WEDNESDAY

Way earlier than is totally good for my non-morning-friendly head and my terminal jet-lag, I met Marion Gropen, one of my fellow co-list moms for the SPAN Self-Publishing Discussion List, downstairs in the Holiday Inn Capitol lobby. Marion is one of those people I count critical to my understanding of the publishing world—as well as being a great pal. We’ve been e-friends for about 4 years, but never met, so there was one of those stupid moments when we looked at each other and said, "Aren’t you...?" Once we had that sorted out, we took the Metro over to the Convention Center... where fortunately they had lots of hot coffee and some rolls.

Dave Shields of Three Story Press (who wrote the successful The Race and has followed it up with the brand new The Tour this year) and small pub diva Cynthia Frank of Cypress House Press (who has always been so very helpful to me and Beagle Bay Books) and I had never gotten too much together on our presentation for our session "How to Make Your Wildest Dreams Come True with Fiction Marketing" besides swapping outlines. We touched base just before class and decided who would go when. It worked out well, I think. Of course, those of you who attended (or buy the class tape) would be the better judge.

Having gotten my duties over early, I was free to attend classes and visit with folks. The funniest moment of the whole trip came when Laura Simonds of Davis-Black Publishing came walking up to me right after my class. We have no idea if our husbands are related, but thought it hysterically funny that she was teaching in the same room I was, right after me... and I was taking her class.

I went to lunch with Cynthia Frank... but we split up when I discovered my pal and favorite color-printer Glenn Anderson of Kwong Fat Printing sitting at a vendor table all by his lonesome. The meal was an airline-style box lunch and I told Glenn that if his company paid for the sorry-ass turkey in my sandwich (made with a stale roll), he should print something better (I’m sure the paper and ink would be tastier). But otherwise, we had a nice visit.

I took all sorts of classes and listened to some great and near-great ideas, but brainstorming after classes with Deborah Robson of Nomad and Dogtooth Press, Marion Gropen and Sheila Ruth of Wands and Worlds gave me almost as much of a boost—and a lot to think about.

I made time to go and look at all the vendor booths, talking to some folks who I’ve worked with and some I simply know on-line. I finally got to meet Steve Carlson (as of lunch, he’s a PMA board member), whose Upper Access Press book Such Men Are Dangerous Beagle Bay Books distributed in 2004-5. We talked at length about his goings-on and Pub-123, his publisher’s software.

That evening, I went to the PMA Ben Franklin Awards. I sat with Mara Purl and Lauren Tyson of Haven Books. They were up for a Ben for Mara’s fabulous audio book What the Heart Knows (originally produced as a radio program on BBC-5). Both gals come from my home town of Colorado Springs Colorado. I’ve known Lauren longer than either of us cares to admit (hint: we’re now in the multiple decades). Mara and I have been threatening to work together for nearly 8 years now. We corralled Marion and Sheila to sit with us as we enjoyed a fairly decent dinner and a nice presentation.

Much to our delight, Self-Publishing Discussion List member Carol White of RLI Press won the Ben Franklin for Book of the Year for Excellence and Innovation in Marketing for her book Live Your Roadtrip Dream. We dragged her out of the hall for a picture; but not before celebrating with Small-Pub Civil Discussion List pal Maggie Anton of Banot Press for her Ben Franklin for Rashi’s Daughters (Best New Voice, Fiction). When I came back in from taking the picture of Carol, I discovered to my dismay that Haven Books missed out on their award—which I found rather shocking. Marion, Sheila and I decided to throw in the towel and head back to the hotel.

Marion, Sheila and I went to PMA-U together, cadging breakfast from the offerings on-site. I took Marion’s class on "Surviving Success" (a glutton for punishment, this was the last of 3 classes Marion taught). The rest of the day was filled with classes, meeting folks (too many to mention all) and interesting discussions (which at one point I gave up a class to continue).

The most exciting part of the day was a lunch (edible, this time) discussion with author Walter Mosley  (the Easy Rawlins mysteries and many others) and Paul Coates, his publisher at Black Classic Press. Paul told the rapt crowd of fellow small publishers how his company, which had previously only published out-of-print classics of black literature, ended up working with one of the most noted African American authors. It was funny, scary and instructive to hear these men share their path to publication. Mosley is a powerful speaker in all cases, and some of his comments walked with me down the halls of BEA for days.

