The top part extracts the section of my book on the first GenCon. I was asked at one point, "How did you convince Peter to put your ad on the same page as that GenCon history?" When I explained that the whole page was all part of the ad, the follow-up question was, "Did they pay you for that, or did you pay them?" Maybe in the future the administrators of the convention will invite me to contribute without purchasing ad space, though probably I would first need to learn to spell GenCon as "Gen Con."
To help me relive the old-school experience, I brought only twenty-two copies of my book with me, which I distributed pretty arbitrarily to various attendees, just as the self-published gamers of old would guerilla-market their own wares. Lou Zocchi wouldn't take the copy I offered him unless I brought home some of his dice in trade, an exchange I was easily persuaded to accept. I was delighted to slip a copy into Dave Megarry's hands, and he even let me take a few pictures of his Dungeon! prototype. Probably my favorite moment at the convention, though, was that the copy of the book I donated to the Gygax Memorial Fund auction ended up selling for $260 - with the help of signatures from the likes of Tim Kask and Frank Mentzer. I really didn't know what to say.
Overall, I was very grateful for the positive sentiments that everyone expressed toward my book.