For most attendees, BookExpo America, held at the Javits Center in New York City, May 3—5, was the kind of crowded, bustling show that elicited remarks along the lines of "best ever" or "fantastic." Aisles were full; business was brisk; and most of the extensive panels and seminar programming were well- received. Parties were less lavish than 11 years ago, when BEA was last in the Big Apple, but many of them were entertaining and made for great opportunities to network and meet authors. Attendance—31,726 including 2,167 day passes—was way up over last year's 21,898. Total number of book buyers was 7,049, compared to 6,132 in Chicago last year.
During a season in which many publishers are sounding gloomy notes, the show's mood was especially welcome. As Hut Landon, executive director of the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association, commented: "Perhaps some of the booksellers' enthusiasm, fueled in large part by steady sales, will rub off on others."
Although some thought the lower-level space was easily overlooked, exhibitors raved about traffic. Kathryn Kelley, sales manager of the University of Nebraska Press, said she was "concerned about being on the edge of the floor, and wondered if it would be a problem. But we have had steady traffic." Mary Westheimer of BookZone.com, who was so busy she did not have time to wander the floor, said that "being in New York contributed noticeably to the excitement and the quality of attendees. Everyone I've spoken with is ecstatic. What a show!" Robin Strashun of Sterling Publishing called the show "the best-attended BEA I've worked in two decades.... It was rewardingly busy and uplifting." Even Sunday traffic was busy. As Manie Barron of the William Morris Agency exclaimed that day, "Sunday used to be such a day of rest that you could throw a football around. But look at all the people."
Still, there were a few dissonant notes. Musicland's Diane Bridge lambasted "the gridlock of gawking nobodies from publishing houses" who made it difficult for buyers like her to conduct business. "Let's put BEA back in Chicago and leave it there," she said.
Most everyone else raved about having the show in New York, even if many more BEA attendees than usual had to juggle home life with work. Yael Yisraeli of the NYU Bookstores in New York spoke for many New Yorkers when he said it was "especially important" that the show was in the Big Apple this year—just eight months after the World Trade Center tragedy. Michele Sulka of the Joseph-Beth Group, which runs bookstores in Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee, said that the "glorious weather" helped make the city "a picture-perfect, movie-set version of itself." She was also pleased that "everyone's treatment of the September 11 events seemed very respectful."
The few logistical or "physical" problems included long taxi lines at the end of the day, lousy bathrooms in the Javits Center, shuttle bus drivers who frequently skipped scheduled hotel stops and traffic problems on Sunday because of two parades and a city bicycle tour.
Many attendees were frustrated by some publishers' small booths, particularly the space taken by Random House. Carla Cohen of Politics & Prose in Washington, D.C., said that "as an industry leader, Bertelsmann showed a disdain for the book community. It was impossible to meet and talk with anybody in their postage stamp area." Like many other booksellers, Chris Khoudja of BookWorm, Bernardsville, N.J., was disappointed in Penguin Putnam's absence from the trade show floor, saying, "You'd think since they're based in New York that it would be inexpensive enough for them to show up." On the same subject, Politics & Prose's Cohen said: "Grow up, Penguin. Your presence has always been missed."
One bookseller who does about 70 orders at BEA, mainly with publishers who don't send reps, Nancy Beattie of the Bookstore Plus, Lake Placid, N.Y., said that some exhibitors appeared unprepared, because of the show's earlier date. "Three companies didn't have their order forms ready." And Robert Kennedy of the Montclair Book Center in Montclair, N.J., "expected more proofs and advance copies than I found. It was a missed opportunity."
Book Buzz
At a Thursday SRO panel moderated by PW's Nora Rawlinson, editors and publishers, including FSG's Jonathan Galassi, Doubleday's Nan Talese, Grove/Atlantic's Morgan Entrekin and Hyperion's Leigh Haber, spoke about books from their lists as though at sales conference. Some of their titles, and others, took on the buzz that many exhibitors hope for at BEA.
