Conventions » Twilight's Book Nook at Everfree Northwest! · 2:03pm Mar 12th, 2023
D This Is Not A Contest Blog, What Is Happening!?
In 2019 Aquaman organized a bookstore booth at Bronycon. It was such a huge success and gathered so much attention that several of us, including: Capn_Chryssalid, PaulAsaran, yours truly, Monochromatic, Corejo and many others spent a considerable amount of the convention coordinating with security, selling books, engaging people and generally having a great time.
The best thing? The bookstore was incredibly successful. We had a line of people that we had to split into parts and arrange along the wall because of the interest people had in our stories.
In many ways, it validated the fandom’s love and need for more pony, more expressions of it, and our (everyone here in Fimfic) passion and dedication to our beloved ponies.
It was truly a tremendous time to be alive!
(blatantly stolen from Aquaman's Bronycon blog)
Did you miss the big Bronycon Bookshop in 2019? Did you wish you had not only attended and met the authors, but even sold your own book?
Well, RBDash47, Corejo and myself thought the same thing.
It started as a conversation at EFNW, and then ended up as a serious "let's do it" dinner at the airport where Dash and I talked about it, not as a "maybe" but as a… "what's stopping us?"
It didn't take long for us to gather together and put our noggins together with Xepher to see what we could do.
Everfree Northwest has a history of valuing authors and the writing track there has always been solid… there's clearly interest… and so we have:
Working with Ponyfeather Publishing, EFNW and sheer, uncontrolled love for our community, we are bringing the bookstore to life once more at Everfree Northwest, and this is your chance to be a part of it!
But What If I'm Not Going To Seattle?
You don't have to! We're planning and coordinating to account for authors that will not be attending but still want to participate.
As long as your story is in print by the deadline and follows the basic—very basic—rules of EFNW and the Book Nook, it should all work out.
We're expecting each participating author to provide 10 (minimum) to 25 (maximum) books of their title or titles.
YOU Will Sell All My Books?!
We will try, but obviously it will depend on the interest of the buyers. If we can't sell all the books, we will be shipping them back to you after the con.
What If I Don't Want To Sell My Work For Profit?
We are giving the option to select donating for charity.
How Do I Participate?
Well, to steal from yet another blog, I'll let RBDash47 explain it:
We'll be requiring a markup over production cost for all books, to cover operating costs and local sales tax -- and hopefully make you a little money! (If you aren't interested in profit, we are more than happy to donate your share to the convention charity instead.)
Fill out our signup form here (if you have more than one book you'd like to have at the Book Nook, fill it out once per book) to indicate your interest, so we can start getting an idea of how many people want to participate.
Signups will run through the end of April -- make sure you sign up if you're interested! We won't be making last-minute additions to the roster, for the sake of our own sanity.
If you don't have prints of your ponyfic yet but would like to make some, you've got time! Sign up above too, and then you have until June 15th to get your book ready to order.
A few final thoughts:
- If you have any questions, you can comment here, or join the Twilight's Book Nook FIMFic group or our Discord server to keep in touch/stay up-to-date.
- This will go a lot easier if we can make arrangements with some Seattle locals to receive book shipments ahead of the con! If you or someone you know lives in the area and would be willing to sit on some books for a few weeks this summer, we'd love to hear from you.
- Ponyfeather Publishing authors, no need to sign up -- I'll (Dash) follow up with you via PM over the next few days!
And that's it, folks! See you all soon!
I want that Twilight plushie so much!
This "Out of stock" sign is pure awesome.
Oh goodness! I'm going to have to dust off my Lulu account... and finally make those updates to the Oversaturation print edition I meant to after the Last Bronycon.
Well then. Maybe in two or three years time, when I’ve finished and published a Ponyfic novel and coordinated the creation of a physical version, this’ll strike my fancy.
In all seriousness, this is a great thing to do and I’m stoked to see it returning after it struck such a chord with folks at BronyCon 2019. And to facilitate the selling of books for folks that can’t be there too…! The generosity of the Pony fandom knows no bounds.
