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Today was the first day of the exhibit halls for BookExpo America, or BEA, the (hopefully still) annual U.S. trade show for the book business. This year the exhibit part of the show is compressed into two days instead of three, and one floor of the Javits Center instead of two. In spite of that (or maybe because of it) the show was buzzing with activity and, well, buzz. The aisles were so crowded you could barely walk, and the autographing area smelled like a locker room. Debate about "p" vs "e" could be heard throughout the exhibit floor, and more than one person was heard to exclaim that print is not dead. And judging from the number of people standing in line for autographed books, print is definitely far from dead.

This morning I attended the Children's Book and Author Breakfast, an event which featured Sarah, Duchess of York as MC, with Cory Doctorow, Mitali Perkins, and Richard Peck speaking. A music group called 4TROOPS, comprised of four combat veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, performed their song "For Freedom" and sang some beautiful harmonies.

All of the speakers were wonderful. Sarah was poised and funny and didn't seem at all phased by the reporters and camera crews climbing over each other trying to see her. She showed her new line of children's books, and concluded by saying, "I'm Sarah Ferguson, I'm a children's book author and a mom, and I'm proud of it." (I may have the exact wording of the quote wrong, but this is in essence what she said. I apologize for any errors on my part).

Cory Doctorow, author of Little Brother and his newest book, For the Win, talked about how much he loves connecting with teens. He called adolescents nature's daredevils, and said that it's a time of taking risks without the experience to necessarily understand the consequences. He talked about the exhilaration of doing things for the first time.

Through the medium of stories about her life, Mitali Perkins talked about books as windows and mirrors. Books can give us a window into another culture or another way of life, or they can be a mirror in which we can see ourselves. Growing up all the books she read had white characters, and yet she connected with those characters in many ways, so the books were mirrors. In the same way, she thinks of her books as mirrors for Asian-American children, and windows for many white American children, as a look at another culture. Yet many white children also find mirrors in her books and connect with them in unexpected ways.

Richard Peck talked about how he had to quit teaching in order to be able to communicate with children. He was quite funny talking about the changes in the teaching profession as a result in the changes of society's attitudes towards children, remarking that the Latin teachers were kicked out and chased out of town by angry mobs, and then after the Latin teachers were gone there was so little English left to teach that the name had to be changed to "Language Arts." He talked about the importance of the book The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier, and its influence on Peck's new book, Three Quarters Dead.

After the Author Breakfast, I spent most of the rest of the day bouncing between meetings with various publishers to talk about the Cybils, and standing in autographing lines. I did meet and talk to some interesting people while standing in the lines. Rick Riordan is a champion autographer; his line moved quickly as he chewed through the crowd. Matthew Reinhart apparently signs more slowly, as his line crawled along, but to be fair, his book was a lot more awkward to handle, so that could account for the difference. I was also thrilled to get a copy of Cory Doctorow's For the Win, which I'm looking forward to reading.

Oh, so much I meant to write about this week. This month, really. But it would be best for me to focus on only my shorter-term ball-dropping, as it were.

First, quickly, a note to check out the three categories of books I see as most essential for a child’s beginning bookshelf. See if you agree with me at PBS Booklights.

Second, also quickly, save some time to read the amazing interviews from the Summer Blog Blast Tour. I’ll be doing reading on Sunday, after my Girl Scout camping trip but before LOST. (LOST!!!)

Third, less quickly, I’m going to the Book Blogger Convention on Friday, May 28th, and there is still time for you to join me there. Yes, I just checked the registration, and it’s still open. The schedule looks very interesting, and the registration fee includes a pass to Book Expo America. There are a number of publishers who will be in attendance, along with the bevy of bloggers. (Bevy being our official group designation, I believe.) Looking at the list of attendees, I’m going to be meeting a lot of new people. As this is not KidLitCon (stay tuned for more info on that!), more participants are bloggers in adult books — though there is a lot of crossover in YA. I’m looking forward to the opportunity to share knowledge with this group, plus listen to our own Betsy Bird and Terry Doherty on panels and Maureen Johnson as a speaker. Look at the full listing at the site.

