#BEA14 & #TheBookCon: Not Such a Great Marriage of Events

Post-Memorial Day weekend people in the publishing/book industry had to mentally and physically prepare to go into Jacob Javits Center with guns blazing for Book Expo of America. Book Expo took place from May 28th to May 31st, with the exhibition floor opening on May 29th for signings and events. This year I took a much more mellow approach than in previous years having worked the event and attended. I have to say this experience allowed me to get out of tunnel vision and get into the show more widely. I'd recommend this to anyone. Scope out the authors you're really interested in seeing or getting books from and go from there to panels or reviewing the exhibitors and what they're doing. Add that in by going to sit-down lunches with former coworkers and friends, viewing the entirety of the floor, attending panels all made it a much more full experience than standing in line after line after line or running all around trying to make attendees happy.

Book Expo (aka BEA)

Let's talk scale. I've been going to Book Expo every year that it's been in NYC since 2003. This probably accumulates to six or seven times and in the span of one decade it has changed considerably, and, in some aspects, for the better. The single exhibition floor was put in place a few years back and serves as a better way to move from booth to signing to panels on the main stages and so on rather than splitting the difference.

The panels, I must say, were a bit disjointed to me in that they seemed very cursory. Understandably one has 50-80 minutes to educate a crowd on a specific topic and the info is really industry specific, however, in panels such as How to Market Authors Who are Inaccessible or How to Better Tag your Metadata, if you're already familiar with this and do it in your day-to-day job you more than likely learned nothing too groundbreaking. Yet, for self-published authors, as it was good to see, this is information that can be significant to how to better establish your platform and understand what's being done on the production side of your book.

Some more technical events happened on Midtown Stage and I was glad to go to one with a co-worker with the head of Adobe InDesign on updates on how to utilize this software to make ePub files in the new Creative Cloud. More technical aspects of the digital world may have you better suited to register for IDPF which often runs a day or so before BEA in Javits on the lower level.

Pavilions can be hit or miss. One can assume that many of the digital vendors are in the Digital Zone when others are spread out in other areas of the exhibit hall. Same can be said for university presses (whose appearances in booths at BEA have been steadily dwindling due to budgets and wondering if the reach is as wide as it is for trade). Vanity presses like Month9Books made appearances on BookCon day but there were many smaller booths that weren't around or were overwhelmed by lines winding through and around their booths from some of the major trade publishers.

When we discuss organization during the event, publishers seem to have gotten hip to the ticket craze. Even in-booth signings have tickets requiring this traded in for a signed book/blad/ARC. Learning from the overwhelming response to Rainbow Rowell's appearance last year Macmillan had tickets for those who wanted a signed copy before her signing guaranteeing you a book and hopefully a shorter wait. Random House had initiated tickets last year and signs held high with author pictures in addition to the listed time of their signings for easy location and no drama or worries.

The autograph area is always somewhat of a zoo, especially for big names like Libba Bray, Ann M. Martin, RL Stine, Holly Black, Maggie Stiefvater, and others (yes, those are all YA authors and their lines were insane).

What else is of note is that more and more Book Expo seems to host additional celebrities in conjunction with established authors. Celebrities jumping into children's books or picture books, cookbooks, and memoir. Anjelica Huston and Neil Patrick Harris signed blads of their upcoming memoirs. Debi Mazar signed cookbooks with her husband Gabriele Corcos thanks to the popularity of their Cooking Channel show Extra Virgin. Dominique Ansel signed recipe cards and offered chocolatey treats for an ever-growing line for his "secrets" to his desserts. And Jason Segel co-authored a middle grade series with author Kirsten Miller for Nightmares a book based on a screenplay he wrote when he was 21. But the celebrities don't get all the love.

E. Lockhart's new novel We Were Liars cause chaos among bloggers and teens alike with the continued hype of this book. Ann M. Martin's return with a new series Rain/Reign had people of all ages lining up for a chance to see her. Carl Hiassan and David Mitchell, James Patterson and James Frey, Sylvia Day and so on.

While Book Expo is industry specific with bloggers, librarians, booksellers, distributors, media, and others in the industry attending it does reflect the overall excitement and intrigue of an industry that aims to please it's best customers.

