BEA
I must admit — I am egg-hausted (as is the rest of the book publishing industry). Tuesday, I attended the opening CEO panel about “The Value of the Book” at Book Expo America (and very nearly fell off my seat when Farrar, Straus & Giroux’s President and Publisher Jonathan Galassi scoffed at the thought of consumers spending time reading enhanced ebooks) and also the 7x20x21 panel about the future of publishing. Wednesday, I helped hold down the fort at the booth and met lots of folks including Michelle from Galleysmith, Trish from Hey Lady! Watcha Readin’?, Nicole from Linus’s Blanket, and Stephanie from Stephanie’s Written Word. I’m really looking forward to catching up with lots more book bloggers this Friday at Book Blogger Convention.
Ironically, for a conference at which change was the buzz word — changes in traditional book publishing, changes in the media, changes in reader habits — BEA was held in the Neanderthal version of a convention hall otherwise known as the Javits Center. As many tweeps know, I have been complaining bitterly on Twitter about the lack of extra power outlets there. Has anyone ever heard of a convention center that did not have extra power outlets? Even in the Internet Cafe?! So of course my laptop started dying, then my MiFi card (I think I saw somewhere that the Javits Center was charging $45 / day for WiFi access), then my cell phone. (In all fairness, the lack of 2.0 amenities is not BEA’s fault — the Javits Center has a monopoly on, well, space in Manhattan, so they pretty much call all the shots.)
Thursday I’ll be on the floor pretty much all day, which means I most definitely deserve a reward from Cupcake Cafe.