If you can’t make the whole thing, consider coming to the reception on Thursday evening after BEA closes shop for the day. I’ll certainly be there, and will be trolling the BEA floor itself on Thursday. With all that is going on at home, I couldn’t afford to take the time to come on Wednesday. Sorry, but I’ll miss KidLit Drink Night. I’m flying in early on Thursday morning to put in a full day at BEA, so I’d love to see some blogger friends along the way (or someone to pick me up at JFK). I’m mostly looking at book signings to collect prizes for the 48 Hour Book Challenge (Still taking sign-ups! And prize donations!), and I’ll bet if you look at the schedule you can figure out where I’ll be. I can say for sure though that I’m going to attend the presentation of Guys of Guys Read at 1:00PM at the Downtown Stage. I’ll wear my letter scarf so you can find me. (What’s my letter scarf? Oh, you’ll know it when you see it.)

All that said, I would be elated to know in advance about some BFFs to expect to see there, so drop a comment here or coordinate on Facebook or something. Seriously, I shouldn’t even be going to NYC with everything I’ve got on my plate, so I could use an energy boost from my buddies. In a pinch, I’d even take envy.

Featured Events: (These are events being held by 2010 Ypulse Youth Marketing Mashup partners. If you would like to partner with us, email [email protected].) INplay the Conference Date: May 18-19 Location: Toronto, Canada Cost: $699 – $899... Read the rest of this post

I just wanted to give a shout out for the Book Expo America on May 25-27, 2010 and the Book Bloggers Convention on Friday, May 28, 2010 in New York this May 2010.

If you have the time and can get to NYC, I am certain that you'll love experience of being surrounded by books, authors, and booklovers. I'll post more about these events soon, just want to raise the prospect of a visit!

We slept a little later on Saturday, thankfully, since we weren't trying to get any autographing tickets. I was still pretty exhausted from the previous day, though.

We started the day walking the floor and standing in a few autographing lines. I tried to enter every Kindle & Sony Reader drawing I could find, because I'd really like to have one of these. It was such a beautiful, sunny day that we decided to get lunch at the hotdog stand outside on 11th Ave and eat lunch sitting on a wall in the sun. It was quite enjoyable.

After lunch, I attended a panel called Teens Sound Off. It was a panel of six teens talking about their reading and book buying preferences. All the panel members were girls - I would have liked to see a couple of guys on the panel - and I had some trouble hearing them (but then, maybe that was the ear infection) but it was a very interesting panel. I "live tweeted" the panel on Twitter, and rather than try to summarize it, I'll just include my tweets here as bullet points:

• Really hard to hear most teens on panel. I think most have said they find out about books from friends.
• Several teens said they don't like series. Surprising.
• All the panelists are girls; most say their guy friends don't read other than assigned. One has a guy friend reading Twilight.
• One teen is a blogger and did a poll; found out that 99% of her blog readers were female
• None of the panelists go to author events. Some live in small town; others say they'll only go to event for much wanted book.
• One teen said she liked both adult & YA books, but felt uncomfortable in adult section; felt like those books weren't for her.
• Teens say cover is really important. Colorful bright covers, animal on cover, person in a cute skirt mentioned as elements
• One mentioned that if a cover looks similar to books she likes, it appeals to her.
• Teen panelists prefer to read "real" books to reading online. Several mentioned too many distractions online.
• But when asked specifically about non-book reading online, most panelists admit the spend more time reading FB and texts than books
• One teen doesn't like when booksellers randomly recommend books, but likes when they find out what she likes & relates it
• Several teens said they don't trust recs from strangers. They seem keenly aware of when people are trying to sell to them
  

Geektastic looks like a fun book, and I can't wait to read it. Here's the publisher's description:

Acclaimed authors Holly Black (Ironside) and Cecil Castellucci (Boy Proof) have united in geekdom to edit short stories from some of the best selling and most promising geeks in young adult literature: M.T. Anderson, Libba Bray, Cassandra Clare, Tracy Lynn, Cynthia and Greg Leitich Smith, David Levithan, Kelly Link, Barry Lyga, Wendy Mass, Garth Nix, Scott Westerfield, Lisa Yee, and Sara Zarr.

With illustrated interstitials from comic book artists Hope Larson and Bryan Lee O'Malley, Geektastic covers all things geeky, from Klingons and Jedi Knights to fan fiction, theater geeks, and cosplayers. Whether you're a former, current, or future geek, or if you just want to get in touch with your inner geek, Geektastic will help you get your geek on!

More BEA posts to come...

I'm always on the lookout for interesting small press and self-published books, and The Soulstealer War, by W. L. Hoffman, caught my interest. I chatted with the author at BEA for quite a while, and according to him, it's an epic fantasy with SF elements, quantum physics, and philosophy.

