Comiccon

Ottawa Comiccon Report 2018

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Hello Imaginary Friends, Coffee Lovers, and Everyone else,

This last weekend was Ottawa Comiccon and a lot of you came out to see us. Thank you so much for doing that. I love talking coffee, signing books, and seeing all the wonderful people. I’m not lying when I say that JenEric Designs, Coffee, and Aspiring Something would not exist without all of you.

Without the support of fans, friends, and family I wouldn’t have the confidence or want to try and get my books published. I’ve been writing seriously now for nine years and I’ve completed 7 novels (2 which might never see the light of day) and written 5 years’ worth of serial stories. I think if my publisher disowned me and my blog died, I’d still write. It’s become important therapy and such a large part of who I am.

Coffee however is a lot of work. Although we make our money back, we don’t make enough for the hours of work I do roasting, we do packaging, and we do working conventions. It’s a labour of love and earlier this year I was not feeling the love.

I know we have a great product and that we have fans, but there are certain events that make us jump through hoops and dance and still reject us. One in particular almost broke me. Our current set up has me doing 12 hour days on weekends before comiccon, and combined with the negative attitude I got from that other event… Well, I had decided before this year’s comiccon to slow down JenEric Coffee and maybe kill it outright. I was drained, disillusioned, and scared.

Now after the event I feel completely different. Being around crowds of like-minded people, seeing the look of joy in people who love coffee, the joy of chatting with everyone, and (I won’t lie) the sales, have completely reinvigorated me. I feel much more confident and extremely hopeful for the future.

The organizers and volunteers are not what makes a good convention. What makes a good convention are the attendees, and you guys were fantastic!

THANK YOU! Thank you for making us part of your convention experience, Thank you for saying such nice things, and most of all Thank you for being awesome.

 

Did you go to Ottawa Comiccon? Did you enjoy it?

Éric

Ottawa Comiccon 2018

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JenEric Coffee, JenEric Designs, and Éric Desmarais Author will all be at Ottawa Comiccon this weekend.

Come see us at booths 2505 and 2507!

We’ll have all kinds of wonderful crocheted item including these awesome baskets:

And we will have all these coffee flavours available:

 

We will have coffee samples so please come by and try something new.

I’m Sorry I Lied (And Rejection Sucks)

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Hello Imaginary Friends, Coffee Drinkers, Crochet lovers, and all around awesome fans,

At Comiccon I told a lot of you that we were going to be a Geek Market in the fall. I lied, or better, I was a little arrogant. You see, we weren’t accepted at the time, but I felt that the strength, and uniqueness of our product was enough to guarantee us a spot.

Like I said, it was arrogant and I must apologize because JenEric Designs and Gourmet Coffee will not be attending. This Fall’s event is a juried event. They, from what I’ve been told, judged quality of product, uniqueness of product, and visual appeal of tables/booths.

We were told that we scored well in the first two, but for vendors in our category we scored poorly on visual appeal. We’re on the wait list but I’m not expecting to be going.

My first reaction was anger (rejection hurts) and then I took a long hard look at our booth and I realized that I’ve been neglecting evolving the outside look. I’ve concentrated really hard on storage in the booth to make sales go faster and on coffee products.

My second reaction was confusion. I had no idea what to do to improve. So I contacted Geek Market and asked to know the criteria, our scores, and what category we are considered. (Being both coffee and crochet can put us into multiple categories.) We received a reply on May 19th saying that they’d get back to us in a couple of days.

It’s humbling to be told that your table isn’t visually appealing, but we’ve taken steps to try and make it better. We’ve ordered custom printed table cloths, and I’m working on a way of adding levels to our display.

I hope that we’ll be able to get back into Geek Market in the future. Sales are good and I know there are certain fans that we only get to see at that event.

Once again, I’m sorry,

Éric

Comiccon 2017 Report

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Hello My Imaginary Friends,

With my week off and 2d6 Con drain, I forgot to talk about Ottawa Comiccon 2017. First things first:

Thank You!You made this years’ comiccon the best we’ve ever had, both in sales and in great company. We had a lot of people coming by to see Baby Dragon (who was quite the trooper) and a lot of return customers.

A great big thank you goes to Lindsay (GiLove2Dance) for sharing a table again this year and helping with Dragon. It was nice to get a break when she stole the baby and walked around.

We’re almost recovered from Comiccon now, so it’s time to start thinking about our next events. Our next selling event is C.O.N. Creative Ottawa Nerds Craft Show. It’s one of my favourite shows.

