The books that are the focus at Book Expo (BEA for short) are the ones that will be published the following fall, so Fall, 2015 this year. Galleys, or early reader copies, abound and many of us run around sharing stories about who scored what.

Last year, I had a couple of authors at BEA, and even had a client doing a cooking demo from his latest book (photo below, the waffle chocolate chip cookies were delicious!).

The past couple of years I’ve waited to get signed books from children’s authors, and last year I scored a big one with a special BEA edition copy of B.J. Novak’s THE BOOK WITH NO PICTURES. One of my colleagues saw me and took a picture when I was getting it signed.

And then of course, there are the parties that precede and follow BEA. Many publishers host parties at their offices, and some rent out space at local restaurants. Last year’s Harper party was epic, and not just because they were promoting their epic reads teen website!

Last year, I even got to see my mom doing an event for her own book at BEA, a fun first.

The past couple of years they’ve also included a consumer post-BEA event called Bookcon, which has generated enormous interest and huge bestselling authors come to events where the public can buy tickets, meet the authors and get books signed. This year the lineup is pretty outstanding, and I suspect it’s going to continue to be a big draw in the years to come.

Thought you might enjoy a sneak peek at what we’re all focusing on this week. If you can’t find us, now you know why!

Take a look at the website links, and let us know what events you’d be most interested in attending, and which authors you’d love to see at BEA. Maybe next year, you can join us.

Office politics plays a role in publishing, same as in any other industry. In China, it’s Party politics.

Peter Hessler’s piece in the New Yorker not only sheds some light on the Chinese publishing industry and the extent to which it is controlled by the government, but it also begs an interesting question—one to which I don’t have a confident answer.

Should authors allow their work to be censored if it means bringing their book to a new market and a fresh audience?

I don’t know. As Americans, our freedom of expression valued as highly as it is, our initial reaction is: absolutely not. After all, allowing your manuscript to be censored can be seen as passive endorsement of government propaganda. But when the alternative is not being published, can you really deny an entire country of people your ideas? Change is often incremental, and many publishers in China are doing an admirable job working around the realities of censorship to bring fresh, sometimes controversial literature to the Chinese people.

What do our readers think? Does anyone have experience dealing with such issues?

The cabin in which I was staying was laid out in such a way that no reasonable light could be left on for reading. I could squint at my smartphone, but the books I brought with me remained in my suitcase.  That is, until the last day, when I finished one, (Remedy: Robert Koch, Arthur Conan Doyle and the Quest to Cure Tuberculosis—riveting) started another (David Mitchell’s  complex and fantastical novel The Bone Clocks) and reacquainted myself with the singular pleasure of knowing I’m in the midst of a good book. Subtle and intoxicating, the sensation of something to look forward to makes me feel like a kid again, when even my impatience to return to a book just heighten the delight of reentry.

Before acquiring the galley for The Bone Clocks at BEA, I’d not read anything that Mitchell wrote, nor seen the tepidly received film adaptation of Cloud Atlas. It took me a few sections before I oriented myself to his style of interlocking stories, and a few more still before I started to see how they all fit together, but what a magnificent imagination that Mitchell has!

Now that I am back on the east coast and it’s reliably dark by 9:30, I’ve finished the book and am looking, hungrily, for another.  What book have you read recently that left you longing to get back to it?

$16 for this, folks.

As you heard from Jessica, last week brought the crowds and chaos of Book Expo to the cavernous Javits Center. Once you’ve got a few BEAs tucked under your belt, it’s easy to get a little jaded, or even grumpy – yes, it’s cold in there. Yes, the floors are hard, the food is overpriced (and not good), the aisles are crowded, and all the hot galleys vanish so quickly! I get it, I do. But I still kind of love BEA. And I recognize that it’s an incredible privilege to GET to attend, let alone have my entry pass and day out of the office handed to me.