Among the most-talked-about and -anticipated titles at the show were Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (FSG), author of The Virgin Suicides; The Book of Illusions by Paul Auster (Holt); Baudolino by Umberto Eco (Harcourt); In the Hand of Dante by Nick Tosches (Little, Brown); and The Little Friend by Donna Tartt. (More on big books at BEA in Book News next week.)
Floor Follies
Aerialist Philippe Petit provided a first-class metaphor (thank you, Carl Lennertz) for the state of the book business when he walked a high wire above the Javits Center lobby on Saturday morning to publicize To Reach the Clouds: My High Wire Walk Between the Twin Towers, his forthcoming memoir from FSG. Convention center workers held placards reading "Look Up" as Petit crisscrossed the wire a half-dozen times to the booming voice of Portuguese singer Dulce Pontes.
The booth touting Heidi Fleiss's self-published Pandering was described variously as "brothellike" and like a "Victorian bordello" and featured women with more skin showing than not. Noting that many of those who had been to the Pandering booth were unable to provide details about the book, Amy Kaneko of Chronicle Books said, "It seems that the promotion method overshadowed the message."
Another eyebrow-raising booth was missed by most attendees: David Irving, the well-known Holocaust denier who recently lost a libel suit in the U.K., exhibited on the show's lower level under the name of the publisher he runs, Focal Point Publications. Irving's company handed out posters of Hitler flanked by two members of the Luftwaffe and promoted the new edition of his book Hitler's War. The title has been out for 25 years, and the Focal Point site does not explain how the new version has been "updated and revised." Show manager Topalian said he does not see it as the convention's job to discriminate on the basis of a book or a publisher's ideology. "Our position has always been that freedom of speech should reign," he said. "It's up to the booksellers how they want to deal with it." He noted that Focal Point has been an exhibitor since 1997.
One sad sight was the empty General Publishing/Stoddart booth. (The company filed for bankruptcy just before the show.)
Partying in Party Town
The party scene at BEA kicked off with AOL Time Warner Book Group's fete at the Bryant Park Grill. Within two packed rooms, publishing folk mingled with an array of Warner authors, including Rosie O'Donnell, who wore a black leather jacket and was accompanied by two bodyguards.
At the same time, six blocks downtown and 80 floors higher, in the Empire State Building, a large group of booksellers and others gathered to celebrate Alfred E. Smith: The Happy Warrior by Chris Finan, executive director of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression. The party concluded with everyone singing "Sidewalks of New York," with special lyrics written for Smith's presidential campaign in 1928.
On Friday night, the party to be at was thrown by the New Yorker at the Altman Building. Hosted by a congenial David Remnick, the event featured a spectacular list of publishing luminaries and New Yorker authors, perhaps most notably Stephen King, who spent much of the evening seated at a corner table, and Jonathan Franzen; also in attendance was Salman Rushdie.
The Chronicle Books bowling party at the Bowlmor Lanes offered the perfect break for convention-goers: anyone who bowled received a pair of cushy socks. Chronicle heads Nion McEvoy and Jack Jensen were among the many bowlers. On Saturday, perhaps the most pleasant party of BEA took place on the patio at the B Bar and Restaurant in the East Village, where HarperCollins's Jane Friedman hosted an affair in honor of Harper authors. Publishers Group West held its annual late-night bash, this time at Roseland, the huge dance hall, which featured Dee Dee Ramone's raucous set and the Tom Tom Club, which had the dance floor hopping with new and old tunes. "I dance once a year," said one bookseller. "And it's here at the PGW party."
Award Annals
Among the myriad awards presented at and in conjunction with BEA were the Edgar Awards for Mysteries, the Audies for audiobooks, the Firecracker Alternative Book Awards and the Lambda awards for gay and lesbian writing. Among the big winners at the Edgars were Silent Joe by T. Jefferson Parker, which took Best Novel, and Son of a Grifter by Kent Walker, which won Best True Crime book.
