Turnout wasnt too bad. Throughly enjoyed it.
Judging by the color coding of the wristbands (which were set up in 50 person batches - I overheard) there were about 250 folks on hand for Jim. Not too shabby.
Was really cool to hear him speak abut the books. My wife was even entertained, thanks to Jim's wit, and she has never read any of the books. I had worried she would be bored. But not the case. He was an excellent speaker.
The learning points for me.....
1. Next Dresden case-book "Changes". Welcome back to Chicago .... Susan (gulp!)
2. The upcoming Book 6 of Alera - last one.
3. Next year we get "Changes" along with a short story collection of the extant Dresden short stories plus one new one (assuming the publishing sched holds).
4. The aforementioned sci-fi series that Jim has mentioned in the past may be the next project he pursues, once Alera is complete, but he has another option he is still considering. That options, is a co-author project with an author friend of his (can't recall his name).
5. Dresden Files screen rights revert to Jim in 3 Years & 1 day (not so sure he meant that literally - but perhaps he has not given up all hope that Harry would be back on a screen someday).
6. Jim = Awesome. I figured that at least some portion of the kind words I have read on this site about Jim were folks blowing smoke up ... well y'know where...but he really was very cool. For example, when a couple of folks asked questions about stuff they should/could have picked up in the books - Jim was very cool about it. He answered quite kindly and did not get impatient at all (much less rude) with either of them.
On the whole the Q & A was lotsa fun.
Looking forward to "Changes" already.
Think it might be time for me to re-read "Turncoat"