Allied Media Conference 2005

The 2005 Allied Media Conference (alliedmediaconference.com ) was fantastic! I had a lot of fun and this year even got to do a workshop. I did one called Marketing Your Indie Project, and though I was nervous as all get out I did a fine job, if I do say so myself.


My workshop was at 2:30pm Saturday, and I spent most of Saturday morning being nervous and fretting over it. I was up early Saturday, like at 6am, waiting on my brother John to show and drive down with me. He overslept, so I took my big girl, Iyende, along. We left at 7:00ish and got there at 9:00. Got set up at my vending table with MSP stuff to sell, and opened my ancient laptop to do some finishing touches on my presentation. The presentation itself went great! I had tons of positive feedback; many folks came up to me afterwards and told me it was a cool workshop and very informative.

I met lots of cool folks like last year, and some folks I was expecting to see again this year I missed. I got to hang out with a buddy of mine from Afro Punk and I met Mindy who does cool crafts and John from Luv Bunni Press. Mindy is too cool, a really sweet person, and John and I have emailed back and forth before about the Cleveland Zine Fest. It was great to be finally able to meet him.

I also met Margarita from Tint Magazine. She is very cool! and attended my workshop. We swapped mags and I dig hers a lot; check it out. Another cool source you should check out that I got hip to at the conference: Art Webhosting, they provide very economical web hosting for artists.

I also got to see friend and fellow zine mama Lli, who is an awesome artist and does a zine called Hot Metal Baby. It's all about living in Pittsburgh with kids. I hadn't seen Lli since the Mamagathering last year. Her daughter and mine ran around doing cartwheels and shocking folks with this toy electro-magnet thingy. They were also amazed at Billy, who was dressed in a bunny suit and had the coolest vehicle there. His doll-van is a sight to see!

We left around 630pm; I was busted by the end of the day. I was planning on coming back down with John later on to the party, but by the time I got home I was just through. My sons stayed over at my in-laws house so once we got home I went straight to sleep. Next year I hope I get to stay for the whole weekend! but the time I had there this year was neat.