Audies winners included Franzen's The Corrections, which won for abridged fiction; Stephen King and Peter Straub's The Talisman, winner for unabridged fiction; and David McCullough's John Adams, which won for both abridged and unabridged nonfiction.
At the Firecrackers, the fiction award went to This Too Can Be Yours by Beth Lisick and the nonfiction prize to Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser. The Lambdas honored The Practical Heart by Allan Gurganus as best gay men's fiction and Days of Awe by Achy Obejas as best lesbian fiction. A full listing of prizes and winners will appear online at www.publishersweekly.com.
Also at the show, PW officially presented its Bookseller of the Year and Rep of the Year awards to Frank Kramer of Harvard Book Store, Cambridge, Mass., and David Glenn of Random House, respectively. Críticas awarded its first Spanish-Language Community Advocate prize to Reuben Martínez, owner of Librería Martínez, Santa Ana, Calif.
Three sidelines makers won best of show designations for their entries in the New Products showcase: LightWedge, the new reading "light"; Kikkerland Design for its moleskin notebooks; and Folkmanis, the puppet maker.
ABA ABCs
In the few days before the show officially opened, ABA sponsored a prospective booksellers school and programming for booksellers that included panels, roundtables and other networking sessions. The association also offered many opportunities for booksellers to learn more about Book Sense and BookSense.com as well as to hear about the ongoing strategic planning process. Friday's Book Sense 76 luncheon, held for the second year, was a highlight for many of the hundreds of booksellers in attendance. At each table, booksellers could talk with an author of at least one title selected for the Book Sense 76, including Richard Russo, Barbara Kingsolver and Leif Enger. Many of the nominees and winners of the Book Sense Books of the Year were in attendance; each had a few words to say. Michele Sulka of Joseph-Beth echoed many booksellers when she said that the luncheon "fosters a real sense of solidarity [and a chance] to meet fellow independent booksellers. It makes you realize that Book Sense has now really become branded. We all know and support it, and we know that many of our customers do, too."
A typically valuable ABA panel was the merchandising section of the "Best Ideas" panel. In one of two sessions, the crowd was entertained and informed by Book Sense's Carl Lennertz, who suggested that because booksellers are so used to their store and don't see it as customers do, they follow a suggestion of Donna Paz and videotape the store. "It's very objective," he said. "You will see things that shock you." In contrast to handselling, Lennertz called merchandising "eye-selling... It's what will catch customers' eyes and help sell books."
Lennertz and booksellers in attendance contributed many examples of merchandising efforts, usually involving displays or sidelines, that had worked in stores: among them, picking up special orders in stores, face out display, posting reading group selections and many more.
Celebration of Bookselling
Friday evening's Celebration of Bookselling was hosted by Doris Kearns Goodwin and featured the presentation of the Book Sense Book of the Year awards in five categories. Goodwin said she was "especially delighted" to serve as host because of the support she had gotten from independent booksellers over the last few months as controversy has swirled around her research methods. "Loyalty is a two-way street," she told the crowd. "My loyalty to you for what you have done for me in the past and especially this year is seared in my heart. I will never forget your loyal support. Thank you very much."
Becky Anderson Wilkins, of Anderson's Bookshops in Naperville, Ill., received the Charles S. Haslam Award for Excellence in Bookselling (which consists of a plaque and $1,000 check). ABA president Ann Christophersen of Women & Children First, Chicago, congratulated the Tattered Cover, Denver, on its recent court victory and called owner Joyce Meskis to the stage, where she received a standing ovation. A very moved Meskis said, "This has been a collective effort. I thank you very, very, very, very much."
BEA favorite Barbara Kingsolver greeted her fans ("Hi there, you beautiful booksellers!"), and before giving out one of the Book Sense awards, announced the winner of her own Bellwether Prize for Fiction Supporting Social Change. The award is given every other year to an author who has not yet published a major novel. This year's winner, Gayle Brandeis, will receive the $25,000 award for her novel, The Book of Dead Birds, to be released in 2003 from HarperCollins.