I took classes right up until the end of the day. Sheila, Marion and I headed back to the hotel for a quick rest before the much anticipated event of the night—the List Dinner.

With Marion and Sheila, we took the Metro to the restaurant "Regional Food and Drink" to join friends from Self-Pub, Small Pub Civil and Publisher’s Forum Discussion Lists. In most cases, I was meeting folks I’ve e-talked to for the first time. Most fun to meet was John Culleton, along with his wife Peggy, who rarely attends these events. We had a moment of hilarity when he walked up and said he would have picked me as Marion and vice-versa. Another largely amusing moment was meeting Al Canton who was sure I was "some shriveled up old prune." I hugged him anyway. (Good thing, too, because he was even nice to me in his blog, which is strange, given that I told him I had a bullwhip with his name on it). Fern Reiss and I have talked via e-mail many times and I consider her one of the many influential but unofficial mentors of my career (and went out of her way during PMA-U to make sure I met everyone she could make hold still for 2 seconds). The absolute Grand Master of Self-Publishing, Dan Poynter, has made an impact on just about every self- and small-press, so it was great to finally meet him (even if he does get pissed with me when I remind him that Self-Pub only allows signature blocks of 6—not 9-15 lines). Carolyn Hayes Uber and I have had discussions and some business dealings together, but I hadn’t seen her in a couple of years. She tells me that a semi-derogatory comment (published in Publisher’s Weekly) I made about her press’ Will Cook for Sex will be in the next edition, along with an annotation to explain what I meant by "troglodite." Pete Masterson and I just met last year at NCIBA, but just waved at each other. I’d never met cover designer extraordinaire Mayapriya Long ... and never did get a chance to talk to her. Paulette Ensign and I may run away together; she is my kind of pal. Sharon Goldinger is just terrific and fun. It was great to actually meet Shel Horowitz in person. Beagle Bay distributes his book Principled Profits and Shel and I swap thoughts about marketing, press release writing and politics almost daily. His adorable wife, Dina Friedman is fun, but I wish I’d had the chance to talk to her about her new, very successful book, Escaping into the Night. Pal Glenn Anderson was there and I introduced him to Melissa Thompson, who is about to publish some children’s books. Robin Quinn and I talked about a new project she’s working on. Eugene Schwartz editor-at-large of ForeWord Magazine (who I’d just met earlier in the day) was there and some others who I didn’t get to talk to. Here are some snaps of the event.

FRIDAY

The Big Day—BookExpo America! Added to our usual morning group to the Metro were Sheila’s husband Nick and their delightful son, David (10). They were all dressed up, as their book Dark Dreamweaver received an iParenting Award and Nick (the author) was to be interviewed on camera. They were also waiting to see if they would receive a ForeWord Award after lunch. Once we hit the convention center, we split up.

I was furious to discover that I could not buy tickets to the Saturday breakfast and lunch events as I had planned. I should have recalled this Thursday, when I picked up my badge. Friday was as hectic as I expected—but NO ONE seemed to know who was selling the tickets to the events. I was really, really counting on hearing Barack Obama, John Updike, Frank Rich and Arianna Huffington speak and so was very disappointed. Hello, Organizers? You might try telling the event staff about the ticket sales!

Ran into Dave Shields handing out postcards for his book The Tour by the main escalators (and later, fliers taped to the stall doors in the Ladies'. A brave lad!) and wished him luck. The stairs between the escalators were covered by a huge ad for Hyperion’s book Abadazad: The Road to Inconceivable - Book #1 (the official badge lanyard also had the name of the book emblazoned on it). As you can see here (picture taken before the Madding Crowd on Thursday).

I went through each hall, looking at the lay of the land and hunting down folks I know. In the children’s publishing section I happened upon Dream Dog Press who we know from a NAIBA trade show held in D.C. during the sniper scare (and in a weird parallel, the snipers’ trial was being held today). It was great to see "Rainey," as the author is called when she isn’t a busy D.C. children’s rights attorney.

In that hall were also the autographing lines and the African American publishing gulag. I couldn’t help, when walking through the AA aisles, thinking about Walter Mosley’s comment about how "you can’t stay where ‘they’ put you." It was ill-lit and out of the way. I really worried about these folks and their chances of making any contacts or sales.

Apropos of absolutely nothing was this RV/advertising for a line of erotic romances (between the children’s and African American sections). I got the shivers imagining driving that big bo-hunk into the show.