Hey, that's me in the picture!
So excited to see this happen again. It was a wonderful thing to do for the last Bronycon.
Yay! Happy to see you all bringing the bookstore to EFNW!
So cool! More books and storiest to share!
Kinda wish that this little book nook could be spread to several cons instead of just EFNW, considering this massive fanfiction event in another convention is also happening, but the organizing, shipping and coordinating with more convention runners would be so chaotic so that's probably completely impossible for now lol.
Can't wait to see the glorious results! and let's spread the words beyond!
Tempting, as is the PCF event.
I’m assuming books with M rated stories are no go for this, right? I do have my Pegasus Device collection that would be incredible to take part in this, but I think EFNW is supposed to be as family friendly as possible.
There’s no clop, just violence. Am I right in my assumption or should I toss in an application?
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You are correct that M-rated works can't be sold at EFNW; their policy is
and I confirmed with the vendor hall lead that this is applies to all "mature" content, not just sexual content.
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Cheers, thanks for the quick response.
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It's adorable!
In a creepy, keep-that-Twilighting-bookhorse-29-and-a-half-feet-away-from-me, kind of way.
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Question: I have a book that's been in the works for six years that uses Cutie Marks as a jumping off point for a in-depth analysis and solution of... Well, I want to talk to somepony about the details first, if you don't mind.
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Feel free to drop me a PM!
Where can I find the top left book fic? Can't seem to locate it by name on fimfic.
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Face the Dark is a collection of some of Pen Stroke's short stories:
This is an amazing idea! Getting gifted a set of ponyfic books is a high point of my time in this fandom. Huge props to you and the team for making this happen.
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I'm sorely tempted to see if this could be the start of it's own website, with professional help, publishing, and the like.
"Ask me about the secret of comedy."
"What's the secret of --"
"Timing."
Well, it would have been an interesting way for me to go bankrupt. Hope it goes well.
Evening, who da artist who did the cover fer Gunsmoke? I seen 'im before 'e got the story with the devil on Sunny' s shoulder but I not remmeber it.
Mind helping a fella out?
Good luck!
5717920 Here's derpi to the rescue
So, is this for books/stories that are already or will be in print?
Wow, this is so fun! Gosh, I never even considered a vanity printing of my stories... maybe I should look into it! Thank you for the heads up, this is super cool!!
I want to hug the Twilight plushie! :)
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Yes, this is for selling physical prints of ponyfic. Many already exist, but we wanted to announce as early as possible so people could put together new prints if they wanted.
Is that "Life and Times of Nyx" book all about Nyx starting from Past Sins and such?
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The Life and Times of Nyx is a collection of short stories set in the Past Sins 'verse:
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Oh nice! I got two versions of Nyx in my fic though, one started out as a plushie and the Sinsverse version didn't appear until later on
Plus Nyx is such a cute character though
I suppose there'd be quite a few people who'd be interested in my own "Grief is the Price We Pay" being put into physical form for something such as this...but I don't know if I have enough interest in it myself so to pursue it. The only other MLP fic that I think could merit from it is still being written and hasn't been released yet...and likely won't be in time for this.
Nonetheless, it's a really cool idea, and it is indeed a great way to support the fanfic community, so I wish the best of luck of those who do participate. May you sell plenty of books!
Same for my fic series but some of the shorter books would have to be merged together,..
I’d been considering putting out another run of my book… Looks like I’ve got a great excuse now!
5717981 Nothing wrong with a compilation.
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The first book alone could be easily mistaken for a super edition since it's 52 chapters long
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The captain. Nice. thanks!
What's the "Without A Hive" book about?
How very unfortunate...
I don't know about this. I'm all for fan fiction but doesn't profiteering of it go against the whole point of it? And isn't this also copyright infringement as well?
5718013 not everyone feels the same way about printing for profit, hence the ability to donate for charity instead. In fact, you'll find most of the published books are at-cost, with only the upsale price being the adjustment for taxes and covering for the costs of the booth... otherwise everyone would be going in at a loss.