The Book Sense Book of the Year award for Adult Fiction went to Leif Enger's Peace Like a River (Atlantic Monthly). For the second year in a row, Ian Falconer won the Children's Illustrated Book category, this year for Olivia Saves the Circus (Atheneum/Schwartz). Ann Brashares won in the Children's Literature category for The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Delacorte).
The Adult Nonfiction award went to Laura Hillenbrand's Seabiscuit: An American Legend (Random), and the winner of the Rediscovery award—a new award—was My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett, illustrated by Ruth Christian Gannett (Random), which was a Newbery Honor Book in 1949.
Children's Book News
For the first time at the show, the ABA and the Children's Book Council, together with the Association of Booksellers for Children, combined children's programming in hopes of gaining more panels with the interests of children's booksellers in mind. "This is the first year all three [the ABA, CBC and ABC] have shared the workshop programs," said Valerie Lewis of Hicklebee's in San Jose, a founding member of the ABC. "I was thrilled to see them continuing to work together because it is a powerful combined force for the health of children's bookselling."
The "Best Ideas" sessions, open to both ABA and ABC members on Thursday morning, covered general topics ranging from marketing strategies to inventory management. Camille DeBoer, co-manager of Pooh's Corner in Grand Rapids, Mich., said she found the programming useful. "I have a good handle on children's books," she commented. "It's the business end of things I need to learn about."
Other children's booksellers also lauded the high caliber of the sessions on Thursday morning. However, they missed the traditional roundtables, eliminated due to lack of time.
The big news at the annual meeting was the naming of Anne Irish as executive director of the ABC; Irish had been interim director since the departure of Caron Chapman in November. In other developments, the ABC Web site (www.abfc.com) now offers hyperlinks to more than a dozen member Web sites (and many more bookstore members list their e-mail addresses). Irish also announced that a listserv is now available to all ABC members, a forum for discussing new titles as well as business challenges and solutions.
ABC president Chauni Haslet from All for Kids in Seattle informed attendees of the results of the recent election. The new vice-president-elect is Monica Holmes of Hicklebee's, who will automatically become the next president of ABC; Beth Puffer of New York City's Bank Street College Bookstore is treasurer; and Marilyn Dugan from A Likely Story in Alexandria, Va., takes the newly created advisory member position.
Irish also announced changes to the "Building Blocks" catalogue: it will now be called "ABC Choices for Children" and will include a selection of frontlist titles rather than the previous inclusion of exclusively backlist books. The cover will tie in with this year's "20 Minutes a Day" literacy campaign poster with art by Bob Barner, and will ship in early September.
The winners of the Lucile Micheels Pannell Awards were announced at Friday's ABA/ CBC Children's Book and Author Breakfast. For both winners, bookselling had been a family affair: Carol Chittenden of Eight Cousins in Falmouth, Mass., had opened the children's-only store with her mother in 1986, and Betsy Anderson from Anderson's Books in Naperville, Ill., said that her grandfather had started out 127 years ago with a pharmacy that also sold books. "He provided good drugs and a great read," she said in her acceptance speech.
Pulitzer Prize—winning playwright Tony Kushner and Caldecott-winning artist Maurice Sendak began the breakfast with a history of Brundibar (Hyperion/di Capua), their fall picture-book collaboration based on a Czech opera performed by Jewish children in the Terezin concentration camp. Newbery Honor author Kate DiCamillo described how she came to be a writer. Actor John Lithgow described his new children's book, Micawber, illustrated by C.F. Payne (S&S), which he hopes will "do for art what Farkle McBride did for music" in his The Remarkable Farkle McBride.
