This weekend I was at Hackfest in Quebec City. It’s a one day hacker con that’s much in the same vein as Defcon, HOPE, Phreaknic, Shmoocon, etc. I learned of it’s existence from the Montreal 2600 forums, and decided to take this as an opportunity to get Rice Tea out there. I sent off an email to the organizers, and lo-and-behold, they kindly allowed me to have a table to sell the book!
What a great time. The point of the exercise was not to make money, it was to get the stuff I’ve made known. Whenever people stopped by, I candidly told them they could download the book, in it’s entirety, from the official website for free.
I have a feeling that that might have cost me sales, but I didn’t care. Despite the book being available as a free download, some people still chose to buy it. That was awesome for me.
Oh, and I also printed off 25 copies of the On Piracy DVD, which I gave away for free. Those ran out in the first hour or so of the con. I’ll have to make more next time.
Funny story: I couldn’t locate the original ISO I had for the DVD, so I actually had to download my own movie to make the copies.
Anywho, Hackfest was great. Very well organized. The “‘goons” (security staff) were polite and really part of the whole gang that was there. The talks ranged in quality, but I’m glad I saw them all (single track).
I’ll definitively go next year, whether I sell stuff or not.