Book Expo 2009

For those who don't know, BEA, or Book Expo is a three day conference for booksellers, librarians, publisher and others in the industry.  It's pretty much heaven for people like me.  It was 3 days, Friday through Sunday this year, in New York.  Publishers come to show others in the industry what we should be excited about through the next year, and the rest of us come to get as many free books and met as many authors as possible. With the industry in trouble, this was a bare bones year, and many publishers scaled back or didn't come at all (Suck it MacMillian, see if I push any of your books in the next year, you can't even show? Lame).  This was my third year attending, and unlike my first two years, it wasn't a free for all of grabbing a ton of free stuff, running from great author to author.  While many publishing companies scaled back but still wanted to give out good stuff (Harper Collins did a good job, I thought, and so did Hatchette), some were flat out jerks.  You know what Random? You are THE publishing company, you can give out a few books without making us stand in line.  Despite the problems and frustrations of this year, the low turnout for authors (I mean it, my two friends and I are serious readers, we are high quality booksellers, and we had not heard of most of the authors who attended, or thought they sucked), the lack of books, and that woman who was in front of me in every line and talked to each author for a long time (I needed to pee in the Lee Child line, and I almost killed her with a stanchion), it was a GREAT TRIP.  I'll try to keep it to the highlights (and not tell stories about wanting to kill my nemesis, or Dan's enemy.  Patricia is more calm than we are).  

   We got in Thursday, after a two hour delay at O'Hare, which is a fun place to wander, let me tell you.  I'm going to forget, by the way, to write about Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith, but it was amazing, I even liked it stuck in O'Hare.  Finally we were in New York.  We went to the Heartland Brewery after going to the hotel, and being to late to do anything else.  I love it there, we went last time we were in NY as well, and they have a nice light atmosphere, and great beer.  After we went to Sardis for dinner.  It's apparently a famous Broadway restaurant, though I defer to Dan on all of those decisions.  There was saw Phylicia Rashad giving an interview for her new play.  I saw Clair Huxtable! She's gorgeous, by the way.  We then went to see Guys and Dolls with Lauren Graham (Gilmore Girls!) and Oliver Platt.  Lauren Graham was amazing, while Oliver Platt was... Well, amusing.  I don't think his singing was that bad, but it's a musical, and the man does not dance.  But it was really great despite that.  

   Friday was the first day of the show, and of course we got there super early, and waited in line so we could be the first ones through the gate.  Now, I think the most fun part of BEA is the people you randomly met waiting in lines.  As soon as we got there, we ran into Sara and her Mom, who during the 3 day event we only ever call Mom.  They go every year, and during those three days, we are like best friends.  We also saw a few other people we only see for three days once a year, but you get to know these people, you hold spots in line while the other wanders, or talk about authors who are good or not, it's summer camp for the bookish set kind of.  Finally the gates open and we all rush in to grab as many books as we can, and thrown them into tote bags we carry around all day.  My shoulders will hurt for a week after that.  This year there wasn't as much to grab as the previous years, but it wasn't as bad as they had led us to believe it might be.   

Friday was the best day of the show by far, there were more authors I had heard of and wanted than the other two days combined.  The best was meeting Julie Andrews.  Now, a long time ago she wrote a few young readers under her married name, which I read and just loved (Mandy was a favorite), and it was years later I realized that I was watching the Sound of Music while reading the book by Maria!  And so as she was signing my book, I told her that I loved her young readers, and she said "Oh thank you dear." REALLY!  Sarah Durant (Birth of Venus and another title, I'm sleep deprived) signed her new one, which I'm pretty excited about.   Oh, a cute story.  Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson write the Peter Pan series for young readers, and they are really great books.  But besides that, those two are really great guys.  They come every year to BEA, they talk to all the booksellers, and they are just nice.  This year they went to a breakfast meeting, signed for more than a hour for the 4th in the series, came back like a half an hour later for their new Peter Pan picture book, and then Ridley signed his new Kingdom Keepers book in the afternoon.  That had to be brutal.  But when I saw them they were joking and talking to everyone.  They opening credit booksellers with their series' success, and pushed to be able to attend BEA this year to thank us for our help.   A serious note publishers: Booksellers like the ones who want to thank them, who are nice and give out their books, I am going to sell the shit out of Barry and Pearson, and their backlist, just because they were super nice guys.  I got Lee Child's new one (long line, stupid nemesis lady was in front of me and would not shut the fuck up, I hate her) and Joyce Carol Oates (weird woman, I think it scares her to be away from cats and tea cozies). 

     More on the show tomorrow....