BookCon

This year BEA's Power Reader Day became BookCon. Sadly, BookCon was not worth the hype and what anyone who attended last year as a Power Reader remembers was stripped from BookCon customers.

BookCon (formerly Power Reader Day) opened BEA up to those who weren't in the industry but who were book lovers. It allowed them to get access to an event they wouldn't have been able to see and get freebies and learn more in the same breath. BookCon tix were for one day, May 31st which overlapped with the final day of BEA and they were $30 for adults, $5 for kids. And apparently, there was no cap on how many tickets were sold or how many attendees could fit into Javits.

But let me back up. Javits for BookCon was not the same as Javits for BEA attendees like myself. Oh no, BookCon was cordoned off into a section a bit over a third of the size of the entirety of Javits' main exhibition hall. Many publishers/exhibitors were cut off from BookCon and many, many more BookCon participants were not able to see the rest of BEA. Bulky security in red shirts and black pants loomed over those areas that drew a line between the two conventions. Yes, we were segregated.

I don't know if all exhibitors were made aware of this or not but of those that weren't they seemed surprised, especially with so many families around and potential for sales. In terms of the scope almost 10,000 (or more if reports get solidified) people came to BookCon and in a space significantly smaller than all of BEA this proved a hard maze to navigate through. And it most certainly felt like a safety hazard.

Lines for panels happening in conjunction with uPublishU were not lines but clusters of people positioned in front of a door to try and guarantee them a seat. Others at the Main Event Stage wove through the ground floor and around the registration desks. The line for BookCon attendees to get in was reminiscent of several cronut lines back-to-back. It was insane and the separation to get tickets for autographs in the autograph area was not clear.

As a BEA attendee I had access to BookCon but it did not go the opposite way, which caused much concern and irritation among those who originally purchased a one-day BEA ticket to have that magically changed to this new thing called "BookCon." Friends of mine in attendance for BookCon only insisted that they would not return to BookCon as is. And that they barely got anything due to the numerous lines making it hard to even browse. Another issue seemed to be that there were more publishers selling things rather than giving them away. In the PW BEA Edition organizers wanted to see how BookCon fared in order to decide if they'll have BEA/BookCon happen over 4 days with BEA going from May 28-30 and then BookCon from May 30-31. This, I imagine, would give anyone working these days in both areas reasons to curl up and rock themselves back to sanity.

There are many improvements to be made for BookCon and one I strongly suggest is not having it overlap with BEA if it means cordoning off an area for the attendees and scrunching so many people into a small(er) space. Also, monitor sales! Exhibitor attendance for BEA has gone done yet that doesn't mean attendee numbers should significantly rise!

A highlight for me of BookCon were the panels. Namely the #WeNeedDiverseBooks campaign that had a packed house of intrigued and supportive parties. However, BEA also had a panel held at the same time questioning why there wasn't more diversity with African Americans in publishing consisting of agents, editors, and entrepreneurs. In the BEA program there was a list of some, yet not all BookCon events meaning you had to get the BookCon material day of to discern what was happening. And the apps! The BEA app nor the BookCon app speak to each other making it hard for those who are BEA registrants to be able to see everything in one seamless page.

Oh, I could go on, but a blog post should be but so long. Next year BEA will be in NYC again before leaving after several years in my hometown to go to Chicago. I don't know if BEA will return to NYC or stay in Chicago for awhile, but what I sincerely hope is that if BookCon stays it becomes better organized for the safety and happiness of those who love books. The last thing anyone wants to do is antagonize book lovers because they are what keep the publishing industry going.

#ArtistTherapy: Tortoise & the Hare (Things Take Time)

"I write so slow..." I've heard this numerous times from various writers. I've even said it myself. At a writers' conference several years ago I bemoaned the fact that my linked anthology (now in year 7) was taking a long time. (Then I was 3-4 years into it.) The instructor for my workshop did a "real talk" moment. "You're acting as if writing should be an efficient process, Jennifer. It's not."

True words. It's the Tortoise and the Hare scenario of what wins out. Fast or slow and steady? I've met artists who have complained or regretted that they didn't initiate their art sooner. Ones who were frustrated that their art wasn't as good as it could be and why, oh why, was this the case? I have friends who joked that their novel is in it's pre-adolescent stage. I've had critique partners who could draft, revise, and again revise a book in a year or less. And others who've taken a couple years. And several who've taken a decade or more.