Friday's Secret Garden Auction raised $19,000 for the ABC, "neither a high nor a low," said Irish, who has headed the annual auction since its inception in 1998. Those who remained on the convention floor until its 6 p.m. closing missed the auction altogether, as bidding closed at 6 p.m. for the start of the Book Sense awards presentation. "I felt, and this was echoed by others at the auction, that we missed the electricity that goes on when you have a room full of people who are all involved with children's books," Irish said. "I'm pretty confident we'll go back to something closer to the old format for next time."
Tech Nook
Despite being banished to the far reaches of the Javits Center, electronic publishing—e-books, print-on-demand and digital infrastructure vendors—were very much on hand and doing business.
Nick Bogaty, executive director of the Open Ebook Forum, was happy despite being exiled to the outskirts of Javits. He said new members had signed up for OEB, which focuses on digital standards and publicizing e-books in general, and talked about the group's "Open an Ebook" campaign, launched at a reception just before BEA.
Technology booths were located in the far northwest corner of the convention floor, just in front of the Internet Café and right behind a few of the smaller university presses. Most exhibitors said traffic was slow. Some expressed a desire to be integrated with the other exhibitors on the show floor, saying that the original reason for isolating these vendors' booths—their overwhelming popularity when they started coming in the late 1990s—had disappeared.
It's clear that unchecked digital exuberance has been surplanted by sober realism. Publishers and vendors realize that e-books and other forms of digital publishing are here to stay and that they must have a prudent plan for digitizing their titles as well as an online presence. Vendors contacted by PW all noted that "e-book sales" is not an oxymoron, and they are growing, albeit from a small base, at a double-digit pace. Digital-services vendor Overdrive used BEA as a platform to announce a flurry of partnerships with Palm, Microsoft and Adobe.
Tad Crawford, publisher at Allworth Press, a New York— based independent publisher that produces titles on professional issues for artists and designers, said one of his principal jobs at BEA was to meet with vendors like netLibrary and Lightning Source. "POD makes sense to us; Web site sales of our titles are up 50% this year. You can't have inflated expectations, but e-publishing is a part of the business," Crawford said.
Stephen Cole, managing editor of ebooks.com, an Australian e-book retailer that does more than 85% of its business with North America, was on hand to meet with publishers. Cole said he's seen 10% to 15% sales growth over the last five months and reports categories most in demand are business books, computer books, self-help and genre fiction.
Barry Lipsky, president of Franklin Electronic Publishers, was there to talk about a new $49 handheld device preloaded with the kinds of digital reference material (Bibles, medical, dictionaries) Franklin has been selling for years. Franklin has new partnership deals with text converter Texterity to offer books in Franklin's MobiPocket e-book reader format and with AOL Time Warner Book Group to release more than 70 titles in the MobiPocket format over the next year.
Xerox was on hand to demonstrate its souped-up, full-color print-on-demand system. The heart of the system is the DocuColor 2060 Digital Color Press, which allows publishers to store texts digitally and then print short runs (at 60 pages a minute) with full color on every page.
Elizabeth Rector, director of corporate communications for print-on-demand publisher iUniverse bragged about the company's growing list of author-subsidized books and titles such as Laurie Notaro's Idiot Girls, recently picked up by Random House. IUniverse's business remains primarily author-subsidized publishing but, she said, the firm is also pursuing agreements to produce corporate documents for firms like Sun Microsystems and Palm.
NetLibrary's director of publishing, Suzanne Kemperman, was upbeat about BEA and about netLibrary's future after being acquired by OCLC. She said that despite some criticism, netLibrary will continue to offer a "one book, one user" e-book model, but will experiment with "multiple access models," in limited instances where a publisher is interested.
Audio Play by Play
The audio industry had a bustling show. The full roster of audio events included Thursday's daylong APAC educational conference at the Hyatt Hotel, where publishers and retailers were invigorated by informative and well-attended panels as well as a spirited luncheon presentation by keynote speaker Seth Godin (Unleashing the Idea Virus). Ideas for marketing to a variety of listenerships, a discussion of changing audio formats and reflections from past APA presidents were all part of the programming.