The first book is called The First Mother's Fire, and it has cover art by Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell. You can see the cover art in this wall hanging that was hanging in the booth:

Here's a wall hanging of the map from the book.

The map was drawn by the author and it's beautiful.

I haven't read the book, so I really have no idea if it's any good, but it sounds interesting and I look forward to reading it.

On Saturday morning, I awaited the arrival of Liz Burns to drop off her suitcase at the hotel. Then Carlie Webber, Liz and I took a cab (after a quick Starbucks break) to the Javits Center. I thought I had a plan for the morning, but it kept falling apart as I missed the people I had planned on seeing and was distracted by signings I had not planned on attending. I know that I missed the signings that I had looked at — Jan Brett, Peter McCarty, and Sarah Dessen. I did make the signings for Walter Dean Myers, Peter Reynolds, and some lady who wrote an eBay book.

I spent some of this day wandering through the publishers’ booths. Like I said before, not a lot of ARCs. I was able to pry Neil Gaiman’s Blueberry Girl away from the HarperCollins people. They were giving away coded cards that let you read some of their new offerings online. Hmmm. Wonder if this will be a trend. The Holiday House people were very nice. They couldn’t give me the books I wanted to see then, but promised to send them later, which was actually better for my shipping rate.

So I’m walking around without an agenda, and a particular voice catches my attention. I turn around, and call, “Mo?” He turns, and says, “Blogger!”

He was there with Tom Warburton, a new author of the book 1000 Times No. Tom and I had communicated by email, and I have the book to review this week. Mo introduced me as his #2 fan, since apparently a kid near his current home has that award. I reassured Tom that the restraining order had been removed long ago, and that it was all good now. Mo and I talked about kids, busy schedules, his DC ventures, and the KidLitosphere Conference in October. Tom and I talked about his book, his promotion efforts, and the BEA experience. They both signed my shirt, adding a little artwork. I even got a picture taken. And in case you’re thinking it — no, I did not stalk Mo. I didn’t even think he’d be there that day. It was simply fate.

During a quick lunch with a four-dollar soda, I sat at the same table as some publishing reps. I told one lady how jealous I was of her Catching Fire ARC on the table. She told me that it had been left there, so I could have it. Score!

At 2:00 p.m. I ran to the Book Blogger Panel. I’ll remember it as the meeting where I talked no less than three times, without being on the panel. Is that wrong? Perhaps. The panel was adult book bloggers, though some also review children’s and Young Adult books. Natasha of Maw Books mentioned KidLitosphere Central as a directory of children’s and Young Adult literature blogs and had me stand up. Of course, once I was already standing, it seemed quite natural to talk about the site not only as a directory, but also as a way to connect bloggers and authors. And I may have mentioned the conference. I think I also added my voice to the discussion on blog tours, referencing Chasing Ray. I know for sure that I disagreed with the concept presented that having lots of comments is a way to indicate a healthy blog. I did get some positive feedback from that position. It’s discussed, along with other issues of the panel, at Babbling About Books, Mrs. Giggles, and at Tea Cozy. All in all, a lively discussion of book blogging for fun and profit.

After the panel, it was a few more author signings — Sara Zarr, Michelle Knudsen, Ann Haywood Leal, Mark Teague, and Laini Taylor. Liz Burns and I hung out around Scholastic, talking to Laini Taylor, Jim Di Bartolo, and David Levitan. I had them all sign my shirt. We stopped by the Girl Scout booth, where I picked up some bookmarks, and headed to the shipping area, where I packed up all my books and sent them out. Back to the hotel for dinner, a short rest, a little lipstick and then off to the Geektastic party.

Little, Brown hosted the event in the private room of the Lucky Strike Lanes to celebrate Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd, edited by Holly Black and Cecil Castelluci. Yes, there was bowling. But not by me. David Levithan, and Scott Westerfeld (pictured) seemed to be having a good time knocking down the pins. Laura Lutz was playing for the worst position on the board. Sheila Ruth was up against Wendy Mass, Sara Zarr, and I think Alvina Ling. I lost track of that game, because there were far more interesting victory dances at the other one. I talked to most of the “geeks” — Libba Bray, Scott Westerfeld, David Levithan, Holly Black, Sara Zarr, Barry Lyga, Wendy Mass, Tracy Lynn, Kelly Link, and Cassie Claire — and had them sign my T-shirt. I told Justine Larbalestier how much I enjoyed Liar — and had her sign my shirt.