In the main hall, I tracked down vendors who I’ve worked with. I finally got to meet Larry May of Freight Management Systems, bumped into Dan Poynter doing a mini-speech/press conference at the Small Press booth (which was in about the most out of the way spot of the whole venue), and stopped by Vaughn Printing to say ‘hi’ to my favorite rep—who wasn’t there. Talking to the show rep was Pete Masterson. We stepped over to a quiet spot for a good visit, a lengthy discussion of his new huge motorhome and business thoughts.

I also got a chance to chat with Victor Gagliardi who was there displaying his wonderfully successful coffee table photography book A Turning Point: Images to Words (12,000 sold in 4 years, and he’s refused to sell to Costco, Ingram, B&N, etc) which we distribute. I wanted to see the new, smaller-sized book that he’s going to let us distribute to the trade, Follow Your Desire: Images to Words. It’s going to be very exciting to get this book out. Victor was fascinating as ever, with more stories of his crazy success. And just as he was telling me one of these yarns, a bookseller came up. Victor told me someone had given him a lead on a Pacific Northwest bookseller. He dialed the number and shortly was pitching his book to this nice gal on the phone. She ordered 4. He said, "Well, thank you Jane...." "My name isn’t Jane. It’s Judy," she said. "What bookstore is this?" Victor asked. She named it. Victor said he almost fainted when he looked down at the card in his hand. That wasn’t the name of the store he’d called—nor, as he checked the log, the phone number he’d intended to call—yet he sold 4! Judy laughed and said it was true, then ordered 4 more of the old book (did I mention they’re $65 a pop?) and 6 of the new one (which will be $30) when it comes out. Victor is someone who lives by Mosley’s creed: He was out in the Main hall, just at the end of the "Art" exhibitors. He does every major gift trade show, too. (Incidentally, we met and signed Victor up at the aforementioned NAIBA show.)

I prowled around the PMA booth and aisle (PMA offered a combined exhibit deal where you could display titles or offered space in a booth within the 2 aisles they reserved). This was a great area for the PMA to be in, surrounded as they were by the big publisher booths. Lots of traffic wandered through.

I stopped by the Travel Publisher’s Association booth to see how many of my distribution clients’ books were displayed and to finally meet up with Joan Peterson. Joan used to be a distro client of ours with her nifty Eat Smart series... until she sold the lot to University of Wisconsin Press. She was talking to Self-Publishing Guru Marilyn Ross. Afterwards, Marilyn and I decided to go in search of lunch... which turned into something of an epic.

First we headed to 7^th Street, where everyone told us there were great restaurants. But we turned the wrong way and found nothing. Meanwhile, it started to rain. Having lived in the Mid-Atlantic once-upon-a, I had my trusty fold-up umbrella in my bag, which was just barely big enough to shelter the both of us—and poor Marilyn was wearing a silk suit. We hurried back to the convention center and went up to the upper food court. There we discovered long lines and the weirdest reception I’ve ever gotten in food service. Once we got to the Wolfgang Puck counter, we were informed that they had one—yes, 1—salad left. Any pizza? Nope. Marilyn and I looked at each other in astonishment, but I said, "We’ll take it." As they started ringing us up, one of the countermen said he had a pepperoni pizza. Without hesitation we grabbed that, scooped up our (not really very good) meal and went in search of a (shared) table. Despite all the drama, Marilyn and I had a long chat about what-all’s going on in our lives and what she thinks about the small pub game.

I went back to the Travel Publisher’s booth so I could actually talk to Joan Peterson and also meet with Jeannette Belliveau of Beau Monde Press who I’ve been e-talking to recently about her book, Romance on the Road. A quick sweep through a booth or two more and I realized it was already 4. Pooped, I headed off to the Metro.

You will have noticed I hadn’t taken the Metro alone til now. Although I can find myself out of most retail and casino mazes, in the Metro I get badly turned around (no landmarks). But I managed to find the proper train and hopped into it just as it was leaving... to find Sheila, Nick and David Ruth, already seated. "How is it possible," David asked, "that after a whole day with thousands of people between, you’d get onto the same train as us?" "Your mother and I have magnets in our heads," I replied as seriously as I could. David snorted. I’m pretty sure his kid bogosity meter had just pegged in the redline. We got back to the hotel without further outraging David’s sensibilities. Sheila told me that they hadn’t won the ForeWord, but that David was also filmed for the iParenting spot.

