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Highlights of BEA 2012: the Haul, the Bloggers, the External Events

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OK, as a lot of book bloggers are aware, Book Expo America (BEA) is a huge trade fair for the book industry. Every year librarians, authors, book sellers, publishers, and other book-related professionals gather to network, attend panels, do business, and pick up new books.

Can you believe I’ve been going to BEA since 2009? That makes me sound like an old hand, but every year I get very excited the night before and can barely sleep. This year was the same, but at least this time I was able to sleep fine after day 1 (which was the BEA Blogger Con). I am clearly getting used to this. The one big difference for me this year was in the number of books I picked up at the BEA floor. I’ve finally gotten to the point where (gasp!) my willpower is stronger. I think in the past I’ve had the “well, it’s free and maybe I’ll like it” mentality. This year I was tough! I was strong! Most of the books I got were ones I was really excited to read, and so I think my average was 9 books each day. It was 20 books per day in the past.

THE HAUL:

Day one:

  • Because It is My Blood by Gabrielle Zevin (signed)
  • Magisterium by Jeff Hirsch – One of my two impulse pick ups for the day. It was so shiny. “On one side of the Rift is a technological paradise without famine or want. On the other side is a mystery” — sounds vaguely dystopian.
  • The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde – a YA by Jasper Fforde – I’m in!
  • The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore by William Joyce (signed) – like I’ve said, I’m a fan of the animated short that won the Oscar.
  • The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater
  • The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There by Catherynne  Valente (signed)
  • The Ruins of Lace by Iris Anthony – this was my other impulse pick up for the day. I just love the cover. It’s a historical fiction surrounding the illegal lace trade of the 1600s.
  • The City’s Son by Tom Pollock (signed) – The blurb sold me with these two lines: “graffiti artist Beth Bradley is looking for sanctuary. What she finds is Filius, the ragged and cocky crown prince of London’s mystical underworld.” – Mystical underworld? Cocky crown prince? Yes!
  • Full Blooded by Amanda Carlson – A new urban fantasy with a werewolf protagonist.


Day two:

  • The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (signed)
  • Paris in Love by Eloisa James – this is a autobiography that was in the goodie bags at the Random House breakfast. I actually didn’t pick up a goodie bag (tough executive decision), but another blogger was going through their bag and gave this to me.
  • The Killing Moon by N.K. Jemisin (signed) – one of my most anticipated fantasy books of this year.
  • Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas (signed) – teenaged assassin fights as royal champion until a new royal assassin can be chosen.
  • Eventide by Tracy and Laura Hickman (signed) – Sounds like a fantasy version of 1001 Nights with a dragon instead of a king. Also – that’s right, I met Tracy Hickman of Dragonlance fame!
  • Breed by Chase Novak – Horror, so a gamble for me. Adore the tactile, rubbery feel of this cover though
  • Saving June by Hannah Harrington – YA roadtrip and loss story. I won this on Pirate Penguin’s Reads and Sandy handed it to me while I was at BEA. :)
  • Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi – Another book from last year’s BEA which Kate from Babbling about Books, and More brought for me (thanks Kate!)

TIME WITH BOOK BLOGGERS
While new books are nice, the highlight for me really was seeing old and new book blogger faces. I mentioned meeting some bloggers at the BEA Blogger Con, but unfortunately, while I kept tweet-asking certain people where they were, it was difficult to go find and socialize with them. Some people were simply going to BEA rather than the BEA Blogger Con. The way to go turned out to be exchanging cell phone numbers and texting people to find out where they were (and I’m thankful I have Verizon – better reception at the Javits than other carriers).

Can I point you guys at this awesome post at Book Harbinger that I feel captures the fun of meeting booknerds?


I don’t know if I can name every person I saw and met for the first time so I’m sorry in advance for forgetting some people. I enjoyed texting with Sandy of Pirate Penguin’s Reads while both of us were commuting in by train and finally meeting in line for an autographing. I ran into Memory (Stella Matutina), Grace (Books of Love), Jessica (Read, React Review), Jane (Dear Author), Ana and Thea (The Book Smugglers), and Elizabeth (Gossamer Obsessions) a few times. Holly from Book Harbinger and Angie of Angieville and I had a good bowl of ramen after the BEA Blogger Con, and I saw them a couple more times on the floor. I also spent a few hours with Kristen of Fantasy Cafe – just sitting and relaxing for a bit. Later we had an adventure walking in the rain with a bunch of books and one umbrella. I finally got to meet Heidi of Bunbury in the Stacks (texting – the way to go) while we were in line for N. K. Jemisin’s signing (and discovered we were in at least 3 other lines together). I met a few people at the Apocalypsies event as well. I reconnected with Romance lovers Kate (Babbling About Books and More), @nystacey, @KwanaWrites, and @marireads. Christine from The Happily Ever After came into the city and carved out time for a snack with Kristen and me before we had to head out for the NYPL event. And I also finally met Lisa of Starmetaloak at the Random House Breakfast and got to mingle with her there. I also met new-to-me bloggers Donna (Bites) and Grace (Books Without Any Pictures).

RANDOM HOUSE BREAKFAST
On Wednesday morning was the Random House Power Reader Breakfast. I have to say I was really impressed. The event space was really lovely, and the food was amazing (there was even a coffee station) – I couldn’t help comparing it to the breakfast at the BEA Blogger Con, and Random House came out looking better by leaps and bounds. There were short speeches by Nate Berkus (The Things That Matter) and Charles Duhigg (The Power of Habit). I thought they were both speeches that were respectful and not pushy towards book bloggers. There were probably 100 book bloggers there and we got to socialize amongst ourselves as well as talk to Random House authors, editors, and publicists. I took several pictures, but Random House has a more lovely set on Pinterest here.

READINGS AT THE NYPL
Wednesday evening the New York Public Library hosted a “Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Musical Improv” from 6pm to 7:30pm at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building. The website said: “Join Lev Grossman for an evening of literature and lyrics, featuring readings by Kristin Cashore, N.K. Jemisin, Naomi Novik, and Catherynne M. Valente”. Thank you to Kristen of Fantasy Cafe for giving me a heads up on this! There were a few things going on in the evenings after BEA but this was definitely on my to-go-to list.

I was expecting a crowd but the auditorium had a surprising amount of empty seats given who was speaking! It was a really nice evening. Lev Grossman introduced the authors after a nice speech in honor of Ray Bradbury’s passing, and then we were treated to readings set to live improvised mood music! Kristin Cashore, N.K. Jemisin, and Catherynne M. Valente read from their just released or to-be-released books (Bitterblue, The Shadowed Sun, and The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland respectively), and Naomi Novak chose to read from the first of her Temeraire books (His Majesty’s Dragon). Afterwards, there was a nice question and answer session. I really enjoyed it and am still not over the fact that there weren’t more people there!


And those were the highlights of Tuesday and Wednesday of BEA for me this year. I went back to work on Thursday so I missed that day, but.. yeah, I am spent.

