Before I left for WorldCon I blogged about the WorldCon Scavenger Hunt sponsored by Anthology Builder. At that time I mentioned that I would be handing out cool badges. What I did not mention (because I was not supposed to) is that I also functioned as one of the Anthology Builder secret agents. This meant that the folks at Anthology Builder sent me five books, one to give away each day at the convention to a person who was wearing an Anthology Builder badge.
Being a secret agent was fun. Everyone who received a book was delighted to have it. The harder part was carrying around the book until I found someone to give it to. WorldCon is big and the portion of attendees wearing badges was small. Some days it felt like a needle-in-the-haystack experience. Once I even resorted to putting some buttons on the freebie table and then lurking until someone put one on, then ambushing them with a book. She was really delighted and surprised, so that went well. I saw the button badges most frequently on the writers who were giving them out, but the buttons became easier to find as the convention progressed.
I recommend the Anthology Builder secret agent experience. It was fun. You can be a secret agent too. Anthology Builder would like to have agents at every major convention and they are happily recruiting. You can find out about it by emailing 007@anthologybuilder.com. They’ll even give you a small compensation for your time. But don’t do it for the compensation. Do it because it is fun to walk up to someone and delight them with a free book.