I know I am not a fast writer per se. When it comes to short or even flash fiction it can take me months if not years to revise a piece to a point where I (and my critique partners) are satisfied. I have stories that are years in the making and still don't make sense. I have pieces that feel done and may very well not be but we're going to set them aside for now while I work on something that requires some TLC.

Susanna Daniels took 10 years to write her debut Stiltsville. She noted that this was because she wasn't writing the whole time but because life happened amidst her writing. She got married, had a baby, worked. . . . Those outside of the creative world may wonder "Why does [this] take so long?" Perhaps they're picturing you sitting at a desk, on the floor, in the middle of a studio with your creative tool of choice and working on it every day, day in and day out, non-stop. This is not the reality. Even published authors for the most part have jobs. And emerging artists especially, unless blessed with financial backing of some sort, are more than likely working full-time jobs in addition to pursuing their art.

Writing for me is work. It's a job that I do not yet get compensated for. I have bills to pay, a grad school loan, and parents who will not cover my expenses. So guess what? Sometimes work that pays wins out over work that doesn't. And this can stretch into time that is not focused on creation or editing, but on maintaining the life you have. That's the reality.

There are also other realities. Like being stuck. Like not knowing how to follow through on an idea you like/love. Perhaps you don't have the community around you that would help you to follow through on a project (or projects) and this takes away some joie de vivre from the act of creating when there may not be anyone to readily share it with. What if you have no critique partners? What if you're intimidated by the ones you do have? What if you get a slew of rejections that takes some of the wind out of you? What happens when family commitments, tragedies, unexpected occurrences, and so on come into play? And that thing you do, the one that's more than a hobby but is a passion and a need, may get held up.

There are so many factors of why the work itself may not be done in a time allotted. Not everyone has the opportunity that author Harper Lee did where a friend said "Hey! I'll support you for a year but you better finish that book." Not many of us have the knowledge on how to fix a work so readily that we will meet a deadline. It's simply not in the cards for us all.

But what about the market? Timing is everything in the market, right? That's true to an extent. Even recent National Book Award winner James McBride said that timing does play a role. But so does talent. And in the end what do you want out there reflecting your work?

An artist will rarely, if ever, ask, "What's taking you so long?" because they'll understand what can be keeping the work from progressing. Be it personal, professional, creative, or other. Another artist will not pressure you to finish soon, but to finish, period. Hopefully you can relinquish the burden of being fast, of seeing all the sales and figures for people selling things now, of those striking while the iron is hot, hot, hot. It takes how long it takes. Creation is not fast or slow. It's a pace that works for the creator. Supposedly, God created the world in seven days, but I'll tell you what, I bet God wasn't on a deadline or anything.

#MyWritingProcess Blog Tour

Maybe you've heard about the My Writing Process (Blog) Tour, maybe you haven't. If not consider this your intro. The tour's been going on for a few months and I'm delighted to have been asked to join in by my writer buddy overseas Laura Rueckert, whose answers on her process you'll find at www.laurarueckert.com. And here's my contribution to this fine tour we have going on:

What am I working on? 

Lots. My baby, so to speak, is a linked anthology about an interracial family that spans several decades and three generations. This collection has been my "White Whale" in a way in that I've been working on it for several years and it's gone through a complete metamorphosis making me a much better writer over the course of the process.

Last fall I started drafting a contemporary YA suspense. And I have a few flash fiction pieces and essays that I am either refining or drafting as well. I tell you, there is simply not enough time in the day.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?  

Short answer would be the diversity aspect as it is, unfortunately, not numerous in the literary realm (in all genres). I don't necessarily focus on race and racial tension as a person of color, but I think there is a need for literature to reflect reality and reality is quite diverse. My whole world has been an amalgam of various races, people, sexualities and such that my prose will always reflect that. I am also a very character-driven writer and I like to mix it up in terms of elements. I like to focus on people, psychology, and sometimes a slight twist on our reality and history. It's fun to rethink history and create it anew, for better or worse.

Why do I write what I do?

I wrote very bad poetry in high school and undergrad. It didn't fit me. I'm a bit long-winded at times, but the short form (and long form) is something I very much enjoy. Point blank: I like making things up. I also like detailing what I see, hear, and feel. So fiction and nonfiction/journalistic fits more for me because I feel like I have more space to truly expose, or explore, what and who is around me.