The Book Blogger Convention, 2011

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This year’s Book Blogger Convention was bigger than the last. I heard that last year there were under 200 people there and this year the number was more like 400. Which isn’t bad for the second year! Also great is that year 2 felt better than the last, particularly with the schedule. Last year there were no choices of panels and we sat in the same room listening to panels one after another. This year there was a choice of panels after Breakfast and the Keynote Speaker (Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books). They also decided to do a “build your own swag bag” this year instead of giving all attendees a bag full of books and stuff that many people didn’t want.  Both these things were welcome changes in my mind, so kudos to the convention organizers for making those thoughtful changes.

I’m going to go over the panels that I attended and give a short overview of my impressions. This year I’ve been struggling a little bit with blog/work/life balance so what I wanted to take from the BBC was some perspectives on that, but I feel that this was my personal goal and that there’s enough at the Book Blogger Convention that there was something for everyone.

(Descriptions are copied from the convention schedule)

Practical Challenges of Blogging (10:00 – Noon) – Not managing  your time well? Do you want to get better about blog/life balance, multitasking, managing your TBR, and a host of other real world and life impacting topics? This panel will help you become a better blog manager. Panel: Meg [Write Meg] – moderator, Jennifer [Jenn's Bookshelves], Raych [Books I Done Read], Kristen [Fantasy Cafe], Lenore [Presenting Lenore]

What was nice about these panels was that there were often different approaches to the same thing. One of the first things they discussed was time management and their particular methods. Jenn from Jenn’s Bookshelves talked about waking early and using several spreadsheets to give herself time to work on her blog and to keep herself organized. Other panelists were not so organized. What they seemed to agree on was that sometimes there are things in life with a higher priority than blogging. Sometimes it’s possible to do things ahead of time to cover your blog while you deal with Real Life, but other times it’s either kill yourself trying to make the self-imposed blogging commitment, or let it go. Lenore from Presenting Lenore described her Dystopian YA feature and how last summer it coincided with a busy time at work, and this spring she didn’t do it because she only had so much free time and she has a book coming out.

Another interesting thing that they covered was answering comments. Most said that when they started they answered every comment, but as their blogs grew they couldn’t always catch up. Raych said she saw a “rule” that bloggers should always answer every comment and then visit the other blogger’s blog and comment there and she “laughed and laughed”. They agreed this is a good idea when new and it’s also a good idea to visit people who visit you and occasionally comment, but to do so every time they comment can be too much. The “rule” makes sense in terms of building blogger relationships, but it is possible to over-extend yourself trying to keep up if you have a lot of comments.

They also covered negative comments. There seemed to be a range of things people did. One panelist said she deletes comments that are personal attacks. A few of them turn off comments after a certain point. One person said they were away from their blog so missed the brouhaha there, which turned out to be a good thing because it was over by the time they got back. Generally they said to try to step back rather than joining the fray because jumping in can just fuel the fire. And not to be “that guy” who has to be involved whenever something controversial happens.

There was a question from the audience regarding book tours. A few panelists didn’t do them because they felt like their review may not be seen when there’s a day or week when everyone is reviewing a book. Those who do do them prefer getting original content (one example of a successful tour was the Mockingjay one), but interviewing an author is not so tempting because it takes a lot of time to come up with original questions to ask the author. Lenore says she typically takes 4 hours to come up with interview questions. One panelist said if she does a book tour she asks to be the first stop so that she can stand out a bit more before everyone else starts posting about the same book.

Navigating the Grey Areas of Book Blogging (1:00-3:00) – Professionalism, ethics, netiquette and managing expectations are all topics of conversation that these panelists will speak to and discuss as part of this session. Panel: Heather [Age 30 + A Lifetime of Books] – moderator, Bethanne [The Book Studio], Kathleen [A Bookish Broad], Candace [Beth Fish Reads], Pam [Mother Reader], Amy [Amy Reads]

What I liked about this panel was how clear the moderator was from the get-go that what they’d be discussing was what worked for them, but were not rules that everyone HAD to follow. (I always feel like this should be obvious, but there’s always someone in the audience who feels annoyed because they disagree with what the panelists are saying. ALWAYYYYS!!!)

Some interesting topics they covered:

Professionalism – they were using this word in terms of conducting yourself professionally rather than as professionalism being a paid reviewer (versus a hobbyist – although they also said some people would object to it being called a hobby too).

Negative reviews – most people in the panel did post negative reviews, but felt that it’s up to the blogger if they only want to post about books they liked, but if you promised to review something for a publicist/reviewer, you should review it, although if you want (not necessary) you could contact them and say you didn’t like the book and see if they still want you to post it. The panelists said that negative reviews can sell a book too because what you didn’t like could be exactly what someone else does like.

Answering emails – I think this was because of a question from a publicist about what’s a good email subject line (the bloggers said a tailored email – I noticed you liked X so I think you’ll like Y, with the right NAME, not “Dear Blogger” or “Dear ,” is best). Most panelists don’t answer every email requesting for a book. If they haven’t answered, they don’t want it. One of the panelists answers every email except the ones that address her as “Mr …” (I do this too – I especially don’t reply to an email pitching me a book which is clearly in my review policy as not a genre I read. Like non-fiction? Self-help? Really?)

Revealing relationships – Most panelists felt that they should reveal if they got a book from a publisher/author. Some said if a blogger had a relationship with the author, like they met them etc, but not to make a big deal about it: “I met so-and-so at BEA and was so excited to read this book” or “I follow this author on twitter and..”  – I think this depends on how much you “know” the author.

Affliate links – One of the bloggers said that she thinks that the FCC guideline is that people need to put that they are an affiliate in every post, not just on a sidebar/somewhere in their blog. The FCC isn’t after book bloggers but she said this was the rule they came up with as she understood it after meeting with the FCC. (I personally find this annoying! Every post? I plan to look into this more)

Advertising – most of the panelists did not have advertisements in their blog but didn’t see anything wrong with it (they do advertise in terms of being affiliates).

Blogging for a Niche Market (3:00- 5:00) – Not every book or blog is the same. Spend some time learning about how each genre may or may not differ from each other. Network with your colleagues and learn more about how to blog within your particular niche and others. Panels: Florinda [The Three R's Blog] – moderator, Amy [Passages to the Past] – Historical Fiction, Jen {Jen’s Book Thoughts] – Mystery/Crime Fiction, Jill [Rhapsody in Books] – Non Fiction, Rebecca [Rebecca Reads] – classics, Tanya [Dog Eared Copy] – Audiobooks, Cass [Bonjour Cass] – GLBTQ, Jennifer [Reading Rants] – Kidlit/Librarianship, Katie [Babbling About Books & More] – Romance, Sarah, Erin & Jenny [Forever Young Adult] – YA, Thea [The Book Smugglers] – Sci Fi/Fantasy

This panel was done a little differently. First the bloggers introduced themselves and their niches, and answered a couple of questions (how they were drawn to this niche, what did they do, if anything to reach readers outside this niche), then they came down to sit with the audience at different tables and did informal Q&A sessions with them. I think I got the least out of this unfortunately. I felt like the tables were too big and there were just 3 people out of 10-12 really talking (maybe that was just the table I was at), and not everyone had a chance to enter the conversation. I liked that they did something different though – maybe next time, smaller tables, better organization (like every 15 min make people switch tables), maybe a moderator for each table with a list of topics.