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Thank you again, and hope to see you June 10th,

Éric

Thank You for a Great Weekend

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Hello my imaginary friends,

I hope you’re having a great week. Mine’s been awesome!

ComicCon

This past weekend was Ottawa ComicCon. Roughly 40,000 people crammed into the convention centre and enjoyed all things geeky. It was amazing.

Jen and I had a booth. This meant that the past month has been spent preparing and stressing. Our house looks like a mini Godzilla has passed through and deposited yarn, button pieces, and coffee all over the place.

All our preparation was well worth it. I nearly sold out of coffee and Jen’s stock was at least halved. (She hasn’t been this low since we started selling.) We did really well, yay!

We also met all kinds of awesome people. Thank you for stopping by and talking with us, it was great to share my passion for coffee with so many others.

Important links

We talked about a lot of things. If you’re trying to find something specific, check here:

Awesome Kickstarter

A Match Made in Austen is a new Kickstarter for a card game based off the world of Jane Austen’s novels. If you’ve always wanted to see how Darcy and Emma would get along (probably terribly), this is the game for you.

The base game is $25 and you get a free ebook with it. You can’t beat that price.

Go check out the Kickstarter.

A Match Made in Austin

My Reading Quest

I’ve been going through my extensive library and reading the first in a bunch of series. The goal is to find out what I am keeping and what I’m getting rid of.

I read Tempest by Julie Cross and loved it. Here’s my review:

A rare book that doesn’t spend to much time on the mechanics of time travel. I love that the author is able to show us the same person in different stages of their lives and makes it believable. I look forward to reading the sequels.

I give it a 75%

 

What are you excited for right now?

Éric

7 Days Until Ottawa Comiccon

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Hello,

It’s only a week before Ottawa Comiccon and I’m panicking a little. (It’s actually a lot AHHHHHHHHH!)

JenEric Designs will be selling this year for the first time and I can’t wait to see everyone. (And hide behind the table when the crowds get crazy.)

You can find us at table 2203. It’ll be awesome

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Coffee

I may have gone overboard with coffee this year. I will have 7 different flavours available in two different sizes. (100g for $10, and 33g for 3$ or buy two for $5)

The flavours are:

  • Chocolate: Davroast; (Now Nut Free)
  • Key Lime: Key Lime PI; (New)
  • Banana Cream and Peanut Butter: Elvis;
  • Banana Cream: Minion;
  • Cinnamon: Raktajino;
  • Peanut Butter: Jabba the Peanut;
  • Raspberry: Morpheus’s The Red Pill;

I look forward to see you all there.

 

What, or who, are you most excited for, for this Comiccon?

Éric

Sick, Writing, and stuff

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Like a horror movie villain in an ill-advised sequel, my cold has returned. I had a sore throat, chills, headache, and general symptoms just before comiccon two weeks ago. I never really go back to feeling 100% I was hovering at 40% wondering why I felt crappy. I assumed it was simply because of allergy season. Turns out I have been fighting this this for over two weeks and now I’m losing. That or my wife didn’t catch my cold but something similar and then passed it on to me.

I’m in a weird, uncomfortable period of mourning for the character I killed in my novel. It’s weird I didn’t think I’d feel it but I did.

Between the persistent cold, the death of a character, an excessive amount of work, and a favour I promised a friend I’d finish by May. I took last week off from writing and I’m going to take this week off. I might take all of May to make sure I get everything done in time.

I was hoping to finish this novel before July but I have another 5-9 chapters left. Hopefully by September.

Ok. Back to work!

Talk to you soon.

Ottawa Comiccon – People you must go check out!

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Hello my Imaginary Friends,

comiccon

Today is the start of Ottawa Comic Con. If you are the kind of person who hates browsing the millions of booths, tables, etc., let me help you with a few recommendations.

S.M. Carrière – Table 2416B

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S.M. is an author of fantasy novels and she’s a darn good one at that. Her books aren’t expensive considering their quality and they’re a lot of fun.

I highly recommend you go by (and buy) to say hello.

Ottawa Brown Coats – Table 2312B

OBC

I like to describe the Brown Coats as the nexus of Ottawa geekdom. They are well connected and a lot of fun to talk with. Pick up some buttons or, if like me, you’re a fan of Firefly, let them know about your favourite episode.

Charming Creations – Table 2000

charming

Do you like Geeky T-shirts and jewelry? Of course you do! This combined store will have a little bit of everything you need. The clothing is of great quality and made by the seller, and the jewelry is the same.

Go check out what they have and good luck not buying something.

 

Both Jen and I will be walking around at the Con, if you see us, say hi!

Éric