Convention circuit career is not for everyone...
| EelKat on Being a Yaoi Author |
What an author's everyday life is like.


By EelKat Wendy C Allen

Degree: English Literature, with a focus on Teaching High School Writing; triple majored with Entrepreneurship and Culinary Arts as the two minors

(College I went to did not have a Creative Writing Degree, that was the closest one)

>>So what kind of jobs do you guys work in now?

Career #1: Career author with 130+ novels published

Career #2: Teaching Novel Writing, via one on one local groups/workshops/lectures at community centers, conventions, etc (my writing 'how to write/format/publish a novel' articles online is an offshoot of this)

>>I recently graduated with a Bachelor's degree in creative writing and am now trying to find jobs (mainly in editing, writing, publishing, advertising, marketing, and journalism). I'm trying to get an idea of what other job prospects there are for me out there besides the ones I'm currently looking for.

My career is self made, so no seeking out of jobs. However, lots of seeking out venues, so, while you stop your job search once you find a job, my job requires constant ongoing "job searches" all year long as a part of my job.

>>How did you get to where you are?

A lot of hard work, determination, persistence, and self-motivation.

The Business Ownership, and Business Start-Up courses of the Entrepreneurship part of my degree helps a lot here.

Because I teach novel writing at community centers, workshops, and conventions, it means I have to write my own curriculum. As these classes tend to be one-hour long lecture based workshops with students who I've never seen before and will never see again, it's easier then creating a full semester curricula for a High School class (which is what I was trained to do in college - my final "paper" assignment for the last Education class, was to create a 70 page outline for the curricula I planed to design once I had a teaching job).

Because I teach outside of a school setting, I have to be constantly applying for booth/tent/room space at various outlets.

Because in my novel writing career, I'm a professional Yaoi writer, you often see me focusing on comic book, gamers, anime, and geek cons, where I both CosPlay my Ukes (me as one of my Ukes: pic1 and pic2 ) and Semes (me as one of my Semes: pic1 & pict2 ) 

for my fans, and teach workshops on:

  • The Art of Writing Yaoi
  • The Art of Writing Dark Fantasy
  • Character Creation
  • Writing Dialogue
  • Writing With the Intent To Publish

I once showed up at a Con, in full CosPlay as my main character (a Uke Twink - here's a picture from that day: pict1 and pic2 )


 and as soon as I drove up, I was mobbed before I even got out of my car (my car, which has 2.5million marbles glued to it goes the Cons as well: CarPic ) 

Getting mobbed trying to get out of my car at a Con is not unusual. What was unusual is that I was not a featured guest at this Con, had no pre-announced intention of being there, and was not doing any workshops or lectures there; fans, saw me there and immediately assumed that was the case, then ran around trying to find me on the schedule.

You want to be a big hit at conventions: do anything with any connection to Yaoi... the rooms rarely fit more then 60 people in a class, yet 300 to 500 people line up and try to cram into the room. Authors teaching the Yaoi classes get assigned hotel guards, just to get them into the lecture rooms without getting crushed by crazed screaming fangirls. Yaoi events attract the biggest crowds, and are the most dangerous events to run, requiring hotel security protecting the event guest, guards at the doors of the classroom... partly because of the screaming fangirls, but mostly because of groups like the KKK and Westboro Baptist Church, both of whom you'll have following you from Con to Con, waving signs, and chanting anti-gay hysteria, throwing rocks... a bomb blew up my house, the KKK left a big white cross behind in the ruble... the dark side of being a Yaoi author, and the REASON so many Yaoi authors write under pennames and don't reveal their real identities.

Believe me, you have never seen screaming fangirls, until you become a Yaoi author and walk into an anime con.

But getting the "job" of doing this, involves writing the novels, publishing the novels, gaining a fan following big enough that cons want you as part of their event (the Con's goal is the get as many paying customers in the hotel as possible, meaning the bigger name the author is the better, many won't accept an author if they aren't "famous enough"), then signing up as a featured guest, writing a curriculum, getting over phobias of speaking in public (I had those), getting used to the grueling schedule of packing, unpacking, setting up, dodging fans, signing books, posing for pictures, never getting to a bathroom because there are 2,000 people between you and the bathroom and they ALL want a hug and a selfie, carrying anything you can find to eat with you all day long, because you'll never have a free second to have a meal, dealing with crazy fans (bad fans, not good fans) which often requires police involvement and happens more often then most cons would like to admit, (a church group somehow got into one Con, and stormed into the Yaoi workshop chanting we were going to Hell, one year) ... it's a fast paced, hectic life on the road (you'll need to buy a motorhome ( myRV ) and get used to RV lifestyle and paint your name and books covers on the side). I also appear at car shows, autism events, festivals, fairs, carnivals, pretty much anything that let's me set up a booth, you are gonna see he at.

Convention circuit career is not for everyone. You need the personality to deal with LOTS of strangers on a daily basis, that means you need EXTREMELY high quality of professionalism, not have a temper, be able to get along with every one and any one under any conditions no matter how stressed you are, and be able to smile constantly none stop, all day long no matter what. (In short, 90% of the members of Reddit will fail big time in this career, as the average Redditor has no level of professionalism at all, and is a high strug fight seeker.)

look into community centers, immigrant agencies, GED centers, adult ed centers, YMCA, senior centers, ... ask for a list at your local Department of Health and Human Services. These places are nearly always understaffed and in desperate need of teachers.

Also look into becoming a guest teacher - one who does workshops and lectures and shows up at schools across the state instead of being in one school.

These are the directions I went








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