At Friday's Audiobook Tea, authors Walter Mosley (Bad Boy Brawly Brown, Audio Renaissance), Brad Meltzer (The Millionaires, Time Warner Audio) and Janet Evanovich (Hard Eight, Audio Renaissance) regaled attendees with humorous anecdotes. And Friday evening's APA Audie Awards dinner gala at the United Nations, with a number of audiobook luminaries attending, was considered by many to be a crowning achievement for the industry.
Aisle traffic for audio publishers was mixed, depending on location. At Time Warner Audiobooks, part of the centrally located AOL/Time Warner booth, "it was like the LIE out to the Hamptons on a Friday afternoon," joked Maja Thomas of Time Warner Trade Publishing. Alisa Weberman of Listen & Live Audio noted, "We've had more traffic than last year and a real variety. I'm seeing more librarians and retailers than I did last year."
Other publishers lamented a lack of foot traffic because they were located "right next to the garbage and the emergency exit." But no matter the number of passersby, audio publishers unanimously boasted of "nonstop appointments" and "doing lots of business" with retail accounts as well as on the rights end. "It's been an excellent and very efficient show," commented Grady Hesters of Audio Editions.
African-American Issues
The African-American Booksellers Conference on Thursday drew a capacity crowd. An enthusiastic audience of around 300 turned out to hear the inimitable Johnnie Cochran talk about his upcoming memoir, A Lawyer's Life (St. Martin's), and Ingram sponsored an evening reception for publishers that seemed as popular as ever.
Clara Villarosa, organizer of the conference, whose new store, Hue-Man Experience in Harlem, is slated to open sometime this summer, said African-American stores appear to have stabilized. And despite worries that the expense of traveling to New York City would hold down attendance, she said the conference "went well." Black bookstores were looking for the "cross-gender thriller that will attract males and females," she said, adding that she hoped Stephen Carter's The Emperor of Ocean Park might be it. James Fugate of EsoWon Bookstore in L.A. had no reservations about the book, calling it "a Tom Clancy—style thriller. I couldn't put it down. It is going to very big."
Booksellers also were excited about The Portable Promised Land, short stories by Toure; Walter Mosley's new Easy Rawlins novel, Bad Boy Brawly Brown; and John Ridley's new novel, A Conversation with Mann—all of which were featured at the conference luncheon. But Fugate and several other African-American booksellers contacted by PW weren't enthusiastic about much else. Fugate was not impressed with BEA in general ("it seems smaller") and worried about what he saw as fewer independent black publishing efforts.
And while the conference seems more popular every year—drawing a large number of self-publishers, authors and the general public—there is some concern about the number of independent African-American booksellers, who are dwindling just as fast, if not faster, than their white counterparts. Simba Sana, co-owner of Karibu bookstores, a group of four stores in Maryland and the Washington, D.C., area, described the event as more a "networking conference. It's more about popular authors than about the nuts-and-bolts of bookselling."
Some booksellers, who declined to be named, expressed some disappointment in titles coming from the new spate of African-American imprints recently launched at major publishers. And, as always, self-published authors were out in force. But while many booksellers praised their relentless self-promotion, at least one black bookseller, Fugate, thought they were "tacky," noting that a number of self-publishers were handing out fliers during the Time Warner author luncheon.
Emma Rodgers of the Black Images Book Bazaar in Dallas said black bookselling "remains a challenge." She recommended stocking remainders ("helps you meet your margins") and university press titles, but especially embraced the self-publishers. "We need to reach out to the self-publishers. When we discover new authors, it gives us an edge."
Black consumers, said Villarosa, "are very discretionary. So although the economy is coming back, it's not coming back very fast. It's not the best of all possible times for black booksellers, but it's not the worst."
Active Religion Activities
Once again, religion publishers of all stripes had an active and productive BEA. The Religion/ Spirituality/Inspiration section was prominently located at the front of the hall and was 10% larger than last year.