BEA 2011

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It’s been a long week. BEA has come and gone again, and I’m still recuperating.

Approach:
This year the exhibit hall was open for 3 days rather than 2 (Tuesday through Thursday), but I only went on Wednesday and Thursday (and then Friday was the Book Blogger Convention). As it was, this was plenty! It felt like the vast majority of the authors were signing on Wednesday, although I heard comments from people that Tuesday seemed to be the day with the most YA offerings. I don’t know this for sure though. This year I’ve had less free time than the same time last year and the year before, so I spent the least time preparing. I didn’t look at the BEA schedule till the weekend before, didn’t print out any new business cards, and didn’t even take my camera. I also spent less time seeking out publicists because I’m saying “no” a lot more than I’m saying “yes” to review requests these past couple of months. So my approach was a lot more stepped back this year. The thing I most wanted to do was meet bloggers, which I did, so I think I got what I wanted out of BEA.

Buzz on the floor:
I’m not a YA blogger (so I feel out of the loop about the new YA buzz), but the YA books I saw really REALLY long lines for were for The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson and Melissa Marr’s signing of Entralled and Darkest Mercy. I heard Richelle Mead was a big draw when she was signing at the Harlequin booth, and I heard that The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern was another big draw. Kate (aka Katiebabs) is raving about Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi, so that one has me interested, but I didn’t find a copy (but watch for her review, she really loved it and says the antagonist is deliciously evil yet charismatic, like an Eric from Phantom of the Opera or a Lex Luthor). Anyway, YA seems as big to me as previous years, but this year there were also a lot of middle grade books. In the SF front, there were a lot of girls excited about Mira Grant/Seanan McGuire being there (I have promised to read Feed so I can catch up on the Newsflesh series).

The Haul:
My focus was on romance and speculative fiction. This year I had a better idea of what was available for SF because I’ve learned that Orbit likes to tweet it’s in-booth signings and Tor puts up their signings on their blog, so that was good (I have to thank Kristen @ Fantasy Cafe for giving me the skinny on that). I did end up getting a lot more books than I planned to though. As usual. I have extras of things and things I’m weeding out so giveaways coming sometime soon.

Click to embiggen. Links to Amazon (I’m an affiliate).

Wednesday:


When Beauty Tamed the Beast by Eloisa James (signed. Beauty and the Beast story, I must have it), Just Like Heaven by Julia Quinn (signed), Just One Taste by Louisa Edwards (signed), Blood Rights by Kristen Painter, Dumpling Days by Grace Lin, Deadline by Mira Grant (signed!), The Dark at the End by F. Paul Wilson, The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater (signed), The Rivals by Daisy Whitney, True UFO accounts (for my dad), The Midwife’s Confession by Diane Chamberlain (signed), The Summer We Came to Life by Deborah Cloyed (signed), The Kingdom of Childhood by Rebecca Coleman (signed), Already Home by Susan Mallery (signed)


The Children of the Sky by Vernor Vinge (signed), Fuzzy Nation by John Scalzi (signed), Sunset Bridge by Emilie Richards (signed), Shut Out by Kody Keplinger, Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor, Central Park Knight by C. J. Henderson, Between Here and Forever by Elizabeth Scott (signed), The Dark Enquiry by Deanna Raybourn (signed!), Haunted Legend edited by Ellen Datlow (signed, she was very nice), Kitty’s Greatest Hits by Carrie Vaughn (signed).

Thursday:


Blood Rights by Kristen Painter (signed), Shut Out by Kody Keplinger (signed!), Just My Type by Simon Garfield (non-fiction, impulse pick up, I like fonts), The Perilous Prophecy of Guard and Goddess by Leanna Renee Hieber (signed), How to Rock Braces and Glasses by Meg Haston (impulse, love this title), Theft of Swords by Michael J. Sullivan (signed), Glow by Amy Kathleen Ryan (YA science fiction.. we’ll see), The Revisionists by Thomas Mullen (impulse, about time travel, sounds cool), Wintertown by Stephen Emond (it’s got pictures inside), Fracture by Megan Miranda, Between by Jessica Warman (ghost protagonist), After Obsession by Carrie Jones & Steven E. Wedel, Eve by Anna Carey, Manga Man by Barry Lyga and Colleen Doran

The Book Blogger Convention, Part 2

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I had the second part of this written and it was a lengthy article of wonder. All ready to go for a cut and paste into the blog. What happened? Well I had it saved as a draft in gmail (which is where I write my posts so I can work in it on any one of my computers), but as I selected it all to copy, I hit control+v instead of control+c. And then gmail autosaved right then. And control+z? DID NOTHING!!! I had a mini breakdown. It started with numbness then pain, then anger and depression. :P Anyway, (sigh, the acceptance phase), here we go again.

This is part 2 of 2 parts


The Marketing panel from very far away…
4) Marketing [2:00-2:50]
This was a panel consisting of Gayle [Everyday I Write the Book], Yen [The Book Publicity Blog], Ann [Books on the Nightstand], and Thea [The Book Smugglers]. Heather [Age 30+ Books] moderated.

The point of this panel seemed to be that to have a successful blog need to market it. You need to brand yourself, and have a particular niche. It sounds difficult, but really branding should be easy for bloggers – just be yourself and let the passion come through. Have a hook or an identity. The idea can rub people the wrong way, but it’s useful to have something, even if it’s a tagline, to say who you are. Anything can become your brand.

The panelists also said it’s important to spend time community building. For example, when The Book Smugglers first started, they responded to every comment.  All the panelists agreed about commenting. You can create dialogue by commenting on other people’s blogs as well. Another idea is to do guest reviews or have guest reviewers come to your blog. Having an event can also build community. Another Book Smugglers example is their event called Smugglevus which is based on Festivus and is basically a book love fest.  You could also create some kind of online book club.

Know who your readers are and go about finding them and connecting to them. There was some discussion of using social media like twitter and facebook to get readers, but not to spread yourself too thin. You don’t need to sign up for everything, just look at whats out there and choose a couple of things. If you are trying too hard it shows.

As an aside it was noted that if you have a blog, make sure your RSS is easy to find. Have a big ol’ link or icon so readers know how to add a subscription to your blog.

The discussion went to stats for a little bit. Publicists like to get stats so that they can decide whether a blog is popular and would reach a lot of readers. Many of the panelists felt like stats are an imperfect measurement (I don’t recall the exact wording here). A blog may have small numbers but hold a lot of sway over it’s readers in what it recommends. On the other hand, Thea from the Book Smugglers disagreed and said that they pay a lot of attention to their stats and are open with having a counter and with telling publicists their stats. [ How do I feel about this? I think it's one of those hot button topics where people have strong opinions. Remember last year, the discussion after Katiebabs posted commentary on the Book Blogger Panel at BEA, 2009? Anyway, I personally have mixed feelings. I do want stats to go up so that I know people are reading my blog and I can have discussions with MORE people about books (yay!), but I also admit I don't look at them all the time, and with three mirrored blogs, with different difficulty in getting stats from them (wordpress is good, vox is awful, LJ has stats for paid members and I wasn't always paid), I usually find it confusing to figure out].

