in the coffee shop, and donating material for the goody bag.

What useful pointers did this trial run provide for future Webcons?

Navigating a sea of raging lists is to be expected. We were making lists of lists at one point, aided by lots of muttering and the perking of ever stronger pots of robusto coffee. It’s wise to allow twice as much time as thought necessary to complete any given task. Even so, it will doubtless be necessary to engage in gentle flourishing of the cat-o’-nine tails at stragglers as deadlines approach and the clock starts ticking ever louder in ominous High Noon fashion.

Having said which, scheduling live events went more smoothly than anticipated, for whereas land-based conferences know their participants will be in the same place at the same time, we had to allow for ours residing in different national and international time zones. The possibility of confusion made my nose bleed, but the Gordian Knot was cut by declaring that the conference was going to be held on “PPWebcon Time.” Webmistress Janice then created and uploaded a time-zone grid to the Webcon site, matching PPWebcon Time to local hours and providing a universal reference point.

It was when we arrived at the panel-scheduling stage that we had to deal with a looming shipwreck. It was a difficulty unique to a Web-based conference. Moderators waiting to book slots on Blog Talk Radio could not make arrangements until the live schedule was firm. Although that was accomplished at top speed, some fancy tap-dancing was necessary to obtain the right broadcast times for a couple of presentations, achieved by swapping around panel slots.

As with all conferences, no doubt, organizing panels was a delicate task. Panelists and moderators were all volunteers and the latter had full control over who they invited to participate. Some unevenness was experienced, so a more balanced result will be reached in the future by organizing panels according to a different method, perhaps by limiting panelists to participate in only two panels until all volunteers are appointed to at least one. Another possibility is the method used by land-conference organizers, whereby authors suggest topics and a committee does the rest.

Needless to say, small fires had to be stamped out. For example, because this was an Internet-based event, concerns relating to loss of access cropped up. One moderator was anxious about losing power during their broadcast, so it was switched from a live event to an on-demand recording. Ironically, my power went out overnight but, fortunately, returned an hour before the Webcon set sail. Coffee shop segments were given co-hosts to guard against all eventualities. Only one co-host could not get into the coffee shop, as it turned out. One attendee lost e-mail service for about 24 hours and in another case a registrant’s network went missing for a similar period not long before the Webcon began. Alternative e-mail addresses for organizers and moderators are therefore vital, and if they are available for all attendees, so much the better.

In this connection, a few did not always open Webcon e-mail notes and others paid their registration fees but failed to complete the process. Several registrants changed e-mail addresses mid-ocean and at least two notes were found hiding in recipients’ spam folders. On another occasion a moderator did not receive an important e-mail message and it never returned, so it’s still meeping around somewhere out there. Several attendees had to have their passwords resent. One or two received their book vouchers but not their passwords. So it is important to closely monitor the attendee list and send notes from personal e-mail addresses as necessary. Since communication was established via Constant Contact, which provides notification of unopened e-mails, keeping registrants informed was easier than it might have been.

The need to use particular Web tools to access certain presentations meant some attendees feared they might not be able to participate in such events. However, for those registrants the Webcon provided numerous other offerings accessible without special equipment even if on dial-up, and the coffee shop chat room was text based.

A voice from the back row just asked, How, then, did this first crime-fiction Webcon fare?

It was anticipated that there would be glitches and problems and gnashing of teeth. This proved to be the case, but almost all difficulties involved individual computers or the Web tools in use, and so were beyond the control of the organizers. Most issues seemed to be resolved fairly quickly. The popularity of the chat room meant there was a queue to get in at times, since it apparently limited the number of attendees. From an informal count, an acceptable number appeared to be 25. So booking a larger chat room is advisable in years to come. There were also some problems with guests being booted out of the chat room for no apparent reason, though just about everyone had at least one experience of that, so it was nothing personal! One panel had to be moved to its right channel, but that was done within about five minutes of its start.

The chat room was lively and attendees seemed happy with the program. The satisfaction survey in circulation as I write has had 52 responses thus far and everyone says they want another Webcon. On an overall scale of 1-10, we have a 8.1 rating at present.

So all in all, yes, I would say the Webcon did very well on its
maiden voyage.

Whew!

An archive of Saturday’s events can be found and enjoyed here.

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Did you participate in this first Webcon? Were you pleased or frustrated with the results? Either way, we’d like to hear from you. Just leave your thoughts in the Comments section of this post.