Several key staff shifts were the talk of this year's convention. Just before the show, Doubleday's head of religion publishing, Eric Major, announced his retirement, and in the Bantam Doubleday Dell aisle, a beaming Steve Rubin exulted over snagging Michelle Rapkin, the highly regarded editorial director of Bookspan's Crossings club, to succeed Major. Meanwhile, Brigitte Weeks, editor-in-chief at Guideposts, has left Guideposts and succeeds Rapkin, effective May 20.
More BEA buzz: Hayley Morgan, who as brand manager helped shape Thomas Nelson's successful Extreme for Teens line, resigned to launch her own company, Hungry Planet, and will be seeking a publishing partner for the line of books, Bibles and devotionals for teens she plans to develop.
Whispered about at the show was the sale of the Morehouse Group to Continuum, which was confirmed after the convention (see p. 23).
Exhibitors in the R/S/I section expressed satisfaction with location and traffic. But Jon Sweeney of Jewish Lights/SkyLight Paths commented that some religion publishers are afraid of being pigeonholed in the religion section at BEA. The house was among several publishers (including Thomas Nelson) that exhibited elsewhere. Eerdmans was located in the back of the hall and behind one of the curtains that were inexplicably positioned in the middle of some aisles. But Eerdmans got an unexpected bonus by being next to the Black Issues Book Review booth. Since several of the Eerdmans Books for Young Readers titles feature African-American characters, it was a good opportunity to get those books on the radar of BIBR and also to attract the attention of booksellers visiting BIBR, which covers religion books.
Although the NAPRA (Networking Alternatives for Publishers, Retailers and Artists) Pavilion in the upstairs hall was as well-populated and bustling as ever, the new Body-Mind-Spirit Pavilion—launched this year by BEA in consultation with NAPRA—did not make a strong debut. Location was a problem—the pavilion was downstairs, in the midst of children's exhibitors and small presses—as was signage (the lettering on the banners was very small).
Red Wheel/Weiser's Chris Wold also complained about the pavilion: "We were very disappointed. When we acquired Weiser, show management assumed we were new and reset our priority points. We didn't get that sorted out until after the booth draw." Still, Wold said the company had "a good show." BEA show manager Greg Topalian called the Body/Mind/ Spirit launch "a first attempt. It will be better situated next year as part of the nonbook area. We really want to draw those kinds of retailers"—in other words, the more gift-oriented stores that now attend shows like the International New Age Trade Show.
The Spanish-language Pavilion was a happening place Friday—sometimes too much so. Despite having the Celesa booth come crashing down—no one was hurt —business was brisk. Norma Fenoglio of Ediciones Oniro in Barcelona summarized what seemed to be the general trend in religion publishing among the exhibiting houses. About half of Oniro's product moves through the U.S. market, and about 12% of the company's total output is in religion, with an emphasis on Eastern, and especially Buddhist, religion. "It's the appeal of its peacefulness, I think," Fenoglio said, "People want that now."
Lucia Laratelli of Barcelona's Ediciones Urano confirmed this pattern. In addition to U.S. distribution of its titles, Urano now has a proprietary retail outlet in Miami and three others in South America. "About 30% to 40% of our sales are in spirituality," she told PW.
ABCs en Español
Reflecting that the Spanish-language market in the U.S. is still being refined, the many Spanish-related events at BEA had a nuts-and-bolts emphasis. For example, Thursday and Friday seminars gave advice to non— Spanish speakers on how to select Spanish-language books, offered basic information about Spanish-language book distributors and detailed ways to market Spanish-language books.
Other events offered opportunities to mix and mingle. Late Friday afternoon, Planeta, the largest Spanish-language house, and HarperCollins's Rayo imprint hosted a well-attended party at the Spanish Pavilion, honoring Carolina García-Aguilera, whose works are published by both houses.
Críticas's first Meet the Market event on Thursday brought together Spanish-language publishers from the U.S. and internationally as well as U.S. distributors, wholesalers and booksellers. Attendees included buyers from B&N, Borders, Ingram, Baker & Taylor, Bowker and independent booksellers.
