Book Expo America is the annual industry event for the
publishing industry and for the last two years they’ve opened the last day of
the conference to “Power Readers” – aka, the general public. And, since we
consider ourselves power readers, we had to go.
BEA is held at the Javits Center in NYC at the end of May/beginning of June. We got there before
things opened for the day and were greeted by huge banners touting books coming
soon. We checked in, got our badges and gift bags and were soon on the show
floor, checking things out.
The thing about BEA is that you can’t see everything – it’s impossible.
There is so much going on that unless you can clone yourself, you have to pick
and choose. We decided we could see more if we split up, so we all tackled some
different things.
Kate went to hear Neil Gaiman speak. Laura loaded up on horror
books. Cathie got on line to meet Ransom Riggs. We kept meeting up throughout
the day and excitedly exchanging stories – all having our, “I wish I had been
there!” moments. We also all hit tons of signings – both in the booths and in
the autographing area.
Another thing about BEA: everywhere you turn, someone wants to
hand you a book. It’s seriously a reader’s paradise. There are tons of
complimentary copies of both published and to-be-published books everywhere,
coupled with people happy to talk them up. Even on our best behavior, we ended up
with more books than we could carry.
One event Kate signed up for was particularly generous with the
books – Book Club Speed Dating. The purpose of the event was to meet with
publishers and hear about upcoming fall releases that would be good for book
clubs. When you walked in, the tables were all stacked with copies of books and
you could help yourself to any you wanted. It was seriously like the book lover’s
version of trick-or-treating.
Things weren't all serious, though. We had fun playing at some
of the booths and taking pictures with the different backdrops set up. There
was also some Star Wars events going on, costumed characters and Laura got a
particularly fantastic dog balloon to tail along behind her.
By the time we got home we were happy, tired – and had acquired more
than 100 books between the three of us. And we’re excited to read all of them.
Some of the reviews you’ve already seen on the blog – the others will be posted
in the coming months, as we make our way through the pile.
We’re also excited to share the wealth!
The first 1000 Power Readers got a special gift bag at
registration, full of books courtesy of MacMillan Publishers – and we’re giving
one to a Relatively Bookish reader! The gift pack includes: a hardcover copy of
The Nightmare by Lars Kepler, an
advance copy of Havisham by Ronald Flame, a paperback copy of Jana Bibi’s Excellent Fortunes by Betsy
Woodsman, a paperback copy of The Way of
Kings by Brandon Sanderson, an audiobook copy of Lincoln’s Last Days by Bill O’Reilly and promotional postcards for
Brandon Stanton’s Humans of New York.
Want to win? Just enter below! Good luck!
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