The final comment was that one of the panelists put up a survey to find out who their readers were and they were surprised by the results. They found out that they had a lot of readers who weren’t book bloggers or book publishing people. The recommendation was to know your readers. Survey them to find out who they are for example.

Blogging with Social Responsibility (sorry for blurriness. My camera’s zoom is awful)

5) Blogging with Social Responsibility [3:00-3:50]
Another panel with Zetta [Fledgling], Terry [The Reading Tub], Wendy [Caribousmom], and Stephen Bottum [Band of Thebes]. The moderator was Marie from The Boston Bibliophile.

In this panel, the two blogs Fledgling and Band of Thebes seemed to have a strong focus on their causes (race and LGBT in books respectively), while The Reading Tub and Caribousmom were book blogs which also tried to bring attention to causes important to them (Children’s literacy and pediatric cancer) but it wasn’t the main focus of their blogs.

I didn’t take notes for this panel so what I have here comes from memory. The main point of this session seemed to be that bloggers can affect change. The panelists brought up the recent outrage in the blogging community over the whitewashing in covers, and how bloggers got Bloomsbury to change its covers twice. There was a comment from the audience that sometimes bloggers don’t notice, such as the case when the cover for The Mariposa Club – where Latino characters were depicted as paler than the story described, and a fourth transgendered character isn’t shown at all. Zetta said she was disappointed in herself and in her community for not knowing about this, and said that bloggers need to use their connections and email other blogs to pass along this type of message. She also said it’s important to make alliances with other communities so that if there is overlap (like in this case where the LGBT and minorities are affected), they can work together in expressing their disapproval.

Another point I remember was that someone asked if anyone encountered any negative commenting on their posts because of their causes. Stephen Bottum said he didn’t have any angry commenters, and Zetta agreed that in her personal blog other commenters were good about redirecting the conversation back to the topic on hand, but when she posted on The Huffington Post she had more nasty comments and doesn’t post there anymore.

I liked this panel. I think that many people have a cause that they feel strongly about and that blogging is a good away to put it out there, even in a small way. Actually, at the BBC there was a blogger who mentioned wanting to do something for the schools in Nashville, who lost a lot of books due to the flooding, and here’s a link on how to help. (I made buttons, will post later)!

6) Impact of the Relationship between Author and Blogger [4:00-4:50]
This was another panel with Amy [My Friend Amy], Bethanne [The Book Studio], Kristi [The Story Siren], Beth Kephart [Beth Kephart Books], and Caridad Pineiro [Caridad Pineiro's Blog]. It was moderated by Nicole [Linus's Blanket]

I didn’t take notes on this panel either. So this is from my memory again and is basically a vaguely remembered summary. I think the first part of this was about how as people use social media and spend time online, they begin to develop relationships and sometimes this can put you in an awkward place when talking about a book written by someone you have a relationship with. The two authors said that they don’t review books. They may pimp their friend’s books, and say why they liked the book, but won’t say anything negative. Beth Kephart said that if she didn’t like a book she won’t say that, but she doesn’t lie either – she would just discuss why she likes her friend and describe the book they have coming out. The authors on the panel also said that authors should not engage with a reader who has written a negative review. Kephart says she tries not to read reviews, but occasionally reads reviews friends have sent her that were positive and she appreciates the time reviewers take to write reviews. There was an audience member who said they wrote reviews but wanted to become an author, and asked for tips regarding doing that. It seemed like there was no real answer for how to be an author and a reviewer at the same time, but the authors thought it was possible.

The book bloggers said that if they had a relationship with an author they would disclose this in a review (I think this was the Story Siren), but also said if they tweeted to the author once that they were reading their book, this didn’t count as a relationship (also – don’t tweet your review to an author if it’s a negative one!). Amy from My Friend Amy said that if she likes an author and has a relationship with them online, but then does not like a book, she may end up not reviewing it. It seems to be up to the blogger how they want to handle that situation. Some people still review the book, others find it too awkward and don’t.

——-
So there you have it. As you can see there were a lot of panels, but I was happy to be sitting down after walking around with 20 pounds of books for two days. For improvements, I think that I’d like to have had a longer break around 3 when I  started to flag, rather than having the small 10 minute breaks between sessions. Also I’ll bring a jacket next time – it was freezing in the conference room. Another thought is I’d like to see more genre fiction bloggers (romance for instance). Although it looked like the organizers tried to have diversity in book bloggers, there were more general fiction and children’s/young adult book bloggers than anything else (but then, there are more of those kinds of books at BEA).

Overall I was impressed with the organization and look forward to see it grow next year (which I think it will).

The Book Blogger Convention, Part 1

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Aha, I bet you thought I was done talking about BEA and the Book Blogger Convention didn’t you? Well I took a bunch of notes on the panels for the Book Blogger Convention and laziness prevented me posting about it sooner. I do want to use these notes though because it used a lot of my phone battery to take them and it almost didn’t last the night (making me concerned that I’d have to call my ride from the train station via payphone). So in honor of that phone battery that could, here we go.

By now there have been a couple of good wrap-ups of the BBC in my google reader, so I will point you to them as well:

  • Fantasy Cafe – did a very good overview which summarized the BBC panels and highlighted interesting points the panels made.
  • The Book Smugglers – A detailed breakdown of the panels at BBC plus commentary on each.

This is part 1 of 2 parts (I wrote up a post that was ridiculously long).

Overview
So what is the Book Blogger Convention? It’s pretty much what the name suggests – a convention for book bloggers. A few bloggers got together and decided to have a small convention close to the same time as BEA (probably knowing a lot of bloggers would be at BEA anyway). At first the convention had an upper limit to number of participants, but after the BEA organizers learned about it they offered space at the Javits Center (along with tickets to BEA for the bloggers). Now it’s affiliated with BEA. The website says that it’s goal is “to provide support, instruction, and social time for people who blog about books”.

I was pretty impressed by the Book Blogger Convention. For a convention in it’s first year, there was a big turn out. Lots of publishers and PR and authors knew about it and showed up the day before for a meet-and-greet. And the organization that probably went into the food, the goodie bags, bringing in the speakers, and the websites (both the main one and an online auction site) was staggering. It’s amazing what a handful of bloggers managed to do.

The Book Blogger Convention was a one day event (Friday, May 28th) which was simply laid out as a series of panels related to book blogging:

1) Keynote speaker (9:00-10:30)
Maureen Johnson started it all off as the keynote speaker. She was hilarious. I had heard her name before as I think she’s a pretty well-known young adult author and I’ve been meaning to read Suite Scarlett. After a speech which had me laughing so hard I could have cried at one point (and that’s not easy), I was really glad that Suite Scarlett audiobooks were part of our BBC goodie bags. She talked about becoming a writer, New York City, social media (likes twitter, hates facebook – I concur), book bloggers and more. It was 90 minutes long, but I was entertained the whole time.

