The Gorge of Free Advance Copies

Lo, Book Expo America is upon us. So hoards of publishing professional will descend upon the Javits Center in New York to gorge upon free advance copies, swag, and other loot. There were a fair number of complaints about the attendance at last year’s convention since it was held in Washington, DC. But now that it’s returned to New York City, there should be more than enough people clogging the aisles in search of free tote bags, galleys for that new romance novel, and pens with book titles printed on them.

BEA is aimed for bookselling professionals. Although there are publicists, editors, agents, and, of course, bloggers, there, the real point of the convention is to get booksellers to order forthcoming titles. So part of the show is to trot out the bigtime writers to get bookstores excited about the new releases. This year’s show features some pretty cool signings. Sherman Alexie, RL Stine, Joyce Carol Oates, Ann Patchett, Joseph Finder, SE Hinton, Tiki Barber, James Patterson, John Carter Cash, and Brad Vice are just some of the interesting names appearing at the convention.

Alas, I chose to bow out of BEA this year. Too much travel already in 2007 and way too much work to do. So I won’t be there. But many of my colleagues in The Litblog Co-Op are going so I’ll make sure you stay abreast of all the latest BEA news my pointing you to their wonderful sites.