A recap of my trip to New York to attend BEA

I went to the Book Expo America in New York and have returned to tell the tale!

For those not familiar with the Expo (or BEA as some of us call it), it's a huge book publishing event, a convention center filled with people pitching, and handing out (free!) books. The attendees include librarians, teachers, booksellers, bloggers, authors, and publishing folk. This year, I, along with all the other AmazonEncore authors, was invited to attend as a guest of Amazon. Who says big corporations don't have heart?

I flew into La Guardia on Monday of this week. I shared a limo from the airport to the hotel with Aric Davis, (author of the book Nickel Plated) and his wife Megan. We'd never met, but I recognized Aric by the AmazonEncore logo he had tattooed on his knuckle, something I'd read about in his blog. Aric and Megan were very nice and didn't seem to mind sharing the ride with me. There were decanters of liquor and soft drinks in the limo, but none of us opted for a drink at that point.

When we walked into the lobby of the hotel, we were greeted by a group from Amazon who gave us gift bags containing all kinds of goodies.  One of the things in my bag was a large shortbread cookie decorated to look like my book, Celia and the Fairies.

We stayed at this great hotel: Ink48. Have you ever heard of it? Me neither, but it was seriously cool.

This is what my room looked like from two different angles.

When I turned on the TV, this is what I saw.

Yes, the TV greeted me by name. Here's another shot, close up:

I could have gone home right that minute and felt I got Amazon's money's worth, but no--there was more. That evening there was a cocktail party where I mingled with all the other authors and the team from Amazon. It was a little overwhelming, to be completely honest, but in a good way.


This is the only photo I have from that evening. The party took place in a lounge on the roof. The view was incredible. Too bad these people are blocking it.

From left to right: Raymond Bean, author of the Sweet Farts series, Maria Murnane, author of Perfect on Paper, Me, Sarah Collins Honenberger author of Catcher, Caught, and Neve Maslakovic, author of Regarding Ducks and Universes. Ray's lovely wife took the picture, for which I am very grateful or I'd have no record of the party at all and might think I'd imagined the whole thing.


There were delicous hors d'oeuvres and drinks and a photo booth and books and big TV monitors with a slide show of all our books. And lots of incredible conversation. I reconnected at one point with Christopher Herz, author of The Last Block in Harlem. We'd met last year and kept in touch via Twitter. Christopher is one of those people who just exudes positive energy. When he talks to you, he makes you feel like what you're saying is fascinating. Plus he adores his wife and is a really funny guy and terrific writer. It was big fun to talk to him and hear about his new novel. I can't wait to read it.

I also met up with Laurie Fabiano, whose book Elizabeth Street is doing really well, especially with book clubs. Culled from her own family history, it's the true story of the Italian immigrant experience at the start of the twentieth century. A fascinating book.

The next day I headed out with a few of my fellow authors to the BEA. Here's a shot of Neve and I taken by some random booth.

And here's a photo where you can kind of see Florence Henderson. She was done with her signing at that point and getting ready to leave.

Below is a picture of the area set up for authors to sign books, just to give you an idea of what it looked like:

It wasn't too crowded at that point, but later it got crazy busy.

On Wednesday, I left all my new friends and returned home to Hartland, Wisconsin where my wonderful family greeted me at the door with a gift bag full of goodies. 

 Ha! Only kidding. There was no gift bag, although they did save some laundry for me to do so that I would feel needed. They're thoughtful like that.

And to finish off the week, today I was interviewed via Skype by Steven Lewis of  http://kindleselfpublishing.com/
He's located in Australia. At the time of our interview it was 9 a.m. on Saturday his time, and 6 p.m. Friday night for me. When we were done talking he told me to have a good evening and I told him to have a good day. Too funny.

And that's all the excitement I can stand for this week.

Later,

Karen