Anyone training for a marathon should consider three days at BookExpo America for building endurance. By the end of day 2, every muscle and joint in my body aches. But it's so worth it to spend three days surrounded by books and book people.
I spent the first part of the day in meetings with publishers to talk about the Cybils. I had some great conversations with some really interesting people. One of the best things about BEA is having the chance to talk to people who are passionate about books, children's and YA literature.
After that, I had some time to walk the floor. Here are some of the things I saw:
The tenth generation Lassie made an appearance in support of the book, Man’s Best Hero: True Stories of Great American Dogs by Ace Collins.
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| Lassie poses for his photo shoot |
It was impossible to walk by the
Ellora's Cave booth and not notice these guys:
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| Hot Men of BEA |
Author Michelle Knudsen was signing her new YA book,
Evil Librarian. Here we are sporting cool devil horns:
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| I wear devil horns now. Devil horns are cool. |
Books I got today that I'm excited to read:
Love is a Drug by Alaya Dawn Johnson,
Afterworlds by Scott Westerfeld,
Sky Raiders (Five Kingdoms book 1) by Brandon Mull,
House of Purple Cedar by Tim Tingle,
The Zoo at the Edge of the World by Eric Kahn Gale,
Thursdays with the Crown by Jessica Day George,
Evil Librarian by Michelle Knudsen. Thanks to my husband Nick for getting some of these for me!
I also attended two panel sessions. "The Craft Of Writing And World Building" was an interesting session on worldbuilding in fiction, featuring:
I tried to take notes, but there was so much good stuff that I had trouble capturing it all. Here are some highlights of what I did manage to get:
- Michael Grant is an improviser, not a planner. He prefers to start with sketching the barest minimum and building from there, so as not to box himself in.
- Scott Westerfeld said that you don't have to write paranormal or fantasy to do worldbuilding. Afterworlds is about the book world we know and love, including BEA. He said that worldbuilding is about the slow accretion of little details.
- Brandon Mull said that a big part of how to make a fantasy novel make sense is to have rules. If anyone can do anything it doesn't make sense. There have to be limits on magic.
- Heather Demetrios said that you have to follow rules in fantasy. Have to have structure. If anything goes, it's hard for the reader to care.
- Scott Westerfeld starts with what he wants to happen, and then builds a world around that. With Afterworlds he wanted a fantasy world that parallels the world of writing, so the novel within a novel is about ghosts that only stay in the world as long as someone remembers them and tells their story.
- Kiera Cass starts with characters and then builds the world around them.
I also attended "A Conversation on Digital Strategies for Tapping the YA Market," which was about marketing books online for authors and publishers. The panel was moderated by Manuela Soares, Pace University, and included:
- Alaya Dawn Johnson, Author, The Summer Prince and Love is a Drug
- Arthur A. Levine, Publisher Arthur A. Levine Books (Scholastic)
- Carolyn Mackler, Author
- Cheryl B. Klein, Editor, Arthur A. Levine Books (Scholastic)
- Jeffrey Yamaguchi, Director of Digital Marketing, Abrams Books
- Jennifer Hubert Swan, Reading Rants
This was a wide-ranging session that covered a lot of ground, but here are a few points:
- All the speakers indicated that in many cases, they are not reaching teens directly, and instead most of their audience is adults. For some, this is a change; Jennifer used to have a lot of teens commenting on her blog, but now most of her audience is adults. But they are reaching passionate people who will help spread the word, so in many cases they're reaching teens more indirectly.
- When you do connect with teens, authentic connections are very important; teens are looking for people to be real.
- Two major themes: community and word of mouth. That hasn't changed, but the way those happen has changed.