2) Professionalism and Ethics in Blogging (10:45-11:45)
Ron Hogan of Beatrice.com was the speaker for this session. His presentation is available online here.

He said that bloggers should not let journalistic ethics be imposed upon them. The situations are different, and what may apply to journalism may not apply to blogging. He discussed how ethics are more about questions you’re asking rather than set of principles, and that you have to establishing rules of thumb by talking to people and seeing the situation. From his site he summarizes it thus: “just as I argued that bloggers shouldn’t be judged by somebody else’s standard of professionalism, they shouldn’t be compelled to accept somebody else’s code of ethics in order to be deemed trustworthy. I’m not a big fan of declaring adherence to a code of ethics as a shortcut to credibility”.

The example he presented for that was last years brouhaha about the FCC guidelines. Newspapers don’t have to say where they got their books from, and now the FCC doesn’t say bloggers need to say where they’re from. Some people still reveal where they got a book. Some don’t. In Hogan’s opinion, if you don’t say where a book is from, it doesn’t mean you’re secretive. It’s just not an important part of the conversation to you. It is not a hard and fast rule.

There was a brief question/answer session. Books on the Nightstand commented that people should get away from the words “free books” in terms of review copies that are sent to bloggers. They are not free when bloggers spend so much time and effort reading and reviewing the books. This was a good point. Another interesting point was a publisher who said that they were happy when bloggers couldn’t review something and gave them away to someone who would read it. I think the thought is that it’s going into the hands of someone who would appreciate it, not to say that they were OK if a blogger *never* reviewed a book they received.

I thought it was an interesting session. I’m not sure I agree completely that there are never hard and fast rules, but it gave me something to think about. To be honest, this was one of the sessions where the title itself made me think, “This could go badly.” I mean, book bloggers write reviews. Reviewers are opinionated. Telling people who have opinions about doing things professionally and ethically may not go over well. I also think that things can get misinterpreted online. I wasn’t surprised to see people criticizing some of his points, but I think putting video and audio online cut down on secondhand misunderstanding at least.

[Lunch]

3) Writing and Building Content (1:00-1:50)
This was a panel with Amanda [The Zen Leaf], Kim [Sophisticated Dorkiness], Betsy [A Fuse #8 Production], and Christina [Stacked], moderated by Rebecca [The Book Lady's Blog].

This was a panel regarding coming up with interesting ideas for blog posts. I think I enjoyed this one just because it was like peeping into a window and seeing how other people work on their blogs.  They suggested a lot of different things to kick start your creativity but they all agreed that a blogger’s voice is unique and although it’s the usual first date cliche, people should “Be themselves”. Each person brings own expertise from their lives,  jobs, and experience. They also commented that your voice changes as you evolve. Just don’t try to be something you aren’t because if you force it, it will show in the writing.

They suggested that for new bloggers, memes are a good way to get your name out there and meet new people, but once people get to your blog, they need a reason to stay. One suggestion is to have series (one example was a series on bees, another was a series of 5 books that fit a particular topic), which is a way to keep readers interested in a topic, and pull them into your blog. One blogger in the panel says she has a series where she compares Harry Potter in hardcover to paperback and the UK versions and lists each minute difference.

No idea what to write? They suggested having a go-to type of post for these situations (examples were posting about chatting with their husband at bedtime, and a saved file with future releases to post about). A couple of the panelists said they had posts scheduled weeks out or were usually 3 weeks ahead in reviews (Uh… making me feel inferior), so they work on the timing when they’re not able to blog. Another suggestion is if you’re reading a long book, to break it down into many posts instead of just one.

All of these bloggers wrote long posts and most agreed they wrote down their thoughts on a book in a notebook as they read to help them with reviews later (I tried this last year by the way… I stopped because it takes too long. I’m more of a write what I remember reviewer).

BEA and the Book Blogger Convention: The People

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I had so many pictures to post that I had to separate the posts!

The Authors:
I met so many authors in their signings, but I didn’t really try to ask for pictures until the second day of BEA.  So here’s a few pictures of me and a few authors that were there.


Deanna Raybourn

I was really looking forward to meeting Deanna Raybourn since I’ve been loving her Lady Julia Grey series. Her signing for The Dead Travel Fast was the only book I had in all caps on my itinerary. I was so worried about the lines for the Harlequin signing Thursday morning, because the signing the day before was mobbed, I left another signing to wait early.

Me with the big grin and Deanna Raybourn

Me and Kevin J. Anderson

Actually Kevin J. Anderson is an author I haven’t read. I was going to see if I could pick up his book for someone but wow, they were popular and were all gone by the time I got there! The author was still there so I asked for a picture instead. :) I need to try out his series one day.

Me and Jeri Smith-Ready

OK, my eyes are partially closed in this picture. Jeri Smith-Ready was the other author on Thursday I really wanted to meet since I’m a fan of her WVMP Radio series. She was signing for her new young adult book, Shade, at the Romance Writers of America booth, and I’ve heard good things in early reviews about it so I wanted to snag a copy and meet her. Another case where I had to make a choice and leave another line so I wouldn’t miss an author! This line was deceptive – it wound behind booths and looked shorter than it was. And Jeri Smith-Ready recognized me! :D Shocking.

The Bloggers:

I met so many people at BEA and the BBC that I’m afraid I’m probably going to forget someone. Let’s try (If I forgot you.. I’m so sorry!):

Wednesday night was a dinner with Stacey and Angie, then the A Celebration of Book Bloggers where we sat at a round table at the Algonquin Hotel and talked. The BookSmugglers have a picture of that.

Thursday was another dinner with book bloggers over at The Volstead. *pointing a the Book Smugglers picture again*. That was a lot of fun, and I stayed a little longer this night than the night before. Kristen from the Fantasy Cafe and I spent some time at a B&N before the party, which was nice. We had a weird cab ride where the cab driver was ARGUING with us over where we wanted to go, but he eventually decided the traffic wasn’t as bad as he thought.

Friday was ANOTHER dinner. I’ve been DYING to eat at Ippudo for months but my friends keep going without me! *shakes fist at them alllll*. Anyway, Angie and I made plans to finally eat there and Kristen, and Ana and Thea. Ah, the food was excellent. I recommend their pork buns and the Akumaru Modern Ramen which is what I ate. I was so happy to be finally tasting it, but let me tell you – if you ever go, be prepared for a longgg line ( I think we waited an hour and a half). Being exhausted kind of doesn’t help.

Kristen, Angie, Thea, and Ana

Yum!

BEA and the Book Blogger Convention: the Haul

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This year Book Expo America and the Book Blogger Convention happened in the same week in New York City. And I’m lucky since I live a short 40 minute train ride away from Grand Central (so convenient), so of course I went! I attended BEA on Wednesday, May 26th, and Thursday, May 27th, and then BBC was the day after that – Friday, May 27th.