As for your other concerns, parody and such are permitted under most laws... and as for going against the whole point... no? Fan art, fan music, fan fiction, fan sculpting, fanzines, fan games, etc. have through the years offered the option for commissions and such. This is not mass production being introduced into the open market, but rather trade within a niche community of fans. Ventures as these are allowed in conventions precisely because there is no risk of it getting out of hand and affecting any bottom lines.
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Hmmm, I see how that might work. I just hope Hasbro sees it too.
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They didn’t take issue with the bookstore at BronyCon — we sold over 1400 books there ($30,000 worth).
Too bad you're not at Trot Con.
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When it comes to fan-art and fan-fiction, technically, strictly according to the black letter of the law, it does constitute an infringement of trademark and/or copyright if you don't have the IP holder's permission. If I draw you a picture of Twilight Sparkle without Hasbro's permission, for example, then as a strict technicality, I'm infringing on Hasbro's intellectual property rights, and they can sue me for it if they choose to do so. (And yes, there are certain legal carve-outs for "fair use" circumstances such as critical review, satire, parody, or for educational purposes, but that's a whole can of worms unto itself.)
The real question -- and the "grey area" that fan-works exist in -- isn't so much whether they are infringements and the IP's owners can sue you over them; it's to what extent the IP holder in question is prepared to tolerate such fan-works, and whether or not they consider it worth coming after you over it. This is largely a judgement call on the IP holder's part, and generally, involves several criteria such as:
#1: "How likely is it that the average person might be misled or confused into thinking that this is an official product released by, or endorsed by, me or my company?"
#2: "Could this significantly damage my brand or intellectual property's reputation if it was assumed to be an official product or endorsement?"
#3: "Could this significantly cut into the sales and profitability of my own merchandise?"
#4: "Could failing to take action against this jeopardize my trademarked IP, and cause me to lose control of it?"
If the IP holder is smart, they will generally recognize that the people who create and consume fan-works are also the most devoted fans of the show or franchise. If anything, such fans are generally more likely to buy as much of the official merchandise as they can get their hands on, watch every episode of the show, and promote it to their friends. They're also undoubtedly aware that the actual amount of money involved is pretty small, and that widespread "zero-tolerance" legal action against every fanwork creator out there would just end up antagonizing the very same fanbase they're relying on to keep the franchise profitable in the first place. So, to the extent that such fanworks serve as free advertising and help keep the fanbase engaged, IP holders will often decide that it's in the best interest of the franchise to ignore them as long as they don't jeopardize their own trademarks or harm the property's image in the eyes of the general public.
So, what it generally boils down to is that as long as you're not falsely representing your product as being officially-licensed merchandise, you're not misappropriating their IP in order to promote a controversial agenda or product that could cause the company a PR headache, and you're not mass-marketing your fanworks in the same retail channels as the official merchandise, they probably won't bother you about it. Their lawyers have much bigger fish to fry; they're far more interested in pursuing someone who's mass-producing plastic "Pretty Pretty Poni" figures by the truckload and packaging them in deceptively-labeled packaging that deliberately mimics the style and logos of the official MLP merchandise, than they are in going after someone who is selling a few dozen copies of a print-on-demand book that doesn't even mention the words "My Little Pony" on the cover, much less have any cover art that looks even remotely like the show's official animation style.
You guys are so amazing!
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That is a sitting Aurora plush. Here's one for $13.50 US plus shipping: https://www.ebay.ca/itm/304541134228 The other Twilight is a standing Aurora with dolly hair. Note that Aurora and Ty plushes are characterized by a shiny/reflective horn.
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Without a Hive: Nictis is a changeling nymph on a infiltration training exercise with several other nymphs under the tutelage of a changeling princess. The exercise goes wrong and she ends up on her own. This is a story of a changeling surviving by her wits and exploring Equestria.
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Most of the other titles are hard to read
What's "Face the Dark" about?
5718828 all of those are books here in the site. You can look them up with the search engine here.
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Some I can barely see due to blurriness