When the establishment began the process of kicking us out, I grabbed the ARC and made sure I got as many signatures as I could. Then Liz and I walked back to the hotel, stopping for a cookie on the way and discussing Liar in detail.

Sunday doesn’t need a whole new post. I said goodbye to Liz and headed over to BEA. I went to the signing for the new American Girl book, for Erica Perl’s book, and a poster from Jerry Pinkney. I reported to the Blogger Booth at NetGalley at 11:00 a.m. and talked to the folks who came by. Terry was sweet enough not only to stop by, but to donate T-shirts for 48HBC. I ran into Heidi on the shuttle bus, but we talked a bit more at the booth. I didn’t know that Sarah was working BEA, but she took time off to say hello. Ron from GalleyCat and Beatrice stopped by — though not particularly to see me. I had a few discussions about Kidlitosphere Central, and then at noon I was out of there to meet a friend in the village.

After a three-hour visit that included lunch and quality — if not quantity — toddler time, I was back on the bus to DC. I dozed most of the four-hour ride and made my family come into the city to pick me up. I was too tired to face the Metro.

Now I’m excited to get my box of books from UPS. I’m excited to count down the days — DAYS — to the 48 Hour Book Challenge. And I’m excited to show you my new prized possession. (Click to make it bigger and see the signatures.) Yes, I went to New York City and all I got was this T-shirt.

Book Expo America, or BEA as it's more commonly known, is the largest annual U.S. book industry trade show and gathering of the book tribe. BEA was held this past weekend, from May 29 through the 31st, and we attended the event at the Javits Center in New York City.

Our day Friday started with rising at 4am to try to get tickets to the Suzanne Collins autographing of Catching Fire, the sequel to 2008's hot YA book The Hunger Games. Tickets were free, but were distributed on a first-come, first-serve basis at the Javits center beginning at 6:30am. We arrived at Javits at 5:30 - we wanted to be there plenty early enough that we wouldn't miss out - and we weren't the first ones in line. By 6:00am, the line was quite long. Suzanne Collins was obviously the hot ticket this year; there seemed to be more people in line who wanted tickets to Suzanne Collins than for Julie Andrews. The really nice man running the autographing ticket booth joked, "Oh, didn't you hear that Suzanne Collins was cancelled?" I told him he'd better not joke like that unless he wanted a riot!

We succeeded in getting a ticket, and walked away feeling like we'd gotten the golden ticket in American Idol!

The exhibit hall wasn't scheduled to open until 9, so we went to get breakfast while we waited. We were back in time for the 9am starting bell (OK, I didn't really hear a starting bell, but there might as well have been one) and we started out walking the exhibit floor for a while. One of the first things we saw was this really cool flying saucer that you can build:

I don't know if you can tell the size from this picture, but it's about as tall as a person. It comes as a book of plans, and all the parts are things that you can easily find at places like Home Depot. It does require some drilling, but they're working on making pre-drilled parts that you can purchase. I think the top parts are supposed to light up, also, but they didn't have it quite fully assembled yet when we stopped by the booth. It's called The Flying Saucer Planbook and it's available from http://ascplanbooks.com

I then attended a panel on Books to Film, sponsored by IBPA and presented by Rocky Lang, BooksToFilm.tv. The panel included various literary agents and media companies. The panel was interesting, but unfortunately the main thing I got out of it is just how hard it is to sell your book to film or TV. It seemed to me that you really need someone who knows what they're doing to sell it. They said that you can't just send a book; you really need to send a package which includes the things that will catch the interest of a film or TV executive, including a book trailer. BooksToFilm.tv showed some of their trailers, or "Sizzle reels," as they called them, and I will say that I think they do a nice job with them, better than a lot of the ones I've seen.

While I was at the panel, Nick and David walked the exhibit floor and went to some autographing sessions.

At 2pm I attended the awards ceremony for the ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Awards. Ratha's Courage was a finalist in the fantasy and science fiction category, but unfortunately, it didn't win. I was thrilled to see that Women Astronomers: Reaching for the Stars, by by Mabel Armstrong, won the Gold award in the Young Adult Non-fiction category. I don't have any association with this book, but my friend and distributor, Jacqueline Simonds of Beagle Bay Books, distributes it, and I had purchased a copy last year for my niece.

At 3pm we lined up to get our autographed copy of Catching Fire. My son David was the first in line, because he was determined to get a copy and got there early. After all our hard work and early rising, we were thrilled to get a copy!