How does my writing process work?

My process is to sit down and do it. It's usually a burst when it comes to the drafting/writing phase. Just get words down on paper/screen, is my focus initially. And I can sit down for hours in a comfy chair with my laptop writing. This past Christmas while visiting my grandmother, she consistently passed the room. I had sat in a La-Z-Boy for up to seven hours with my laptop on my lap writing. "You okay?" she asked a few times. "Yup!" I shouted. When I'm in the zone I get stuff done.

Molding and refining my work is what I do after the fact. I keep every draft I write (I date each one), sometimes it helps to go back and see what I did earlier in the process or see what may or may not be salvaged. But yeah, (1) write like a fiend, (2) refine like the fiend you were previously, (3) get feedback, because invariably there's always something that needs more work than you thought.

That is my process, in a nutshell.

I've invited (or tagged) the following writers whose work I admire and enjoy to also participate and I'm glad they're up for it! You can see their posts on their process next week.

I present . . .

Megan Cooley Peterson is a writing-reading-pizza-coffee addict from the frozen tundra, aka Minnesota. She has written a YA contemporary, a YA romantic thriller, and an upmarket women’s fiction manuscript. She is currently drafting a manuscript about witchcraft that she can’t stop obsessing over. When not working on fiction, Megan writes and edits children’s nonfiction books about topics ranging from gross animal facts to urban legends. She lives with her husband and darling daughter.

Megan and I met via Twitter and she is one of the sweetest and supportive, and most dedicated writers I have ever engaged with. And after reading one of her manuscripts I can attest she's going to be a force to be reckoned with in the publishing world.

Karen McCoy first got the writing bug when she read The Babysitters Club series at age eight, but almost gave up after a bad grade during a creative writing class in college. Fast forward years later, to an HR training for her librarian job in 2008. She got out a pen and started her first novel, in her head, ever since that first writing class. She's currently studying for her MFA in creative writing at Northern Arizona University. She not only blogs at her site Writer Librarian, but also contributes to Operation Awesome on Mondays.

Karen and I met at the GlenWest Conference in New Mexico a couple years ago and her tenacity and excitement for writing inspire me all the time.

Thanks again Karen & Megan for joining in and I look forward to hearing more about your process(es)!

If you've done a post for the My Writing Process blog tour lemme know so I can read it.  :-)

#PiePartyGE: 2014 Edition

It seems eons ago since the last Pie Party. In truth, it was a year and a half ago and sadly Hurricane Sandy ripped through NYC days after that event. But with a renewed city and on an actual spring day Jackie Gordon and Ken Leung organized another fantastic event at GE Monogram Design Center on midtown's east side.

The GE Monogram Center is basically the dream kitchen of anyone who likes to cook and for those in the food blogger/media community it is Shangri-La. The anticipation for this event was building and with the Parade of Pies list on Ken's site lips were smacking staring at the compendium of what would be available.

Weeks leading up to Pie Party, attendees got emails from sponsors being overly generous in offering items to help us bake our pies. Butter and/or cheeses from Kerrygold. Utensils from OXO. Tupperware to pack leftover pies for later consumption from Snapware and that's in addition to the goodies provided from sponsors Anolon, Harvard Common Press, Dub Pies, Jarlsberg USA, Wüsthof (as well as OXO, Snapware, and Kerrygold). THANK YOU ALL for your kindness.

Upon entering the GE Monogram Center the staff was readily recognizable and decked out all in black ready to help. Need something heated? Done. Need extra serving materials? Done. Need your stuff put away? Arms out to take it for you. They were ready to help at a notice and even cleared away plates to wash/rinse off for you to take home. It was amazing how generous and professional everyone was.

There was a nice backdrop for anyone and everyone to take a picture of your pie. As Jackie said she wanted this year's Pie Party to be like the Oscars of Pie Parties!

