The LOL of ROI, by Gabriel Valjan

 

What do your writing expenses look like for a conference? (Percentages are fine.) Airfare, hotel, meals, books, booze? What about ROI (return on investment)? Are conferences worth the expense?

Let’s just say I could fly to Europe, or I could go to Bouchercon. 

 

Same price point, wildly different emotional outcomes.

 

Rough breakdown:

X% hotel (writers need sleep, allegedly)
X% travel (planes, trains, Uber, and the privilege of TSA judging your bookmarks)
X% meals (half of which are Hit-or-Miss)
X% books (some are signed, some to support friends, some I swear are ‘research’)
X% Registration fee (for the right to speak on a panel called Murder Is Success)
X% bar tab (which somehow buys more responses than your query letter ever did)

 

X varies with the venue. Both Malice Domestic and New England Crimebake are fixed on the map, whereas Bouchercon is a mobile beast.

 

ROI? [Return on Investment, if you didn’t know the acronym]
If you mean “Do I make back the money in book sales?” Excuse me while I laugh through the ambiguity of tears. If you’re looking for a clean return, go invest in crypto. The answer is NO. Definitely not.

 

Conferences aren’t stocks. But if you’re talking about the kind of ROI that builds careers—maybe. Cons are where relationships start, where a face replaces a social media handle, and where people remember your name two years later when a panel needs a chair filled, or an editor needs to fill a vacancy in an anthology.

 

Malice Domestic is where the bodies are politely arranged in Bethesda. Heavy on traditional mysteries, light on blood spatter, but don’t mistake cozy for soft. The fans are loyal. If you show up with respect for the genre, even if you write darker—they notice.

 

Bouchercon is Disneyland with corpses. Bright lights, big names, packed panels, and sensory overload for the introverted soul. It’s loud, fast, chaotic—and it’s where you swim in international waters. Things happen there. You just have to stay afloat long enough to catch the wave.

 

Crimebake is smaller, local, and fun, though the location and food leave much to be desired. You come to work. To connect. To pitch. To learn. It’s the least expensive, but not lightweight. The lobster mascot Lola might be cute, but the writers are sharp and smart. And if you’re one of them, they take you in because Crimebake is like attending a family reunion.

 

So yes—conferences cost money. But they also build trust, visibility, and community, which are the currency of this business. You don’t “buy access.” You show up. You listen. You contribute. That’s the investment. If you’re lucky, you land an agent, walk away with an Agatha teapot, or an Anthony award, and friends for a lifetime, especially when writing and the rejections diminish you. We write outlines of bodies in fiction, other times we feel like real ones.

 

The returns don’t show up on a receipt, even if all you do is come home with a stack of new books, a fresh burst of inspiration, and a slight hangover.

 

That’s still a win until I open the door and I have to make amends with my cat Munchkin.