I ended the day by attending the 7x20x21 panel: "Publishing’s most innovate thinkers talk about what inspires them". There were 7 presenters, each of whom had 7 minutes and 20 PowerPoint slides to talk about whatever they wanted to talk about. Each slide moved forward automatically at 21 seconds, forcing the presentation to move quickly. The presenters were: Debbie Stier, Harper Studio; Pablo Defendini, Tor.com; Jeff Yamaguchi, Doubleday/Knopf; Matt Supko, ABA/Indiebound; Chris Jackson, Spiegel and Grau; Richard Nash, ex-Soft Skull; Lauren Cerand, independent public relations representative (from Richard Nash's blog)

The panel was fascinating, dynamic, and thought-provoking. I was particularly taken with Pablo Defendini's message that e-books and the digital word won't kill books, but instead will allow us to return to books as an art form and a craft, as all the mass-market type books move towards digital formats.

Friday evening I had planned to attend both the BEATweetup, a gathering of book people who Twitter, and the Kidlit Drinks Night, a gathering of children's book people, but by the end of the day I was so exhausted (and suffering from an ear infection) that I just didn't have the energy to do both. I attended the Kidlit Drink night, where I talked to Betsy Bird (who blogs at School Library Journal as Fuse #8), Pam Coughlan (who blogs at MotherReader), Cheryl Klein, Senior Editor at the Arthur A. Levine Books imprint of Scholastic (and Harry Potter editor), Barry Lyga, author of several books including The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl (and its forthcoming sequel, Goth Girl Rising), and other people whose names I've now forgotten (I'm sorry! I really am!) It was fun, but I only stayed about an hour; between the exhaustion and the ear infection, I had to get back to the hotel and collapse. Thanks so much to Betsy Bird for organizing it.

More BEA posts coming!

This was a very busy weekend for Kelley & Hall. We spent the past weekend in New York City attending both Book Expo America and Backspace Writers Conference. It was interesting to see both sides of the publishing industry. As we often say in our seminars, there are definitely two sides to writing; the creative and the business. This weekend was a great example of both. At Backspace we were able to meet a number of aspiring writers, fascinating people with interesting stories to tell, and we spoke to them about finding hooks, networking and media exposure. It is never too early to start marketing yourself and building a brand or platform.

At BEA, we met with everyone on the other side of publishing; the sales and marketing teams, the editors and agents, librarians and booksellers, authors, and, a reality star or two.

{Alex McCord and Simon van Kemp from The Real Housewives of New York}

{Jocelyn Kelley with Meg Cabot}

{David Meerman Scott}

{Olivia}

Typically, when booksellers attend the show, they grab galleys of some of the “hot” books for the Fall season. They then ship these galleys back to their stores. This is what the shipping room looks like; miles and miles of boxes as far as the eye can see. We found it interesting, and perhaps a sign of the changing times, that HarperCollins did not distribute any bound galleys and instead opted for postcards with access codes for people to download entire manuscripts to their computers or digital readers.

We will have to wait and see if this is a change that happens across the board.

For the most part, it was a more subdued BEA. There were fewer galleys and at times the show seemed to lack the typical excitement that it has shown in previous years. This is certainly a sign of the times, the current economic instability and the state of publishing houses.

It was still an entertaining and informative show, filled with interesting people and great books. And it was nice to be back in New York. Although, we were strangely captivated by what’s going on in Times Square. Apparently it is currently closed to cars and beach chairs have been provided by the city for people to sit back and relax and view New York in a way they never have before. Who knows how long this will last, or if the headache created by the traffic will cause it to end it’s run sooner than expected, but it was certainly a site to be seen.

I’m back from Book Expo America and oh, so weary. I’ll take you through the experience for those who want to know what it was like. For those who just want the highlights, I’ll be doing a separate post that will also list the books that I have for prizes for the 48 Hour Book Challenge.

I took the bus from Washington, DC, and highly recommend it for anyone who wants a decent but economical trip between the cities. It was a four-hour ride, with one fifteen-minute rest and food stop. I had two seats in which to stretch out and doze off. I arrived in NYC around 1:00 p.m., walked to the Javits Center, and checked my luggage there. I headed directly to the children’s books and autographing area.