Like last year savory pies were set along the window facing 58th Street and the sweets had a much larger display (needed) in the center of the establishment. Sponsors Anolon, Dub Pies, Wusthof, and Kerrygold set up shop inside where we could view (or really drool) over their presentation of goods and in the case of Jarlsberg, Kerrygold, and DUB Pies we got our pie pre-game on by eating cheese and crackers, fruit platters, mini DUB Pies (my fave beef and cheese was in attendance) while hors d'oeurves were also available from roaming GE Monogram staff. But don't fill up on snacks! There are PIES here! Savory was bumped up. A good deal available. I added to the savory mix again with a Tortilla Pie a la Martha Stewart since most of my materials were packed and I needed something easy and hearty to make. (Next year I'm thinking empanadas, if time permits.)

The sweets table steadily filled up with space being made every minute to accommodate the expanding array of desserts.

Chef Tageré gave a demonstration and praised Kerrygold butter as the butter to use for crusts. (As bloggers we couldn't agree more.) Then she revealed a fantastically delectable looking savory chicken pie with some cheese on top and we were antsy for that and other pies. And then...it was officially pie time! The masses ran or sauntered (some with a game plan already). I had my eye on the sweets from the minute I walked in but then Margaret had to bring a short rib pie and Sekita had to do crab cake pies so I quickly tasted those and then delved back to the sweet side. No regrets, friends.

First things first was getting those portable pies. Angela of Mind Over Batter's strawberry-cheese hand pies were like a homemade Pop-tart but ten times better because her crust was thick, sweet, flaky, buttery and perfect! Ken made a sweet and a savory pie and I got into that gorgeous tart before it was gone. His crust was also fantastic. There were gluten-free pies and cream pies and many, many more tarts. Colleen of Souffle Bombay and her daughter Samantha both made sweet tarts and I have to say I was lucky to taste Samantha's confection of a Blueberry Lemon Tart.

Susan of Girl in the Little Red Kitchen did a cookie pie with caramel with duck fat. Jennifer of Bake or Break brought a scrumptious nutty, brown sugar pie. Rhonda Kave of Roni-Sue's Chocolates in downtown Manhattan paid tribute to her daughter Allison's debut cookbook First Prize Pies by making her buttercrunch pie that was still warm from the oven and a gooey masterpiece! There was...So. Much. Pie. And you couldn't eat it all but it was gorgeous to look at and phenomenal to actually eat.

The crowd was happy, cheerful, and supportive everyone delving in. The savory side was practically demolished from Eryn's picnic pie to the large mac n' cheese pie with bacon topping to the guacamole pie and a nice quiche.

There was a vast amount of fruity tarts/pies especially Autumn's gluten-free plum pockets and Jackie's lemon bruleed gluten-free pie. And surprisingly not as much chocolate. Perhaps because spring was in the air, and it was humid, inspiration was more for summery/spring-like flavors.

To top it all off there were also the generous gift bags that newcomers to Pie Party were astounded by, more jaw drops. And there were temp tattoos from OXO (still have mine) and lots of giveaways for tweeting/instagram (using hashtags of course), and just all-around fun and appreciation to be surrounded by fantastic food and wonderful people in a lovely space.

I am already looking forward to the next Pie Party and am more than enthused about this one. I just had my leftover pies last night and regret that I couldn't have another piece of pie to indulge in. But there's always next time and it's Saturday, which means NYC Bake Sale is happening, now, so you KNOW there'll be sweets there.

I leave you with smiling faces...

#WBNAmerica 2014: I'm a Book Giver, Again!

Happy World Book Night (WBN) day! As I did last year I'll be giving away books kindly donated by authors and publishers to those who aren't avid readers or perhaps cannot afford to be. I'm psyched to be giving away books again and wanted to give a heads up that I'll be at the location of the now closed Hue-Man Bookstore between 125th and 124th Streets on Frederick Douglass Blvd after 1pm. I'll be giving out books until they're all gone, which may be quick. And, I'll be wearing a sky blue Book Giver t-shirt to make me extra official.:-)

This year I'm giving away Esmeralda Santiago's memoir When I was Puerto Rican, which I am very excited about.

If you can't make it to Harlem then be on the look out for Givers all over the US and not just in New York City. People will be tweeting using the hashtags #WorldBookNight #WBN2014 #WBNAmerica and so on. And there'll be cool events pre-giving on April 22nd around the US as well.

If you'd like to learn more about WBN and mark your calendar to be a potential Giver next year sign up for updates from their site or "like" WBN on Facebook. They're a great group of people and this is a great day to celebrate books and those who love them.