One thing I’m learning when it comes to marketing is this: never underestimate the power of networking. Whilst most of my online efforts have been met with limited success, by far the most sales I’ve had to date have been through meeting people in the real world. I mentioned before I’ve been getting involved with Huddersfield Literature Festival, which was my first networking experience and an enjoyable one so far, and I’ve been on the lookout for other opportunities since. So when a friend linked this article on ‘the UK’s only werewolf conference’ on Facebook, I knew it was too good an opportunity to miss. I was originally going to do a write up of this all in one blog post, but it’s proving far too much to cover so I’m now going to split it into three, as the title of this post suggests.

The Company of Wolves conference ran from Thursday 3rd to Saturday 5th September, but it was a three hour train journey from Huddersfield so I travelled down on the Wednesday. The day was already off to a great start when I was approached by another passenger on the way to Wakefield, who’d overheard me talking about the conference on the phone. He took a business card and promised to have a look at my short stories, and we’ve since connected on Twitter. I was on a high, having just met a potential new fan, and growing ever more hyped as I blasted out the likes of Powerwolf, Rob Zombie, and Metallica through my earphones. Neither the long train journey nor the forty minute trek from Hatfield station to Hertfordshire University (which I was crazy enough to make on foot!) could diminish my good spirits, though I was ready for a cold pint by the time I found the residential office and was able to check in to my room. Of course the sensible thing would have been to then take a taxi or a bus to The Red Lion pub where the meet and greet was planned that night, but no, I was determined to walk again to save myself a few quid. So I was well and truly knackered by the time I made it to the pub!

Once inside, I was greeted by a waitress who didn’t seem to know anything about the werewolf conference, and I had no idea who I was looking for, other than Dr Sam George whose picture I’d seen on Twitter, and who didn’t make it to the pub for the meet and greet in the end. It was with some relief that I heard the word ‘werewolf’ from a nearby table and I replied with something along the lines of “Yes, werewolves! I’ve found you!”, probably marking myself out as the mad Yorkshire werewolf right from the start. A truly enjoyable evening followed, filled with talk of werewolf literature, beer, steak, general horror/gothic talk and more beer. The staff behind the bar didn’t seem to know about the werewolf conference and when I mentioned it one of them said “Oh so that is a real thing then? I thought one of the other guys was just making it up!” I handed out two more business cards but must remember not to try and explain what Hybrid is about after several pints, as I’m pretty sure eyes were starting to glaze over in response to my drunken rambling. The conference for me was a very boozy one, and so began what would lead to my three day hangover.

Actually Thursday morning I was more tired than hungover, after being laid awake most of the night. Despite not being able to do much more than slip in and out of consciousness, I laid there as long as possible before dragging myself out of bed for registration that morning, which meant I missed breakfast. I did make it in plenty of time for things officially kicking off though, and when I introduced myself to Sam and a couple of other university staff they were very supportive of my marketing efforts. They let me leave a stack of my business cards on the table with the conference packs given out to all delegates, which was awesome and I was really grateful for. If only I’d been up earlier they would have slipped a business card into each pack for me! I also spied a couple of reporters and made it my mission to try and get an interview with one of them to plug Hybrid, which I succeeded with later that morning as you can see from the BBC article I was featured in. The picture is a little dodgy, but I guess it could’ve been worse after so little sleep.

There were several parallel sessions run over the course of the conference, which meant that we had to choose between the talks running at the same time. All the talks I attended were really interesting, and my only regret is that I couldn’t borrow a time turner from Hogwarts to sit in on them all! I even enjoyed Bill Hughes’ talk on paranormal romance, despite it being a genre I have no interest in reading myself, and by far the most entertaining slide in his presentation was the cover art for ‘Mounted by a Merman’, which had us all in stitches.

Throughout the event we were kept well fed, with Little Red Riding Hood and wolf shortbread biscuits appearing each time we had a break. There was also a really nice spread for lunch on the Thursday, and I gorged myself on chicken and BLT sandwiches, and two chocolate covered buns. The Little Red Wine Reception was also a highlight of the day as it was a chance to do more mingling, hand out more business cards, and drink free beer! I was happy to see bottles of Bud on offer and I enjoyed the social side to the event as much as the talks, having met some really great people who I hope to keep in touch with on Facebook. It was during the reception I was approached by fellow werewolf fanatic Lauren, who’d noticed my Spiral werewolf shirt, and we quickly hit it off. Then it was on to Prezzo for dinner. There were so many of us that we couldn’t all fit on the big table we’d booked, so Matt Beresford had the great idea of grabbing a booth. Mother and daughter Christine and Natasha joined us, making it the northern booth except for Lauren who was our token southerner, until she had to leave to make the drive home. Most people on the big table were sensible and left the restaurant at a reasonable time, but not the four of us in our booth. We joined the other stragglers at the big table and drank until the restaurant staff kicked us out, but the night was young and we felt the call of more beer! Now, my memory of events was that we decided to be sensible adults and walk one of the ladies, Karen, back to the Travelodge where she was staying, rather than leaving her to go on her own whilst we headed back to the uni. And of course this meant more beer as the Travelodge bar was bound to be open. But according to Natasha, it was her suggestion we walk Karen back and me and Matt were all “Chivalry?! What is this?!” and it was only the realisation that the bar would be open that swayed us. I like my version of events better haha.

Suddenly it was 2am and I’d gone from nicely tipsy to feeling very drunk and in need of passing out, which I was finally able to do once back in my room at around 2:30. But at least I slept solidly for the few hours I had in bed that night, before the early start the next day. And here I’ll conclude the first part of my Company of Wolves write up. I’ll try and get the rest posted over the weekend, to make up for the lack of blog posts whilst I’ve been away on all these adventures (anyone who follows me on Twitter and/or Facebook will know I was away at LARP the weekend before Company of Wolves, with just one day to recover before heading off for the conference!). So, part 2 coming soon!

• Part Two
• Part Three (final part)