Now, something I didn’t know about BEA is that the books are free. At ALA, the published books are usually about ten bucks. But here, both the ARC’s and the hardcover books could be signed for no charge. Love this! My books are being shipped, so I can’t confirm, but I’m pretty sure that on Friday I got books signed by Bruce Lansky, Craig Hatkoff, Meg Cabot, David Klass, Nick Bruel, Brandon Mull, Darryl Hagar, Mary Amato, Silas House, John Rocco, Don Calame, and Shannon Hale.

Most of these books I had signed to give as prizes for the 48 Hour Book Challenge, so I asked the authors to sign to “You’re a Winner!” Many of them looked at me to question my personal self-esteem issues, but that just gave me the chance to explain about the 48HBC and my blog. I also came up with the brilliant idea — if I do say so myself — of having them sign a T-shirt that I’d made to promote KidLitosphere Central. All of the authors were happy to sign the back of the shirt (I wasn’t wearing it), I got to talk about KidLitosphere Central, and I got my own signature to keep since I was giving away the books. Perfect.

There were many authors that I wanted to see at their signings, but the lines were so long that I had to be economical with my time. Also, there were a lot of conflicts among the schedule making it that much harder. I would have loved to see Gordon Korman, David Lubar, Katherine Paterson, Amy Krouse Rosenthal, John Agee, Amy Hest, and Rosemary Wells. I also missed Suzanne Collins, but I got the ARC of Catching Fire anyway.

Along with the autographing tables, I was checking out the displays of the children’s publishers. I talked to a few reps, ran into a few peeps, and took a few ARC’s. The ARC’s were slim pickings, but I hadn’t been planning on a big haul anyway since I’d have to pay to ship them home. Walking around by Scholastic, I saw Laini Taylor by her pink hair, and talked with her, Jim Di Bartolo, Barry Lyga (who had tried to escape from me earlier — Hah!) and Arthur Levine.

I ran into Trish of Hey, Lady! I recognized her red hair. Distinct hair is very helpful at BEA. We chatted, and then met up again at the Bloggers Booth sponsored by NetGalley where I saw Amy of My Friend Amy and Julie of Booking Mama.

Then I hit the wall. Went to my hotel, where I ended up walking in at the same time as Barry Lyga. And he thought he could escape me. Hah! He was on the phone at that moment with Robin Brande, so I said hi (I owe you a call, Robin!). I checked in the hotel, and took a much needed nap.

On the way to Kid Lit Drink Night, I grabbed food from the street vendors and ate on the way. Barry was already there and we talked for a while before it got too loud and crowded. I saw Betsy Bird immediately wearing a lovely sundress — the only one dressed appropriately for the tropical temperature of the bar — but as the hostess she was too busy for long chats. She brought me over to me two bloggers Pink Me and Pinot and Prose. I said hello, turned around to grab a drink before settling in for a chat, turned back, and they were gone. So it’s possible that upon meeting me, they decided to make a run for it or they think that I blew them off. I don’t know which is worse. Sheila Ruth from Wands and Worlds and Terry from Reading Tub also made the party, but I’m pretty sure that I was nice to them.

I also got some talking time with authors Erica Perl, Rebecca Stead, Michelle Knudsen, Ellen Jensen Abbott, Bonnie Wayne, Melanie Hope Greenberg, Kekla Magoon, Dawn Stephens (whose signing I was too late for, sorry!), Aileen Leijten, Fran Cannon Slayton, Julia DeVillers, Ann Haywood Leal, and Megan Crewe. Scholastic editor Cheryl Klein and I spent a few minutes on the bar stools chatting about picture books, the industry, and hair products. (Her hair is so shiny!)

Bloggers Natasha Maw, Amy, and Trish came over from the BEAtweetup party. Author/Illustrators Brian Floca and Eric Wight came from the ABA Not-A-Dinner party. Eric and I had emailed about his new book, so it was great to meet in person. Especially as he was such an interesting person. We also shared Jeff Kinney stories. Brian told me a little about his new book Moonshot, but was more interested in chilling out than networking.

The party died down around midnight, and I walked home picking up a black-and-white cookie on the way. I spent most of the walk kicking myself for not bringing my camera, so if anyone has any pictures of the Kid Lit Drink Night to share, let me know. I’d be ever grateful for some record of the day and/or night.

Later: Geektastic and Being Mouthy

So, I'm going to Book Expo America in about eight hours. I should be in bed, but I'm too wired. I'm trying to remember all of the things that I'm sure I'm forgetting. Even though I've spent a lot of the day getting ready, I feel completely unprepared. For instance, I'm still not sure if the jeans I packed are the good jeans. Should I even be packing jeans? Are dress pants more appropriate? Ack!