Sure, it’s fun to dash around collecting pens, buttons, posters, even ice cream sandwiches and champagne, if you work it right! It’s fantastic to be handed early copies of books you’re dying to read, and to have publicists shoving books you’ve never heard of in your hand, promising you it’s going to be amazing (one of these I read in one sitting over the weekend because omg yes it IS that good). And, when you’re Industry, it’s also a bit of a reunion week. You get to catch up with friends from previous jobs that you haven’t seen in a year, or meet contacts face-to-face that you email every day or know from Twitter. If you’re lucky one of your industry pals might even let you stash your bag of galleys under their table so your back doesn’t break!

Bag of books!

But it’s not really about the free stuff or the socializing. As Jessica said, BEA is “a tangible manifestation of people whose lives revolve around reading.” At BEA I chatted with a blogger from Georgia who was thrilled out of her mind to be at BEA. She had cashed in frequent flyer miles and was sharing a hotel room with three other ladies in order to be there. In another line I talked to a delightful mother-daughter pair of children’s librarians from Iowa who were so eager to meet children’s book authors – not just to meet them, but to talk to them about the books their little patrons love and the books they believe need to exist. They took their responsibility to the kids in their community so incredibly seriously. I was inspired.

I love working in publishing in NYC, but it’s also so easy to take it for granted because I get to live and breathe books without even trying. I am surrounded by indie bookstores and could go to an author event every night of the week. I don’t have to plan my year around one big book event, or spend my vacation in a grim convention center. So I’m going to try to be a little less crabby about BEA’s inconveniences next year. And in the meantime, I’m going to work even harder on my little corner of publishing to make sure that the bloggers in Georgia and the librarians in Iowa get incredible books to keep them excited about reading. Because that’s what this industry is really all about. And I’m proud to be a part of it.

Have you ever been to BEA?

This post comes from the midst of Book Expo America, publishing’s annual trade fair that is staged in the cavernous interior of New York’s Jacob Javits convention center, a glass and steel behemoth hunkered down beside the Hudson. The Javits Center looks a good deal like an airport, complete with footsore travelers,  overpriced food and wheeled luggage, (but without planes, TSA pat-downs or conveniently located bathrooms.)  In the exhibitors halls stretch several football fields worth of booths—some small, some sprawling and beautifully appointed–and all bent on giving stuff away:  books, galleys, catalogs, posters, blads, postcards, totebags,  pens, custom-made gingersnaps…

 Beneath this hive of activity is the  purgatory they call the food court and a complex warren of meeting rooms that are as impossible to find as they are windowless, but where all manner of interesting meetings and panel discussions are taking place. This year, I was determined to attend a few. I sat in on a panel hosted by the Women’s Media Group that explored success amidst the shifting landscape of the publishing industry, where I got to listen to a quintet of accomplished women discuss their career paths. I’d also promised myself that this year I would not return home laden with galleys and books I had no business taking, that I would adhere to a strict look-don’t-take policy.  Of course I broke this promise almost immediately.   But who can say no to so many beautifully packaged, cleverly positioned books?  I am counting the minutes until I can dive into the galley of Michel Faber’s new novel. I loved the Crimson Petal and the White and Under the Skin, and while I rarely think that speculative fiction is my cup of tea, I’m willing to admit my ideas about tea might be wrong.

 Jut a little while ago, I got a funny e-mail message from an editor friend who assiduously avoids BEA, wondering if I actually like attending.  And I do. I like BEA because it affords me an opportunity to see out-of-town editors with whom I’ve previously only corresponded, to reconnect with  old friends (and make new ones in the dependably long queue for the ladies room).  But I love BEA because it is a visual, immersive, and tangible manifestation of people whose lives revolve around reading.

As ever, I have far too much reading to do to even consider cracking open one of these new ARCs, but it’s always possible that on the train home this evening, one might slip from my bag, accidentally fall open in my lap, and keep me captive for the duration of the ride.