It was really, really exhausting. I woke up at 7am, caught a train at 7:34, got to Jacob Javitts center at about 8:30, and then it was about 8 hours of being on my feet with about twenty pounds plus of books. Repeat for 2 days, then one day at BBC which involved more sitting, thank goodness.I knew about the pain because of going to BEA last year so I was armed with Ibuprofen and comfy shoes, but this year I also went to dinners after the conventions, which was lots of fun, but made each day longer! I got home between 9:30 and 11:30pm every day. :D But – would I do it again? YES. My mind may have been slow by 5pm, but I was comforted by the fact that most people were in the same boat, and this year I’m glad I got to spend some time just sitting and talking to people. I have pictures of some of the bloggers and authors I met which I will post later.

After last year, my goal was to try not to get as many books. I’m not really sure I succeeded. I believe I got 40 books last year in two days. This year I got 38 in three, plus another 4 picture books I got for my niece and nephew. I’m not counting sample chapters (2), comics (2), ebooks (2), or pop-up samples (2), and other stuff (bags, bookmarks, catalogs) to that count. I apologize in advance for the image heaviness of this post.

Day One:
I did SO WELL in the first day. I had willpower.

These are all the books I got signed – Zombies Vs. Unicorns (4 signatures: Scott Westerfeld, Holly Black, Justine Larbalestier, Alaya Dawn Johnson), Leaving Paradise, and Return to Paradise (both by Simone Elkeles, a YA author I have not tried but hear very good things about), Lady Lazarus (Michele Lang who explained that this book was fantasy rather than science fiction, but she described some very interesting historical elements), Jekel Loves Hyde (Beth Fantaskey – another YA author I’ve been recommended), Ascendant (Diana Peterfreund, second book of her series about killer unicorns, and an author Angieville recommends. I need to read her Secret Society Girl series too – something about a dude named Poe?), My Soul to Keep (Rachel Vincent. I must admit that I wasn’t blown away by the first book in the series, but maybe this book will be better),  Inside Out (Maria V. Snyder. A book I read and really liked),  and Dreadnought (Cherie Priest – this was an ARC copy so the type was black, not the brown of Boneshaker. Priest said she wasn’t sure whether the brown font would continue).

These are the books I didn’t plan on getting. Married with Zombies by Jesse Peterson and The Spirit Thief by Rachel Aaron were both from the Orbit booth and look great. One is about a married couple, on the verge of divorce who have to fight zombies together to survive. The other is a fantasy about a man named Eli Monpress who is both a thief and a wizard, and the blurb hints at a surprising plan to steal a king. Both look like promising first books in a series.

The L. Ron Hubbard and Michael Chabon books were given to me by a publicist and at the A Celebration of Book Bloggers by HarperCollins.

Sample pages from a Super Heroes pop-up book by Matthew Reinhart.
ebooks of Ascendant and Paranormalcy, and sample chapters from The Black Prism and White Cat.

Day Two:
My willpower went to pot this day. I blame Ana and Thea of The Book Smugglers who I walked around with in the morning. Girls – I shall send you my chiropractic bill.

This is the signed pile. Shift by Rachel Vincent, Salamander by Nick Kyme (Thea’s fault, but I must say – Space Marines? Sold), Hard Magic by Laura Anne Gilman (I need to catch up with this series), Fat Vampire by Adam Rex (a YA about a 15 year old, chubby kid who becomes a vampire – Ana and Thea’s fault.. It was a popular book though – a huge line for a debut author), The Rise of Renegade X by Chelsea M Campbell (she had cool embossers for Heroes and Villains depending on what readers said they were. I said “I have no idea” and got the Renegade” stamp! Makes me sound dangerous), Shade by Jeri Smith Ready (!!!) , Unraveled by Gena Showalter (this was an impulse one), The Dead Travel Fast by Deanna Raybourn (!!!! ) and Firelight by Sophie Jordan (has an amazing cover). I was the MOST excited about meeting Jeri Smith-Ready book and Deanna Raybourn. In fact I left lines for other authors so I wouldn’t miss them.

The Book Girl and the Suicidal Mime by Mizuki Nemura (Yen press book with a manga cover but it’s not a manga. It’s a short novel with some manga style pictures about a girl who is actually a demon who eats books – so I had to get it), Mostly Good Girls by  Leila Sales (a YA novel, The Book Smugglers fault), Rules of Attraction by Simone Elkeles, Beautiful Darkness by Cami Garcia and Margaret Stohl (sequel to the YA novel,  Beautiful Creatures which is still in my TBR. I seem to be a sucker for the covers), The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi (recommended by a lot of speculative fiction readers I follow, so I got one), and Hero by Mike Lupica (Book smugglers fault).

I think I need a code for It Was the Book Smugglers’ faults. So lets go with “TBSF”. Drakula (handed out by a publicist at Sourcebooks. It’s a a YA version of Dracula, where everything is in texts, webpage views and emails), The Daughters Break the Rules by Joanna Philbin (TBSF), Dust by Joan Francis Turner (TBSF – I was interested since it’s a YA from the POV of zombies), The Sherlockian by Graham Moore (mystery related to the Sherlock Holmes books), Nightshade by Andrea Cremer (I picked it up because it was pretty!), The Exiled Queen by Cinda Williams Chima (TBSF), Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare (so many people were anticipating this so I decided to get one too. There was a stampede for it), and Mansfield Park and Mummies by Vera Nazarian (OK, I KNOW .. I did have that rant about monster mash-ups, but this was offered to me at a blogger dinner, and after two people recommending I try this I feel like the universe wants me to read it. I will keep my mind open).

These are the books I got for my niece and nephew. My niece is a HUGE Fancy Nancy fan so it was worth waiting in line for a looonnng time for the author’s autograph. Angie from Angieville recommended Library Lion, and the other two picture books looked charming so I got them signed for the kids too.

Sample pages for another pop-up book – A Christmas Carol, designed by Chuck Fischer

Comics. I picked up Killing the Cobra because of Mario Acevedo’s name attached to it.
Sense and Sensibility was a no-brainer. And I like the art in this one better than the
Pride and Prejudice comic.

Day Three:

I wasn’t expecting MORE BOOKS, but that’s what happened at the Book Blogger Convention. We all got a goodie bag that was full of books. There was also a cute booklight.   I’m not sure if I’m going to read any of these except Honey, Baby, Sweetheart by Deb Caletti, which Angie of Angieville said was very good.

I’m also excited to listen to this audiobook (Suite Scarlett by Maureen Johnson) which came with our goodie bags. An author I’ve been meaning to try, and she was the keynote speaker at BCC. She was hiliarious.

NYC is for Bibliophiles: BEA and the Book Blogger Convention

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BEABook blogger convention

I just wanted to point out that there’s a lovely book blogger tour going on right now for BEA and the Book Blogger Convention which will be happening in May in New York City.