Over at Booklights, I talked about some of the authors and illustrators I plan to see at the various signings. I'll miss Mo (oh, will I ever miss him), but I am aiming for Scott Westerfeld, Katherine Paterson, Jon Scieszka, Rosemary Wells, Suzanne Collins, David Lubar, Amy Krouse Rosenthal, Peter McCarty, Sharon Draper, Linda Park, Maureen Johnson, Jon Agee, Peter Reynolds, Barry Lyga, Holly Black, Bruce Lansky, and Jerry Pinkney. Actually, I have even more folks highlighted on my schedule, but we'll see how it goes.

Now, I'm not listing all those names to make you jealous, but to give you an idea of the possibilities for signed book prizes for the 48 Hour Book Challenge. If you're jealous, than that's just a side benefit. Kidding!

I'm also scheduled for a slot at the blogger signing at Booth 4077. I'll be there at 11:00 a.m. on Sunday signing... something, I guess. For more information on the first official blogger signing, check out this article and the complete schedule. If you're at BEA, come by and say hello. Or if I come by and say hello, pretend to care. Everyone else not at BEA, wish me luck and good ARC's.

Tomorrow morning the exhibit halls open and Book Expo America, the annual gathering of the book tribe, goes into full swing. I'll be there with everyone else, wearing my comfortable shoes, wandering the floor, and attending some interesting sessions.

One thing that I'll be doing at BEA is a signing. No, I'm not an author, but Firebrand Technologies, the company behind NetGalley, had a brilliant idea: they're going to turn the traditional autographing sessions on their head, and host blogger signings in their booth. Every hour for the entire expo, two book bloggers will be at the Firebrand booth, #4077 (think M.A.S.H.!) to meet and greet any publishers, authors, and blog readers who might be interested.

I'll be signing (I'm not sure what I'll be signing, though) on Sunday from 11am to noon, accompanied by the fabulous MotherReader, Pam Coughlan. This is a good deal for me, because if no one shows up, at least I know she'll keep me laughing with her great sense of humor. In addition to our own blogs, we'll be talking Cybils and Kidlitosphere Central, so please stop by and chat with us!

There's also some talk that Firebrand might be making blogger trading cards, so make sure that you get a Wands and Worlds and a Mother Reader for your collection! (My son is saying, "Gotta catch 'em all!") I think this is even cooler than the signing itself.

There's a host of interesting bloggers signing, so you'd best just hang out at the Firebrand booth for the whole conference to meet them all. If you'd like to pick and choose so that you can spend time elsewhere, here's the full schedule:

http://followthereader.wordpress.com/2009/05/14/blogger-signing-schedule/

I hope to see you there!

When I came to work at First Book, I heard a lot about Book Expo America (BEA) - a weekend-long event for publishers, booksellers, educators and anyone who loves books and reading.

But it wasn’t until the following year when I experienced the show for myself that I truly understood what my colleagues were talking about. So many authors and books all under one roof! And did I mention that the galley copies of the books are free? Oh yes, my suitcase was twice as heavy when I came back from BEA that year.

This year, First Book is celebrating the books that made us readers for life with our “A Book Today, A Friend Forever” campaign, thanks to the support of our partners Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing and Book Expo America.

If you’re going to be at BEA in New York this weekend (May 29-31), look for us at booth #734 in the Javits Center. We’ll donate a new book in your honor just for stopping by!

We’ll also have great authors signing copies of their latest books at our booth - including James Patterson, Mo Willems, Kate DiCamillo and many more - you won’t want to miss it! Check out the full schedule of authors signing at the First Book booth after the jump and find out more about Book Expo America by visiting www.firstbook.org/bea and www.bookexpoamerica.com.

Friday, May 29

10:00 AM – 11:00 AM
Lucy Hawking, George’s Cosmic Treasure Hunt (Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing)

11:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Mo Willems, Elephants Cannot Dance! (Hyperion Books for Children)

1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
Michael Winerip, Adam Canfield: The Last Reporter (Candlewick Press)

2:30 PM – 3:30 PM
Linda Sue Park, Keeping Score (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

4:00PM – 4:30 PM
John Rocco, Moonpowder (Disney-Hyperion)

4:30 PM – 5:00 PM
Jon Agee, Orangutan Tongs (Disney-Hyperion)

Saturday, May 30

9:00 AM – 9:45 PM
Kate DiCamillo, Tale of Despereaux (Candlewick Press)

10:30 AM – 11:00 AM
James Patterson, Maximum Ride #4: The Final Warning (Little, Brown & Co.)

11:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Brandon Mull, Fablehaven: Grip of the Shadow Plague (Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing)

1:00PM – 2:00 PM
John Carter Cash, Momma Loves Her Little Son (Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing)

Sunday, May 31

10:00 AM – 11:00 AM
Erica Perl, Chicken Bedtime is Really Early (Abrams Books for Young Readers)

11:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Matthew Reinhart, Pop Up Book of Nursery Rhymes (Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing)

Who signed in the autograph area?

Forget the TV/movie stars like Brooke Shields, Cheech Marin, and Barbara Walters. The real stars were our debut authors! Signing in the autograph area were:

That's Donna!

What Class of 2k8 books were spotted?

The Unnameables by Ellen Booraem, The Lucky Place by Zu Vincent, & Swimming With The Sharks by Debbie Reed Fischer

Thousands of terrific books were up for grabs for anyone brave enough to weave through the crowd, stand in line, or fight for floor space. What a great day!

Stay tuned tomorrow we have more from the floor of BEA!

Arianna Huffington was at BEA in Los Angeles signing her new book RIGHT IS WRONG. As you can see, she was quite the multitasker! Yes, that would be Ms. Huffington signing a copy of her book while talking on her cell phone with a Starbucks coffee not far from her hands.

Book Expo America returned to Los Angeles May 29- June 1st. BEA is the industry's top trade show and is a great opportunity to check out publishers' new fall titles and meet publishers face to face. There are education and information sessions, author breakfasts and lunches, special events, and many chances to network.

Next year's BEA will take place at the Jacob Javits Center in NYC from May 28- May 31, 2009.

Anastasia Suen is blogging about BEA all this week at her blog and I'm excited to hear how the event went.

If you plan on attending next year, WOW! offers some great tips on attending BEA.

Purdy, Director of Publicity, is in LA this weekend at Book Expo America. He will be reporting from the action for those of us left in NYC.

Live from the convention floor of BEA in LA. For those not in the know BEA stands for Book Expo America, the largest convention of publishers, media, bookstore owners, librarians and book lovers in the US and abroad. Super rep George Carroll from the great northwest just entered the OUP booth to say hello. Always great to see George! So far the floor is media lite, but we are encouraged by a steady stream of booksellers, librarians, authors et al who have passed through the booth to pick up an OED 80th anniversary tote with a copy of Reading the OED by Ammon Shea tucked inside. I am happy to say we have some great neighbors here in the 1700 aisle, with Harlequin across the way, HarperCollins a row away, the Perseus Group around the corner.

Darren Shannon, former OUP senior publicist cum Publicity Manager of Cambridge University Press was seen in the OUP booth earlier this morn all shorn and suited. I barely recognized him is his respectable guise. I had to cut our visit short when Donna Freitas, author of Sex and the Soul, made a booth appearance to express her great satisfaction with coverage of her book to date. Kudos to Kelly Hughes and our own Claudia Dizenzo for their great good efforts.

That’s BEA today, baby. More later.

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Book Expo America is in Los Angeles this year and I'm thrilled because L.A is my home town. I'll miss New York this spring but I'm happy to be close to home. AmoXcalli will be covering the event each evening. There will be photos, tales from the busy floor, hopefully interviews with authors if I can get them and party coverage. Most of all BEA is about the books and I'll be doing a lot of reporting on the books.

Is anyone going? Would you like to meet up? I'd love to hang out over coffee or a drink. First time in L.A.? Need suggestions of things to do after the show? I'm an Angeleno born and raised and LA is my town. I know where the best out of the way (non-fancy) places to eat are in downtown. Send me an email or a comment and I'll do my best to answer your L.A. questions.

Authors and illustrators, publishers and booksellers, I want to meet as many of you as I can and find out what's new, what's hot, what you're doing.

If you're a Latino children's or YA author, illustrator or publisher, I'd love to do interviews for Cuentecitos, my other blog that focuses on Latino Children's and YA literature. I'll also be covering the Latino panels, the graphic novel panels and all the editor buzz sessions. I'm going to be a busy, busy girl. Good thing I'll have help from my lovely photographer/daughter-in-law Marissa and a few other friends who are attending to get news, photographs and maybe even some video for AmoXcalli and Cuentecitos.

It's going to be fun! Welcome to L.A. Book Expo!