My day started bright and early at 8am, as I attended the Harlequin Teen Blogger Breakfast. I sat next to the friendly bloggers from Bookcrastinators in wonderland, who have the fun tagline, "Why put off until tomorrow what you can read today?" This was their first BEA, and I enjoyed chatting with them. The event was organized like speed dating, as the featured authors and their editors rotated around to each table and talked with us. Authors we met included:
- Alexandra Adornetto, author of Ghost House, who asked us if we believe in ghosts. (For the record, the people at my table do. Alexandra said that the previous table most definitely did not)
- Jennifer L. Armentrout with Stone Cold Touch (The Dark Elements). I haven't read any of her books, sadly, but everyone else there loved her books.
- Julie Kagawa talked about her new book, Talon, which is about dragons who can appear as human. She said she figured that, "If dragons existed today, they wouldn't be sitting in caves guarding treasures, they'd be CEOs of multinational corporations."
- Adi Alsaid with his book, Let's Get Lost, a road trip book told in five parts from different points of view. Adi likes to travel and has been on his own road trips, but he likes to write about places he hasn't been to so that he can use his imagination.
- Robin Talley talked about her book, Lies We Tell Ourselves, which is about school integration in 1959, and the attraction between two girls, one black and one white. Robin was inspired to write it after hearing about her own parents' experiences during that period.
One thing I realized during the brunch is that Harlequin has changed a lot, and that they publish a lot of different books, not just the romances that I think of when I hear the name. These books sounded interesting, and I clearly need to start reading more of their books.
After the brunch, I attended the YA Editors Buzz Panel. I always try to attend these at BEA, because it's fascinating to hear the editors talk about the selected buzz books, how they acquired them and what they love about the books. The five buzz books are:
- Daniel Ehrenhaft from Soho Teen talked about Cynthia Weil’s I'm Glad I Did. Cynthia is a songwriter who has written songs such as "On Broadway" and "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling," and I'm Glad I Did is about a songwriter.
- Krista Marino from Delacorte Press talked about Frank Portman’s King Dork Approximately and read a hilarious excerpt where the main character, Tom Henderson, muses on Pride and Prejudice. I never read King Dork, but now I want to read both books.
- TS Ferguson from Harlequin TEEN talked about Robin Talley’s Lies We Tell Ourselves (see above)
- Karen Chaplin, HarperTeen talked about Amy Ewing’s The Jewel, which is about a city of extremes, where the protagonist is enslaved as a surrogate, as in The Handmaid's Tale.
- Alvina Ling of Little, Brown Books for Young Readers talked about Ryan Graudin’s The Walled City, which sounds really interesting. It's like a dystopian book, but based on a real place, the Walled City of Kowloon, near Hong Kong, which was apparently a lawless place ruled by organized crime. Alvina said that the book is not historical fiction, as it's fictionalized, but not completely fantasy either, since it's based on a real place. She humorously called it "histopian."
Most of the rest of the day I spent in meetings with publishers about the Cybils Awards, with some time spent walking the floor with my husband and son.
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| Boba Fett, where? |
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| Will someone get this big walking carpet out of my way? |
Little, Brown engaged in some clever marketing for their new YA post-apocalyptic,
The Young World. These signs were on the stalls in the bathrooms:
I ended the day by attending the panel, "The Best in Fall 2014 Graphic Novels," with Michael Cho (
Shoplifter), Farel Dalrymple (
The Wrenchies), Jules Feiffer (
Kill My Mother), and Raina Telgemeier (
Sisters) with moderator Calvin Reid from Publishers Weekly. Here are the panelists geeking out about brushes:
One of the most interesting discussions in the panel was in response to the question about whether the images or the text came first (since all the panelists are artist, writer, and creator for their graphic novels). Each one had a different answer. Dalrymple said that his inspiration generally comes from visual images, and he starts by sketching. Telgemeier works in thumbnails, where she works on layout and text together, using stick figures. Feiffer said that the writer and the artist in his brain are two different people who don't even know each other. He starts by writing the script, and then gives it to the artist in his brain, who wonders who the writer is that wrote such crappy stuff. (He was very funny, in case you couldn't tell). Cho also starts with the text, but he finds that he has to actually hand letter the text in the layouts to be able to determine the pacing.
