BilmBlog500

So here are some of the things seen at Day #1 of Book Expo America, the biggest trade show for e book publishing industry in the United States... The Rebellion/Solaris booth gave first look at a finished book copy of Dead of Veridon by Tim Akers, which goes on sale next week. Sometimes a book cover looks different on an actual book than in the steps along the way. This one looks nicer than I might have expected. The Macmillan Audio catalog has a special "Just Announced" insert page for Mistborn: The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson . Because they hadn't planned to offer a retail consumer product, but I persuaded them to give it a think and they decided that they in fact should. Me happy. Next, trying to persuade them to provide physical consumer product for the original Mistborn trilogy. If you would like to see that, let me know. Charlaine Harris and Toni L.P. Kelner doing a joint book signing at the MWA booth. Hard to believe, but this is Charlaine's first ...

There were two trends in evidence at Book Expo that I'm not fond of. One is the switch to the electronic catalog, which was exemplified by HarperCollins, and which I started to see with some UK publishers at London Book Fair in April. In some ways, the paper catalog is a relic of a past age, and I can admit that.  It's fixed.  The London catalog for JABberwocky will always be out of date by the time I actually get to London and start handing it out.  An electronic catalog can be updated regularly.  It's very expensive to mail.  Postage goes up every year, and my catalog gets bigger every year.  With the percent of sales coming from major accounts as big as it is, you spend that ever-increasing sum of money to attract orders from a smaller pool. So yes, if I can cut back on the number I mail overseas after the Fair because more of my sub-agents are comfortable sending a PDF to more of the publishers they work with in a world of translation markets, that makes me happy.  Why,...

I did promise some more posts about Book Expo America... One of the most important questions of all is whether BEA has a future. BEA was once known as ABA, and was the official annual show for American Booksellers Association.  The Book Expo America thing was intended to broaden the event.  It still has ABA involvement but is run by the same Reed Exhibitions people that do London Book Fair and many other non-publishing shows.  It was intended as the big opportunity for booksellers and librarians to connect with publishers, find out about their fall lists specifically, meet authors and one another, place orders, etc. I've never seen BEA as entire essential myself.  In large part because I can probably do 90% of what I'd like to do in a single day, so if it's in NYC and you can go for a day you can go for a day, but it's not something really worth traveling very far to attend.  DC, quick train ride, maybe.  Chicago enh.  LA not.  But the show would move around to these va...

BEA, or Book Expo America, is the big trade show for trade publishing in the United States, and was held in New York City a couple weeks ago.  I'll do some posts over the next several days either about or inspired by the event.  Here are some photos I took (or in some cases, mis-took, because they're blurrier than we would want; I guess I'm not a professional photographer). The first comes from inside the Javits Center, where a nice Sookie Stackhouse display was at the front entrance to the Penguin booth.  Very nice views of the current DEAD AND GONE hardcover and the True Blood Season 2 tie-in edition cover for LIVING DEAD IN DALLAS.  I am very fond of both.  And then there was the big, bold, beautiful True Blood billboard on W. 39th St. at the intake into the Lincoln Tunnel, and isn't that a nice way to start and finish the day heading to and from the Javits Center each day. The next very blurry picture was taken at the Prometheus Books booth.  The wonderful Pyr SF l...