It was a snowy, foggy morning as we set out.

The kind of day where it’s better to be inside with a bowl of soup watching movies on the couch.

But we were bound for AWP, and so we went. The truth is that we were excited and curious to see how we would be received by the literary world.

Eventually, we got to DC and moved our boxes and tables from the loading dock to the conference floor.

There is a fine line between optimism and hubris (as measured by the number of books that one brings to a book fair) and I’m pretty sure we crossed it.

We were provided with a sign.

But we quickly replaced it with our own.

It took about four hours to set up (the first two of which were spent figuring out how to arrange our tables), but eventually, we were ready for business.

The show went extremely well. There was a lot of interest in our work and a lot of excitement about our business model. With all of its color and variety of offerings (T-shirts, onesies, interactive flip books, and illustrated Makers Tiles in addition to our more “standard” books), the booth really seemed to draw people.

We’ve always had a “table” before at shows like these, which basically offers a six-foot storefront for showing wares. We splurged for a “booth” at AWP, which means we had ten by ten foot area to fill however we pleased. We decided to put a six-foot table across one side of the front and two tables in the opposite back corner, creating both exterior and interior spaces. One of the people who came by described the “inside” of the booth as feeling a ” cozy private bookstore.” We had to encourage people to come in, but once they entered, they tended to stay and browse for a long time.

We sold a lot of stuff, made a lot of new friends, added a bunch of new subscribers, and made some good connections. It sounds like we’ll be presenting at a symposium on the visual essay in NYC in the fall and might be doing a reading at a hip DC bookstore.

We had fun in the evenings (though it was the subdued sort of fun you have after standing on your feet and talking for nine straight hours), whether marveling at the depth of the DC Metro lines…

…sampling odd Indian desserts…

…or letting my inner urban hipster roar…

A few highlights of the show include meeting our youngest subscriber, Leif, who happened to be strolling the AWP byways with his parents…

…and hanging out with writer friends Edward, Josh, and Hannah (click on their names to check out their books).

All in all, AWP was a huge success and a lot of fun. We’ve already booked our booth for next year’s conference in Chicago. We’re home for a few hours, reminding the children that we are still their parents before heading off to NYC for the evening. We’re going to a “literary party” with various writers. Apparently, writers do not watch the Super Bowl.