Librarian-Publisher Dialogue
More librarians than ever attended BEA and some 200 of them were on hand for Library Journal's Day of Dialogue on Thursday with publishers and distributors. The panels on trends in publishing, new strategies for buying, marketing the midlist and adult titles for young adults offered librarians and publishers a chance to connect face to face on some perennial issues, like bringing authors to libraries.
"Why are you calling agents [of book authors]?" asked Viking president Clare Ferraro, when one librarian said her library paid $15,000 for an author. "Call our publicity departments." Librarians retorted that they often get the runaround from publicity departments, so the publishers' message isn't making it to all levels in some houses.
For their part, publishers, who included Time Warner's Maureen Egen, S&S/ Atria's Judith Curr, Random's Ivan Held and Perseus's Elizabeth Carduff, told librarians, however, not to ask for the biggest name authors. Marcia Purcell, Random's library marketing director, said that she'd had greater attendance and book sales at library programs than at many bookstore signings.
In another exchange that pointed out a disconnect between publishers and librarians, one librarian complained about books falling apart after three months. "Pack it up and send it back," said Ferraro. Librarians said they do send books back—to the distributor. "The publisher has to fix the problem. We want to know if books fall apart," said Ferraro. Baker & Taylor's Jean Srnecz blamed the bad binding problems on the Harry Potter effect—too many books at the bindery, making binderies work faster—and said they'd had more complaints, too, but that the problem should have dissipated by now.
Among other tidbits: library users are voracious for African-American titles; many librarians are doing reader's advisories on the Web (the librarians' version of handselling); Cleveland Public Library is planning to launch 24/7 "chat" reader's advisory; and libraries like Fort Worth Public Library are buying one book for every three "holds" or patron requests. The constant thread that ran through the day, however, was the need for more communication between publishers and librarians.
Graphic Novels
Graphic novel publishers at BEA reported sustained, strong interest from libraries (which have found that comics bring in boys like nothing else) and the book trade.
As for the future, they're divided between nervousness and hope. The nervousness mostly comes from client publishers of LPC (including Dark Horse, Drawn & Quarterly, Image and CrossGen), which filed for Chapter 11 last month.
NBM and its pugnacious author Ted Rall were on hand to promote To Afghanistan and Back, an instant graphic novel on Rall's visit to the war zone. Fantagraphic author Ho Che Anderson signed copies of the newest volume of bio-graphic novel King Volume 2. Last Gasp is producing facsimile U.S. editions of classic and decidedly un—politically correct Tin Tin stories (In the Land of the Soviets and In the Congo) by the Belgian comics master Hergé, done during his proto-fascist youth in 1929—1930.
Hope, on the other hand, is overflowing from licensed properties. The same weekend as BEA, the Spider-Man movie had the biggest opening ever, and Diamond Distribution and Marvel are looking forward to a huge boost from it. Marvel is focusing on its backlist titles, the Essentials series (which collects classic Spider-Man tales) plus two or three new and pricey Spider-Man hardcovers. They're also hyping the Ultimate Spider-Man, a recent series that updates the webslinger's legend. Star Wars is likely to have the same effect for Dark Horse.
Viz Communications and TokyoPop are both excited about their new and upcoming manga titles coupled with anime TV cartoon tie-ins. CrossGen is launching its Compendia program, a series of trade paperbacks that collect several series, and Comicsontheweb.com, a lavish online effort to market CrossGen print comics.
DC's got Frank Miller's sure-to-be-huge Dark Knight 2 collection coming in the fall, and Neil Gaiman's Sandman: The Endless on its heels.
Next Year in L.A.
The show will be held in Los Angeles next year, May 30—June 1. In 2004, BEA goes to Chicago and the following year comes back to New York. After that, show management is considering adding several other cities to the mix. One is Washington, D.C., a popular choice. Las Vegas is also in the cards.
