We made it into Portland surprisingly early on Friday evening.  There wasn't any snow in the mountains, we'd gotten an early head start and, no doubt other random factors meant that we got in a good 2 or 3 hours earlier than last fall.  Swung by our booth to drop off our stuff and check out our table, which was in a truly excellent location.
    The next morning when we got to the Double Tree, there was literally a line of people outside waiting for the con to start.  Pancha, Leia, Konstantine and I went in to set up our stuff (Andrew and Shaenon got to the con shortly after) and quickly realized that without Thompson's massive selection of merchandise, filling 3 tables was going to be rather difficult.  We managed for the most part though, and to a degree being well spread out no doubt had plenty of advantages.
    I'd been quite nervous about my own offerings for a number of reasons, the first of which, as an artist I no doubt judge myself far more harshly than anyone else does, and the second being that at 15$ I was worried that my book might be too expensive for the Stumptown crowd. Perhaps I just have too little faith in myself, but I was sure I'd be lucky to sell even 2 copies the entire con.   I was wrong.  In the first day I sold 7 copies, with numerous others coming by to tell me how "beautiful" or "cute" or "fantastic" or etc. my book was.  It was sort of incredible just how many people seemed to really love it.
    I also found it strange how many people found the structure of the book so completely alien.  Because the structure is completely non-adhesive it was one of the first taught to me in my Book Arts classes.  It is simple and relatively quick to complete; I love the structure for it's ease and versatility, but it is completely normal to me.
    At any rate, I did quite well on day one, and not too bad on day 2.  Sold 3 more books and traded two more to other artists.  Pancha and Leia were also doing better than last year, Leia even sold out of her books.  I'm not sure how Shaenon and Andrew made out, but the constant crowd around them seemed to indicate they were doing quite well.  And the whole con was completely packed in a way that it hadn't been last time.  When I went out to get lunch the first day the isles where so clogged it took me a good five minutes to get back to my table, which, I would like to be clear, was awesome.
    I also ran out of business cards on the first day.  I'd brought somewhere around 30-40 with me and thought to myself that surely, that would be enough.  Not even close.  It was terribly exciting how well I did, both in terms of sales and just general interest in my book.  The con wasn't even just a huge success for me in terms of personal accomplishment.  I also met a lot of really interesting people and found some very, very interesting books for sale.  As always, Garret Izumi and Jenn Manley Lee hold special places in my heart, causing me to fall all over myself acting like a ridiculous fan girl in their presences but there were two books that really blew me away this year.
    Jonathon Dalton's "Lords of Death and Life"  It looks nice on the website, but the printed version blew me away.  A double sided, full color, accordian book that stretches out to something like 13ft.  I really just cannot describe how beautiful it is because on the website you only see the pictures and no amount of me geeking out about the binding will truly explain it to you.  He sold out at the con, for obvious reasons.
    The other book (or perhaps I should say books) was (were) done by Two Fine Chaps, aka Tom Biby and Jonathan Fetter-Vorm.  The entire con people kept coming up to me and asking if I'd been over to their table yet.  Every so often someone would say something like letterpress of wood cut or etching.  I would like to point out the difference of being asked once or twice if I'd been to Garret Izumi's table yet, and being asked if I had been over there more than 20 times.  I am not kidding.  All by different people.  Obviously there was something over there that I needed to see.  There was(second book down, though the Beowulf was quite nice as well).  Letterpressed illustrations using photopolymer plates mimic the style of an etching.  The book is a gate fold printed on BFK and pamphlet stitched into the cover.  They also ran out of that book. I'm pretty sure they also ran out of their Clockmaker popup book which was also very impressive.