How to Handle Bouchercon as an Introvert

Bouchercon is the World Mystery Convention, and like other conventions, it's a gathering ground for superfans. How can an introvert survive the convention landscape? I have some tips.

I’m sitting in a beautiful hotel suite, resting on a velvet loveseat–absolutely sweating to death– and watching Seven on HBO. I’m not watching it as much as I have the subtitles on while I listen to something different on my headphones. 

I’m waiting. 

Soon Hubs and his best friend will return from their visit to the World War II Museum and we can eventually go to dinner. It’s a fancy place that needs reservations down on Jackson Square. Except it’s only four thirty and the reservation isn’t until a reasonable dining hour.

Hubs loves to mess with my about my desire to eat with the early-bird-specials but the sooner I have the last meal of the day, the sooner I can start my wind down and relaxation time.

This queen gets too hungry for dinner at eight.

New Orleans is just how I left it five years ago – muggy. The short return walk from the convention center tipped me over to exhausted after spending the day pretending to be an extrovert, handing out business cards and recommending my book to everyone who allowed me thirty seconds of their time. 

I am at Bouchercon, which is the World Mystery Convention. Each year it is held at a different location – last year was Nashville – and writers as well as readers flock to it for writing advice, marketing advice, and to sell their books. 

The convention hosts an event called Speed Dating with Readers so authors can give their pitch to people looking for a good story, but I decided to make the entire convention my speed dating event. I tried to talk to everyone. I even stopped a woman outside the bathrooms because I kind of thought I recognized her, and I felt less smarmy about it when she recognized me as well and handed me her card.

My whole day was sitting conference rooms and listened to good advice on writing, writing crime, and getting readers. And everyone is thrilled to give advice. At one point, I followed a scriptwriter down the hall taking furious notes as she freely provided an 8-step process for adapting a novel into a Netflix series.

Bouchercon is my favorite conference to attend as an adult, but it knocks me back a little each time with how much it both gives energy and takes it at the same time. 

I am an introvert. But I know how to talk to strangers. You don’t spend your formative years hustling T-shirts, costume jewelry, and Beanie Babies at the flea market and not know how to speak to strangers. I’m not at all shy. But, I’m not energetically equip to be able to do it for long periods of time. When I arrive at the conference for the 9 am, I’m freshly caffeinated and ready to learn, to sell, and to network. By noon, I’m completely cashed out. I often skip night events because I am so freaking tired and out of bookmarks to hand out.

Which is why I was back in my room sweating buckets by 4 pm and watching Seven on HBO. Which is actually reading the film while another pair of people chat in my ears. Sometimes, I need to be lost among the voices and movements of others. I think it reminds me of being an introverted child in a large rambunctious family. I could be amongst the chaos and find a little pocket of my brain the rest for a while. Completely quiet spaces can unnerve me with every click of the air conditioner or a random car speeding past the building below. The ice machine dumping into a tray in my freezer is jarring enough to startle me if the rest of the house is quiet. But I can feel at ease in a busy room, in a chair in the corner listening to a podcast of audio book and playing my number game on my phone.

Conventions aren’t super-awesome for introverts. They are fantastic for meeting people and making contacts. I get so many ideas at a conference about story ideas, publications looking for submissions, new podcasts, or seeing who’s the new hotness in mysteries right now. I always volunteer to sit on a panel because I love talking about writing. And when I go to a session and really love what the author said, I go speak with them after the session and give them a card. This sounds like the basics of networking, like anyone can do this. Except I can only do it for so long. 

Last year was my first Bouchercon, and I realized that sometimes when I am sitting in a session, listening to other writers speak, I will feel like I need to leave. It was making me anxious, like I was suddenly filled with an impulse to exit that session. I was telling Hubs this and he said, “Everyone feels like that!” He attends these conferences about travel and making the most out of points and miles. “It’s FOMO, there’s this idea that there’s a better session out there to sit in on.” 

“No. I wanna run out of there like my hair’s on fire, because I want to read all the books and write all the books, and what am I doing sitting there when I had so much to do!”

Which might be a different version of the same thing.

It’s like this convention is a big cake that I want to gobble up but I just don’t have the capacity to do it.

Here are my five tips for attending Bouchercon (or any other conference) as an introvert:

1. You don’t have to do everything. There is a tendency to want to do everything – sit in every session, march in every parade, sit in on every interview. Introverts have to prioritize what’s most important and stick with those things.

2. Preserve your energy however you need to. When I get tired, I don’t always register it as tired. I’m like a damn toddler who is screaming, “I’M NOT TIRED!” while rubbing my eyes and reaching for a bottle. When I am tired I get edgy, anxious, and snappy. There are quiet rooms at most conferences, but I like to create my own quiet rooms with my headphones and an unoccupied corner. 

3. Stay at a different hotel than the convention. This might seem like a lot of energy wasted, but it’s not. I like a hotel near – like walkable – to the convention, but not at the convention. Often I don’t get to stay at the convention hotel anyway because those are often Marriotts and we’ve committed to Hyatts right now. And it would seem like just going back up to your room would solve the problem, but one afternoon when I left and walked back to my hotel, I was able to hit up my own bar’s happy hour alone, and it was bliss.. Like there was another woman near me but we did not speak. The bartender served up drinks, and on the other side in the lounge was a soft jazz trio keeping the vibe chill. If I sit at the convention bar, it is an opportunity to make new contacts, but I’m not at my best energy. Allow me to recharge and return tomorrow.

4. Pack snacks. Picking what I am going to eat at an event like that is a whole different level of anxiety. And if I don’t eat, I will get HANGRY, and no one wants that. Also, options are always limited. Almost everything is fried. If it’s a sandwich or a box salad, you cannot always confirm when it was made. I watched a lot of people carrying around pizza boxes, and I had no idea where it was coming from. I had some beef sticks, a Lara Bar, and a bag of almonds in my bag. I knew where my next meal was coming from.

5. Know you are not alone. Since I have been attending conferences, I have found myself in conversations with other who are not comfortable with the networking, the overwhelm, and the anxiety, while also knowing how much they love being surrounded by people who also love writing mystery and crime novels. And maybe if I keep going to the conferences, I will be able to develop an introvert squad who likes quiet bars and reasonable bedtimes. 

Until next year, I will rest up knowing I have levelled up in my understanding of the conference, marketing myself, and preserving that energy. Sometimes I know I will need to leave at 3 pm or 4 pm, even thought events go until 10 pm at night. Sometimes I’m going to need to wear my headphones as I move from space to space. Sometimes I am going to be the opposite of the life of the party, wanting to return to my room with a bag of McDonalds. And all of these things are perfectly acceptable if I spent the morning glad-handing my heart out.

Be on the lookout for more advice on attending book events because I am in the middle of Book Season. I have appearances for the rest of the season, so if you see me, feel free to ask me for a photo, a bookmark, or a sticker (because I my restocks will be arriving in another week).

Curious about the book I was promoting? Check out Pretty Girls Get Away With Murder in the brandibradley.com shop. It’s available in paperback or digital copies, as well as my other stories.

Pretty Girls Get Away With Murder -- a southern noir by Brandi Bradley

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