So, yesterday I read this article in PW about Reed Exhibitions' plans for the new BookCon on the last day of BookExpo America (BEA). I posted an off-hand comment on Twitter and Facebook that I was thought the new plan was great. Apparently, my comments weren't clear, and some people are confused and upset by the new plan. "Why is excluding the public a good thing?" I was asked, and that wasn't what I meant at all, and I don't think it's what BEA intended. In fact rather the opposite. BEA is working to include the public and craft a positive experience for them. Since it's difficult to clarify my thoughts in 140 characters, I thought I'd write a blog post.
First, some history: BookExpo America is the largest U.S. conference for the book industry. It started in 1901 as the American Booksellers Association convention, and eventually grew to encompass much more. But it has always been a conference exclusively for the book industry. To attend, you had to be a bookseller, librarian, publisher, publishing service provider, or someone else working in the industry. Attending wasn't cheap, either. Badges can run several hundred dollars, depending on your role. That wasn't not intended to be exclusionary. It was always a conference oriented around the business side of books.
However, since books and authors are a big part of the conference, I think increasingly so in recent years, BEA recognizes that it would also be of interest to passionate book lovers, and in turn, those are people whom publishers exhibiting at BEA would like to reach. So for the last year or two, they've been experimenting with opening the conference to the public.
Last year, that took the form of "Power Reader" day, which provided tickets giving power readers access to the show floor on the last day. I think that Power Reader Day both was and wasn't a success. I think the idea was great, and some publishers took advantage of the opportunity to interact with readers and have special events and giveaways just for the public. For the readers, it provided a chance to meet authors and get autographed books, as well as a peek behind the curtain to see books in advance of publication.
However, the problem was that the BEA show floor is very large, and many exhibitors are not of interest to the public, nor are they interested in interacting with the public. So I saw many power readers wandering around booths with remainders dealers, printers, distributors, app developers, book display manufacturers, and publishing service providers of various types. In addition, some publishers publish books not intended for a general audience, and even some of the ones that do publish general interest books didn't seem interested in interacting with the public. Many exhibitors break down early on the last day, and walking the floor and hearing the tape guns, some starting as early as 11-12:00, I couldn't help but think that if I were a Power Reader, I would have been disappointed to see what looked like a conference winding down, on the only day I could be there.
Thankfully, Reed Exhibitions also recognized this problem, and they made some changes to address it. This year, if I understand correctly, a part of the BEA show floor will be sectioned off as the area for BookCon (replacing Power Readers) attendees. Exhibitors are given a choice whether they want to be in the BookCon area or not. The ones that choose not to be in this area are ones that wouldn't be offering anything to the public anyway: the business to business service providers, the specialized publishers, and those general trade publishers who, for whatever reason, aren't interested in taking part.
So if you attended Power Reader day last year and are worried about the changes, you won't be losing anything! (Disclaimer: I'm not associated with BEA in any way, other than as an attendee for the last 10 years, so I'm just going by what I read in the press and on their website). You'll still have access to a feast of books and authors; it's just that it will all be consolidated into one area, so that you don't have to hunt through aisles and aisles of irrelevant (to you) booths to find the things that interest you.
I think that what's confusing people is on the ticket page it says, "BookCon Tickets do not provide access to BookExpo America (BEA). BEA is a trade only event (not open to the public) and BookCon Tickets do not provide entry into BEA." What I think this means - and again, this is just me interpreting - is that you don't have access to the first two days of BEA, which Power Readers didn't have last year, either, and you don't have access to the area of BEA which is primarily for business to business exhibitors (which most of the public wouldn't be interested in anyway).
This BookCon FAQ addresses a lot of the questions and concerns.
If you haven't attended before and you're within an easy drive of New York City, this is a great opportunity to find out about new books, meet authors, and maybe pick up some freebies. Tickets to the one day BookCon event are only $30 for adults (and teens, apparently) and $5 for children. Ticket information is here.