Book Expo is a terrific opportunity to meet with out of town publishers, say hello to New York colleagues whom I see all too rarely, and survey the coming season of books.  Also to learn a few things (and not just the location of the “secret” ladies’ room with no line). On Tuesday I attended a  thought provoking conference on book marketing, hosted by the online magazine Publishing Perspectives.  I was curious to note that Harper Collins has hired a VP of “Consumer Insight” to better understand—and ideally grow—its audience, while  Jo Henry  of the global market research company Bowker brought me up short by predicting the demise  of bookstores and traditional review outlets inside five years. Gulp.  I don’t actually agree,  but in the event she’s correct, I’d better hurry to my next meeting.

This year, the space itself was noticeably smaller than last year (and recent years past) with fewer exhibitors.  And despite the fact that we attended on “opening day”  the crowds and excitement seemed diminished.

The fact of the matter is that our business is going through some real upheavals. E-book sales continue to grow and this is pushing down the number of physical books sold.  The mass market distribution system has almost totally collapsed and so those categories previously published in mass market are either not being published or are being published exclusively online. The Department of Justice lawsuit has distracted everyone and if the settlement isn’t overturned or changed, the future of independent bookstores could be in jeopardy because they simply will not be able to compete against Amazon.  Self-publishing online is becoming far more “acceptable” and many writers are beginning to make a very good living doing this.  And then there are those of us who are helping in the self-publishing/e-book publishing process and establishing new branches of our business in order to keep up with the times.

Indeed, walking around the hall, I heard many who were genuinely worried about the future of our industry.  But then there are others of us who are excited about the innovation that is taking place.  Yes, many of these changes are challenging, but I am personally delighted to face them and see what we can do to help our clients understand and deal with them – and ultimately benefit from them. I think the only way to go forward at this point, is not to look back at any mistakes our industry has made and move forward to make sure the book, in whatever format, continues to thrive and that writers are encouraged to produce new and exciting material.

Most of all, we cannot forget that one of the reasons we are in this business is that our colleagues, by and large, are truly a great group, and that we all have the same goals in common.  Remembering this will make our work going forward more satisfying…if not easier. I, for one, am looking toward many more BEAs and an exciting new world of publishing.

My favorite thing about BEA (Besides, obviously the free totebags and galleys, oh, and also chocolate. There’s so much chocolate.), are the author signings. Some are celebrities, yes, and others are big name authors who already have a huge fan base, but there are also a large percentage of first time authors on the schedule, sitting at their respective booths with a  big stack of galleys, a pen and a line of eager readers waiting for their copy.

Both the publishing industry and the readers it caters to are still excited about new talent—a good story and great writing can still beat out the name on the cover. What other chance will a reader have to chat, however briefly, with an author whose work they love, or whose story they identify with? Having that personal connection with the author of a book can enrich the reading experience, even if your conversation consisted solely of a discussion of your mutual love of glitter nail polish, which you both happened to be wearing. Yes, this was an actual conversation I had with an author at a book signing. And yes, it was great and yes, I enjoyed her book more for it.

Where in normal circumstances, you have to go out of your way to one bookstore to see one author and get one book signed, at BEA there are dozens of authors and dozens of books and everyone is equally as excited (if not more, in some cases—I’m looking at you, Chris Colfer fans) about the prospect of meeting multiple authors as you are.

What’s your greatest book signing/author meeting story? Did you find it changed your perception of the book at all? How great is glitter nail polish?

From Publishing Trends, it seems like the hot topics this year are eBooks (natch) and self-publishing, with the various pros and cons debated as they’ve been ad nauseum for the past year.  From Publishing Perspectives,  we get the news that foreign publishers are going to sell eBooks here in the States, complicating further the territorial disputes that arose with the first wave of e-publishing. And then, we have this surprising piece of news from the American Booksellers Association: their membership of independent booksellers rose by 3.5%, or 55 stores, in the past year.

So on the one hand, we have eBooks and self-publishers taking over the world—and on the other, independent bookstores not just holding their own but increasing in number.

In other words–huh?

I’m heading over to the Javits Center tomorrow to check it out for myself, but if any readers have been over today, I’d love to hear impressions—especially if there are any galleys worth seeking out. Which, really, is the best feature of BEA anyway: in the end, it all does come back to the books.