Only 1½ hours later, Sheila and I headed back out—dressed up—to get to the Women in the Arts Museum for the Jenkins Group annual party and the IPPY Awards. Fortunately, Sheila is simply a master of the Metro and we maneuvered our way to the venue with no fuss at all. The party was already in full swing when we got there—and packed to the beautiful museum’s gills. The food was great and the drinks (once I waited in line only to discover that one needed to purchase a ticket to get a drink) were substantial. I finally met—if only briefly—Douglas Johnson, a frequent correspondent.

The IPPY Awards finally began, starting off with a salute to the Ten Most Important Women in Publishing Awards. Cindy Frank got one, as did another of my mentors, Pat Bell (who, unfortunately, was not there). As Shel had warned me, only the folks directly interested in the outcome (namedly me, Deborah and Maggie) were paying attention. Deborah’s book Riddle in the Mountain won for Juvenile Fiction. Our book, Women in Shadow and Light: Journeys from Abuse to Healing won for Women’s Issues and I was tremendously thrilled... right up until I walked up to accept the plaque. Bob Robbins [left, in the picture], who was giving out the awards while Jim Barnes announced, suddenly disappeared at my approach. Not being shy about what I went there for, I snatched up one of the unclaimed plaques and stood with Jim Barnes for a picture. Then Bob came back and whispered in my ear that somehow my plaque hadn’t made it to DC. I gave him my best pirate’s glare, but made sure to give him my card before I gave up the make-shift stage (and followed up immediately once I got home).

But it was terrific night as the awards were wrapped up and the band began to play. All the unattached gals around me jumped onto the dance floor and boogied the night away. I tried to drag Al Canton onto the floor but he ran away. Too bad, as Mayapraya Long joined us and many other wonderful gals in publishing celebrated.
 

SATURDAY

Marion and I headed to the BEA together. I was a lot gimpy. Although my battered 6-year-old orthopedic sandals (Mephistos) served me well in the convention center, I had worn less foot-friendly shoes at the IPPY awards and danced on that marble floor. My back and hip were threatening to sue for separate maintenance. We started going through the small pub booths in the Small Press gulag. I met some interesting vendors, but for the most part, I found the folks there gave me the blues. There was one fellow who had produced his book in a big fat hurry that was formatted in WURD in 12-point type with a clip art cover and no ISBN. He had no earthly idea how to market it, and had gotten a booth at BEA thinking he was going to sell out to Random House. When I tried to discuss ways of marketing his book on the Internet, he proudly told me he didn’t know anything about cyberspace and didn’t want to. But he did want to whine about his lack of success. Having no interest, I was on my way.

I talked to some really interesting vendors this day. One fellow, who hasn’t followed up, so I can’t tell you the name of his company, has developed the solution for implanting RFID and tracking chips in hard cover books. There was no trace of these in the finished product to distract the consumer from the book package. It’s spiffy stuff... until the next technology change. They don’t have anything right now for paperbacks.

I wandered back to the Travel Publisher’s booth and talked with some really interesting publishers before deciding that I really ought to get something to eat before the crowds hit. This time, I had no trouble with the regular vendor in the main hall. They seemed completely up to speed. When the man ahead of me bumped into another woman and dropped all his french fires, the gal at the corner immediately got him a new order of fries (no charge). I decided I was sorry I’d wanted something fancier than a hot dog yesterday.

C-Span had their big bus parked in the middle of the main hall. They had an interview venue in front, plus another interview site on a balcony just above. My Mother was channel surfing and gasped when the camera panned Hall A. "That was a lot of people," she later exclaimed.

Yup, Mom, it was a lot of book-people. Publisher's Lunch says: "Show organizers report that 31,971 people registered for the convention, while 22,366 verified attendees were counted. (The verified number represents people whose badges were scanned at the badge-holder pick-up counter and upon entering the show floors. The actual number of participants is somewhere in between the two figures.)"  [Hall A from the balcony]

I trolled the big publisher booths... when I could get into them. Mostly they were packed with people scarfing up the signed freebies (I only took a few things. I know better than to schlep back books). I was rather stunned to note that folks like McGraw-Hill had booths that were very much smaller that I’d seen at the International Reading Association (IRA) some years back. Only Scholastic’s was about the same size.

