16 Days and Counting....

...to the biggest blogger blind date of the year... BEA! BEA stands for Book Expo America and is the annual trade show for publishers and booksellers, where publishers debut their Fall lists and trot their authors around to meet booksellers, sign books and ARCs, and attend parties. Booksellers come from near and far to meet said authors and talk with publishers. But BEA of late has started to feel like it might not be worth all the time and expense that publishers put into it, and what booksellers pay to get there to attend it. Throw in our current economic climate and what I suppose will be a scaled-down BEA with lower than usual attendance, I really wasn't looking forward to this year.

But all that has changed over the past months as I have learned about more and more book bloggers who are attending BEA, many of them for the first time. This year, there is an entirely new contingent of people going to BEA who read, review and recommend books to ever-growing audiences of book buyers! I'm a big geek and it's really exciting to me.

I'm thrilled that I'll be in the company of six of my favorite book bloggers on Saturday May 30th on a panel where we'll explore the publisher-blogger-bookseller relationship and what we can do to make it better and maximize all of our efforts to help readers find books that they'll love. Julie of Booking Mama, Natasha of Maw Books, Stephanie of Stephanie's Written Word, Amy of My Friend Amy and Dawn of She is Too Fond of Books, Candace of Beth Fish Reads and I will examine how things work now and how they could work better. For those of you not able to attend, we'll broadcast the panel live via Book Club Girl on Air. Set your reminder for the live broadcast  on May 20th at 2 pm EST here.

There will be other opportunities to meet bloggers during the weekend as well, stay tuned for a schedule of when bloggers themselves will be signing (though what we will sign, not too sure ;))

And, if you have questions for a book blogger, publsher or bookseller, that you'd like us to consider during our panel discussion, please feel free to post them here!

Comments

[Julie P.]

Wow! 16 days -- this post is making it so real for me. I still have so much to do! But I CAN'T WAIT!!!!

[Dawn - She Is Too Fond Of Books]

I'm making a list and checking it twice - so looking forward to BEA!!

Between all the blog posts, tweets, vlogs, and your live coverage of the panel, we'll be able to share the experience with those who couldn't attend this year.

[Kathy]

I'll be in New York 2 weeks from today and I can't wait!

[Jennsbookshelf]

I can't wait!! Looking forward to finally getting a chance to meet you all!

[Lauren]

I had no clue book bloggers were able to go as well! Oh man, so envious of you all :)

[Bonnie]

What a great experience! I wish that I could be there. Looking forward to hearing all about it. I'll mark my calendar for the live show. Will it be archived to listen to later?

[Serena (Savvy Verse & Wit)]

Anna from Diary of an Eccentric and I should be at BEA as well. I hope to meet many of you.

[Stephanie]

Looking forward to it as well!

[Seaside Book Worm]

Thank you for the post. I won't be there but look forward to the audio to hear the panel. I too did not know bloggers could attend. Maybe next year. Looking forward to what all of the bloggers and you have to say about the event.

[Ti]

I wish I could go but I will definitely check out the broadcast.

[cynthia newberry martin]

Hey Jennifer-
Found your blog from the Publishers Weekly article on the book blogging panel. Way to go--was that your idea? Congratulations! We have a lot of overlap on the books we like. Would love for you to check out my blog when you have time.
Thanks,
Cynthia