Media Glutton June 4, 2008: Book Expo America

I've just returned from Los Angeles where I was doing a reading at the Write To The City event being held in unofficial conjunction with this year's Book Expo America. The event went amazing - a tone of people showed up and the venue was packed for all nine of the crime writers' readings, along with some really moving speeches by local housing activists. I think everything exceeded everyone's expectations for the slam, and I was lovin' life all night long.

The next morning I got up and went with a friend downtown to the LA convention center to check out the actual Book Expo. The expo is THE main event in the book world in the US, particularly for publishers, distributors, and book sellers, but for authors as well. It's a huge trade show where publishers big and small show off their wares, highlight upcoming titles, and feature various authors. It's the kind of place where thousands of deals get made and many, many more thousands of dollars gets spent. I'd been to the BEA in 2006 to promote my first edition of Geek Mafia, which I'd published under my old Blue King Studios imprint. It was, all things considered, a financial disaster for me. I spent a ton of money and made nary a useful contact nor did I even get any press out of it. I learned an important, vital lesson: if you're a small player in the book game, it's insane to try and take on the big companies on their home turf. 99% of the people who attend are there for the big name authors and the big ass publishers. While some might be open to something small and new if it's interesting enough, it's almost impossible to stand out in the obscenely crowded field or arouse much interest when you're competing for attention with most of the authors on the best seller list. So, as a micro or self publisher, I don't really see the point in attending an event like BEA. I saw one guy there doing exactly what I'd done two years ago - hawking one book with a kind of catchy title in his own little booth. My heart went out to him because I think I know what kind of disappointment awaits. But I picked up his book, and if it's good I'll let you know. If it's not, I won't - no sense kicking a guy when he's down.

When I say I picked up a copy, I mean he gave it to me. You don't sell books at BEA - not individual ones. You give copies away and hope that the person either orders a bunch for their store/library or writes you a nice review or...something, anything that results in sales. Of course most of the people you give the books away to won't help you in anyway, but there's no way to really no or discriminate easily, and so you give them to whoever asks. When I was there, I gave away 500 copies of Geek Mafia. Yes, 500. Ugh. This obviously sucks if you're not a big publisher with money to burn. However, it's totally awesome if you're just an avid reader looking to score a shit load of free books!

My friend Laurie and I went together, backpacks ready and empty. Here's a secret for you if BEA comes to your city - they don't check or care who pays to come in. While it's an "industry" event, they're not strict on that at all. I was ostensibly there at the pleasure of AK Press, my current distributor, but my name wasn't on any list. I just walked up, said I was with AK, gave them my name, gave Laurie's name as Chloe just for the fun of it, paid $40 for each pass, and in we went. Once inside there were plenty of heavy duty paper bags available to carry loot. And loot we did. Not every booth gives stuff away - the Taschen booth for example had a woman on guard against people swiping any of their beautiful and expensive photography books - but there are plenty who do. Plus there are scores of author signings every hour, where they give away the book AND let you shake hands with the author. The more famous writers, like Neil GaimanNeil Gaiman for example, require tickets (which are free), but most just need you to show up and wait in line at the appointed hour. But there are plenty of free books on the main show floor too, and I hate lines, so the only one I waited in was to say hi to Cory Doctorow and pick up another copy of Little Brother (so now I can give my unsigned copy to a mischevious teen I think it will be perfect for). My only real regret was not coming back the next day to get the new John Hodgeman book and meet him, so I'll have to wait 'til September like everyone else.

But I got quite a haul - 32 books in all, with Laurie picking up another 21 and there being very little overlap between us. I'm particularly excited about the new fiction line that Wizards of the Coast has started, Discoveries. They had all five of those books there, and I got four of them signed. Right now I'm tearing through Rich Dansky's Firefly Rain, which is a lovely southern Gothic ghost story. Again, a fuller review once I finish. I had to ship a box of books home to Florida and I'm pretty sure I'm set for the next couple months. Definitely, definitely worth thr $40 entrance fee. The show's back in New York in May of 2009, so New Yorkers. don't miss a chance to con your way into a whole summer's worth of free reads. I'll be the big guy with the bulging backpack...