One thing that was discussed a lot at PMA-U was the fact that the "new trend" in covers is matte finishes. As a book packager this information was really important to me. But I didn’t see a lot of this until I hit the Random House booth. Almost all of their covers are matte. Their covers are also mostly half title on neutral background with half an illustrated or pictorial. I didn’t care for it.

One of the most talked about new books was Jeb Rubenfeld's The Interpretation of Murder (which is being referred to as "the Freud thriller”). I was shocked to see the galley was a trade paperback that had a thick dust jacket with a cut out, so that a picture on the main cover was framed. The back trumpeted the fact that $500,000 is being spent on marketing. Somehow, if I had a half mil to spend on marketing, I don’t think I would blow it on doing an overly fancy galley.

Here are some of the more interesting booths:

Many publishers took a co-op booth with their distributor. IPG and Midpoint both took up half-aisles to give their publishers a place to pitch. It was a neat strategy and I saw a lot of familiar names.

I dropped by Victor’s booth again. It turns out that we were dancing inches from each other last night! Arrrrggg! Too bad, as Victor is, as we say back home, "not hard to look at." It would have been fun dancing with him. He told me that he was seeing far fewer booksellers this BEA. And the booksellers he did see and know were refusing to come by his booth. I found that pretty disturbing.

I sat down on the floor, against the wall, because I just couldn't walk one more step. A woman sat next to me and we started talking. She's a ForeWord Magazine editor and we started talking about what she does, what I do and discovered that one of our clients (Quindaro Press’ Revolutionary Heart: The Life of Clarina Nichols and the Pioneering Crusade for Women’s Rights) had been reviewed in that month's magazine. She handed me a copy. Then I got to talk to her about Victor’s forthcoming book that is going to take some finesse to put before the pre-pubs. She asked me to send it directly to her and she would make sure it got looked at (no guarantees for review, but having it walked into the office may help).

At 3, I went to meet our foreign rights agent, Whitney Lee of the Fielding Agency, who has done such great work for us in the last couple of years (we sold rights to Gudrun’s Tapestry to an Italian publisher and How to Love the Job You Hate to Russia and Taiwan. She’s working really hard on something for Ursula’s Maiden Army). Whitney and I have corresponded for a long time, but I didn’t know she was simply adorable. No wonder she doesn’t post her picture on her website! But the rights section was just dreadful. It was poorly lit and smelled of mold and insecticide. Guards turned away people who didn’t have an appointment or agents’ badge. She said it had been a trying two days and she didn’t know how she was going to make it through Sunday. "This isn’t a rights show," she said "so it’s kinda been a bore." That’s OK, Whitney. No one knows precisely what BEA is for.

Serendipity plays a large factor at this event. For those contemplating going in the future, talk to everyone! I was in the PMA co-op area, talking to a friend. A fella walked up and asked where the "PMA booth" was, as he was looking for a friend's title. Now, I could have told him it was across the aisle and up, but noticed he was the main editor for the Smithsonian's American Indian Museum Books. I have a children's title about the Washoe tribe (Washoe Seasons of Life: A Native American Tale), so as I took him over to the appropriate section, I told him about our title. He asked to see it. Who knows what (if anything) will come of this. But it wouldn't have happened if I hadn't been "working the room."

I talked to a remainder dealer about a book and she got very interested and asked to see it as soon as possible. She might have reacted the same way if I had approached her via e-mail, but the personal connection might be a contributing factor to a sale. As Douglas Johnson has said, it's a self-selecting crowd: if you are serious enough about your business to be there, folks will take you seriously. This was my first year at BEA. I didn't get that until I was standing there in a sea of several thousand book freaks.

I wandered back to the hotel—and I was so tired I elected to take one of the shuttles rather than the Metro. Marion called me from the Metro and told me that there was some kind of delay. We planned to go to dinner together so we set a late-ish time. I promptly conked out for a while. But later we went to Philip’s Restaurant, a favorite of mine when I lived in Baltimore (hon). I just HAD to have some crab cakes before going home. Now, ya’ll may have noticed that Marion and I were together a lot. In fact, there was some speculation that she and I are dating. Um, wait. We had most breakfasts together, most dinners together, went everywhere together. Oh. Sorry, Robin and Toby, I guess we ARE dating. We’ll be sending out the invitations to our housewarming later, I guess.