If you are a book blogger, I had a really good time at BEA
last year so you should seriously consider coming (and if you do, hey,
let me know so I can look for you!). Last year I went in sort of scared
of the whole thing (“Who can I hide behind, crowds are not for me!”)
but it turned out to be awesome, because I swear, I FOUND MY PEOPLE.
And I was surrounded by books. Many, many books. :D

Katiebabs of Babbling about books and more!, Angie of Angieville, and Jess of Book Reviews by Jess had some good tips on how to prepare for BEA and what to do when you were there. One of the best tips I got (from Wendy the Super Librarian)
when I was a newbie last year was to wear comfortable shoes. You will
be doing a lot of walking, and you will also be carrying a lot of
books.  Um.. she also recommended having some Advil handy I think,
which was again – true (the pain of carrying 40 books around all day
was worth it though).

OK, since many people have already covered what to do at BEA, I am
going to add some bookish things to do around the city if you have some
extra time around BEA and the Book Blogger Convention:

Library-hotel

Library Hotel

1) The Library Hotel – I’ve
never stayed here but I want to. This is a boutique hotel near Grand
Central station which has rooms full of books. And it’s based on the
Dewey Decimal system!

“Each of the 10 guestroom floors honor one of the 10 categories of the DDC and each of the 60 rooms are uniquely adorned with a collection of books and art exploring a distinctive topic within the category it belongs to.”

This is not exactly the cheapest hotel but they have specials
if you book ahead, and this week (Feb 12th to 19th) there is an extra
25% off their special rates. You just have to know what days you are
staying and the reservation would be non-refundable.

Mr. Morgans Library

Mr. Morgans Library

2) The Morgan Library and Museum
- The Morgan Library is also near midtown at Madison Ave. and 36th
Street. It was donated by J.P. Morgan Jr. and houses the library of
Pierpoint Morgan.

I am IN LOVE with the “Mr. Morgan’s Library”. It is beautiful.
Old books encased in gorgeous bookshelves in a huge, three story room,
complete with giant fireplace, amazing ceiling-work and one of a kind
manuscripts? I died and went to heaven. I could probably just stay in
that room, staring at the shelves for hours! Cool things: several
bookshelves devoted to bibles in different languages, a shelf full of
the Robinson Crusoe, and several illustrated manuscripts. Did you know
that the Morgan has three Gutenberg bibles? THEY DO. Anyway, I just
loved this room. The architecture and design of it are amazing.
A-MAZE-ING.

Right now there is an exhibition featuring Jane Austen called “A Woman’s Wit: Jane Austen’s Life and Legacy“,
but it ends March 12th, long before BEA, which is unfortunate. I went
to see it 3 weeks ago. It was slightly crowded but with a little
patience you can spend a lot of time staring at some of Jane Austen’s
letters. I found it interesting that someone had painstakingly cut out
certain lines from her letters – probably her family removing something
that they deemed inappropriate from public view, and how she used every
free space on the paper to write in. Sometimes she would turn the page
90 degrees and write on top of what she’d already written. She had very
nice handwriting but I found it hard to read – I preferred her sister
Cassandra’s writing in terms of being readable to me. I would haven
taken pictures, but none were allowed. I ended up buying a postcard of
a letter Jane wrote to her niece – each word spelled backward. More on
this exhibit at Austenacious.  If you miss it, I am sure there will be something else for a book lover to see by May.

The Strand: view of shelves on the 1st floor

The Strand: view of shelves on the 1st floor

3) Strand bookstore – Strand
books is the East Coast Powell’s. It’s a very large independent
bookstore with “18 miles of books”. They sell a mix of new and used
books (more new than used I feel), and there are ARCs for sale in the
basement. I haven’t been too impressed by their romance section (it
doesn’t seem to exist), but their YA section is big and impressed me.
Anyway, I’ve been there a few times, and I think if you love books you
should go there at least once.It’s at 828 Broadway and 12 Street in the East Village.

RoseReading

Reading Room

4) The New York Public Library (main branch/Steven A Scharzman building)
- You know, I’ve never actually been inside the main branch building of
the NYPL? I have walked by it a lot though! It is on my to-do list.
This building is located on Fifth Ave between 40th and 42nd streets,
next to Bryant Park, and it’s the library with the lions out in front
(their names are Patience and Fortitude). This library houses special
(non-circulating) collections. Ongoing exhibits incude the Gutenberg Bible, Winnie-the-Pooh and friends: the original toys, and the Jill Kupin Rose Gallery. There are interesting things happening there every day, and then there’s the stunning main reading room. The room is nearly 2 city blocks: 297 ft long, 78 feet wide, 51 feet high with ceilings that have murals of the sky. Wowza.

Kinokuniya

Kinokuniya

5) Kinokuniya Bookstore
- This is a little different since it’s a japanese bookstore. This is
the best place to go to if you love anime, manga, stationary and
japanese magazines. I have been here a few times, and I always find
something cute as hell to buy, be it a FRuITS magazine
or colored pens. And they have a cafe that sells bento boxes for nice
prices. Come on! There aren’t many japanese bookstores like this in the
U.S. so it’s special (I’m sad they closed the Kinokuniya branch in
Westchester). I’ve also been to the San Jose and San Fransisco branches
- all nice!

OK that’s what I have to begin with. There is much more. If you have
any favorite bookish places in the city, please comment with them! I
live near it and want to hear about it. :)

And if you go to BEA/the book blogger con and see me, please say hi! I
will be the half-asian girl with a black and red backpack, lots of bags
and comfy shoes. And an expression of bliss on my face.

BEA – the nitty gritty details

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I could have posted this yesterday after I came home from BEA but I had personal stuff to do and then I was pooped: my muscles ached and strangely my big toes hurt (I have no idea how I managed that). Yeah yeah poor me, having to lug millions of free books around. :P

So my last BEA posts didn’t go into a lot of detail so I wanted to do a more comprehensive post.

Friday

I slept OK Thursday night except it did take me a bit longer to actually fall asleep because of the excitement of going to my first book convention (informal poll shows that no one slept much the night before). I woke up at 7am to catch a train into Grand Central and got to BEA at the Javits Center before they even opened at 9am.  I saw this really long line after getting my press badge and I asked what it was for: it was to get in! Anyway, once the doors opened, it was not too crowded. My inner child was running around and screaming at the top of her lungs with glee. Free books! HUGE ASS PILES OF THEM ON THE FLOOOR. I played it cool though, I’m pretty sure I didn’t have a fixed grin on my face. I think.  It was hard to resist going crazy but I only took books I was interested in reading and I mostly strolled really quickly up and down the floor trying to get an idea of where things were and what types of things were going on.

At 9:30 there was a blogger meetup set up informally by Stephanie from The Written Word (she has my eternal undying gratitude for walking me through online registration for BEA and organizing email communication with book bloggers going to BEA. I think she helped out a lot of bloggers in how to register, she’s the queen!) – so I went to the Media Center to meet people. I met Alea from Pop Culture Junkie and “Irish” from Ticket to Anywhere and Sharon from Sharon Loves Books and Cats and pretty much glommed onto them for the rest of the day. These three seem to know what’s going on in the young adult book blogger world and there were a lot of young adult book bloggers at BEA. They all told me to read Sarah MacLean’s The Season and even introduced me to the author (who was so nice she went back to get me a book to autograph). They were also all talking about Suzanne Collin’s signing for her new book Catching Fire.

I met a lot of authors and got books signed, but I think the starstruck moment for me was Shannon Hale (link to her post on BEA). Actually we all were at the Bloomsbury booth and noticed her new book The Actor and The Housewife was right there. We all picked one up and started going on about how we love her, and someone at the booth said: “You know, the author is right there and she’s signing books now”. She was sitting 6 feet away and there was no line. I ended up getting her autograph twice – the other book was Forest Born. HEEEE. I was also happy to get Scott Westerfeld’s autograph. Of course when I meet authors my mind kind of blanks and all I can say is “Um, Hi, can you please sign my name J-a-n-i-C-E?”… sigh, and I also didn’t have the presence of mind to get pictures of them! I’m dumb! Next time. I texted my best friend afterwards something like “I just got Scott Westerfeld’s autograph!” and she was amused.

I had planned to go to the BEAtweetup at 8pm after BEA, but at 3pm I was so exhausted after walking around for hours and just being excited for so long that I called it a day. I’m not sure how people managed to do BEA and then go to a party afterwards!

Saturday

I slept EVEN WORSE Friday night even though I had one day of BEA under my belt. I kept thinking of all the author signings I wanted to go to and planning in my head. I really wanted to get Gail Carriger’s autograph because she was at the Orbit booth at 11am and I also wanted to go by Harlequin because both Rachel Vincent and Gena Showalter were going to be there signing their Harlequin Teen titles also at 11! Ack! I managed to get all the books I wanted though, but I was so excited the night before!

I had talked to Katie from Babbling about Books, and More and we’d planned on meeting at the tweetup, but I couldn’t do it so we ended up meeting for the first time Saturday morning. She’s as cool and enthusiastic about books in person as she is online! And she’s hooked up with the romance blogging and reading community so through her I also met Stacey Agdern, Kris of Love Letters Magazine, Marisa and Maria from RNTV, Kwana of Kwana Writes, and Leanna Renee Heiber (author of The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker, which I have been eying).

My meeting with them was brief though because between running around to get autographs, standing in line, and picking up books I had to go to the Firebrand Booth for the Blogger Signing. I got to meet Michael Cairns from Personanondata and see Sharon again (Michael thought Sharon and I blogged together because we spent several minutes chittering excitedly about BEA, and was surprised we’d just met the day before).  I was convinced NO ONE was going to come see me at my blogger signing, but was pleasantly surprised that some people stopped by. And I recognized some of them, like Miriam Parker from the Hachette Book Group, author Marjorie Liu, and the first person who came by – Angie from Angieville! I was REALLY happy to see Angie because I love her taste in books and read her blog regularly (she and I both read a mix . She reads urban fantasy, young adult, and fantasy) – we both noted that we didn’t see much urban fantasy at BEA but a lot of young adult – must be where the growth is happening in publishing, hmm.

After the blogger signing (I didn’t really hand out autographs, just my card, but Sharon was a master at talking to people coming by and signing!), I rushed by the Dabel Brothers booth because Angie had told me about the copies of the Mercy Thompson comic there – there weren’t any left. They said there would be more on Sunday but since I wasn’t going to be there Sunday, one of the guys at the booth, Rich Young, gave me his copy – talk about a nice guy! Uh, I love Dabel Brothers now, just had to say that.

A full room at the blogger panel
A full room at the blogger panel

Finally there was the blogger panel. I’m so bad because I got there a bit late. It gave me warm fuzzies though that the session was full and people were all taking notes about how to communicate with bloggers. I thought all the girls on the panel were very articulate and made a lot of interesting points. One point they made that I liked was the idea of repaying bloggers by giving us traffic – linking to our reviews or contests so that new readers can learn about our blog through a publisher or author. Most of the bloggers said they did not have advertising and did not get paid for their work so traffic was a nice thing to get after they spent the time and energy reading and reviewing a book. I want to now link to Katiebab’s post because she took good notes about this panel and I think she makes some interesting comments about it too.

I had to run off in the middle of the blogger panel because I wanted to get in line for Holly Black and Cecil Castelluci’s signing for their book Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd (Cassandra Clare was signing too). This was a really popular book and I was glad I left early because I ended up standing in line for about 30 minutes.

There were a lot more authors around for signings on Saturday than on Friday. I got a lot of books signed. I saw Sarah Dessen, Craig Ferguson and James Patterson but their lines were so long and I was so pooped getting signatures for the authors I’d *planned* to get signed, not to mention carrying the books, I thought it would be best to pass.

My advice for going to BEA:

  • Consider going early in the morning- it’s less crowded, you can go through the booths much more quickly because there are less people and you can SEE everything (by 10-11 there’s walls of people everywhere and crowds) and you can get books you want more quickly. Also free bags seem to disappear by the first couple of hours so get bags. I think both Friday and Saturday I picked up more books in the morning than the rest of the day (of course this brings me to the problem of lugging said books everywhere).
  • Plan out your day ahead of time and write it down in an easy to follow way. I wrote down the author signings I wanted to catch but I didn’t look at my list too often and I’m kind of kicking myself for missing Jordan Summer’s signing of Crimson. The book that got away.
  • Lugging books everywhere = really tiring. Two possible solutions:
    • You can’t bring in a rollaway bag into the floor, they make you check it in. You have to have a backpack without wheels. I know I saw some people with this, but they snuck it by security somehow. I think next time I’m checking in a rolling suitcase and putting books into it every couple of hours. This would have saved my legs and back a bit of pain.
    • You can also go to attendee shipping. They give you a box which you put your name on and you can fill it throughout the day. Downsides are: it’s UPS and $$$ pricey and I’m not sure how secure the place is.
  • Bring painkillers - Wendy the Super Librarian told me this and she was so right! I brought Excedrin and Advil. Advil was needed for my back by the time lunch rolled around on the first day. The pain was worth it though.
  • Wear good shoes (also recommended by Wendy. She knows what she’s talking about).
  • Consider eating lunch early or late – the cafeteria is ridiculously full at lunch time and it’s almost impossible to find a place to sit. Also the prices are high, but that’s how it is at conventions.
  • It is worth it to print out business cards. I’ve been to non-book conventions and given out my business card less than I did at BEA.

BEA day dos

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More BEA books

More BEA books

And even MORE BEA books

And even MORE BEA books

This is the result of my second day at BEA. Even more books! If you look at the first days books you’ll noticed I got two copies of Kristen Cashore’s Fire and Gail Carriger’s Soulless, so I hope to give them away later on this blog. Keep an eye out for that. I’ve got a bunch of other swag not shown here which I may give away too.

Autographed – Rachel Vincent, Gena Showalter, Holly Black & Cecil Castellucci & Cassandra Clare, Gail Carriger, Julia Quinn, and Kristen Cashore signed their books.

Dabel Brothers & Leanna Renee Heiber 3 chapter excerpt

Dabel Brothers & Leanna Renee Heiber 3 chapter excerpt