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A BEA Diary - 2004
Sunday
Sunday is always my favorite day at BEA because it is always the least crowded. While Saturday was sparse, Sunday was absolutely dead. As I said earlier, you could see most of the show in one day. Two days would let you see everything once and most booths twice. There were very few people who wanted to see anything a third time.
It used to be that Sunday afternoon would get at least a small crowd of people looking for give-away books from publishers who did not want to pack them up and ship them back. But unlike previous years, the major houses brought a ton of galleys that they gave to one and all. There was even a special edition of Harry Potter that was given away... by the hundreds. So you didn't have to wait until Sunday to get good stuff.... it was available on Friday and Saturday as well. Besides, in the past few years the BEA has cracked down on people bringing in rolling carts or suitcases. In past years, the aisles on Sunday were full of people dragging overflowing carts of free books and trinkets. No more.
I started off by visiting Victoria Sutherland, publisher of ForeWord Magazine. I had seen Victoria as well as editor Alex Moore at the PMA but did not get much of a chance to chat.
Victoria was surprised to learn that Jerry Jenkins' organization was going to do paid-for reviews, same as she and BookWire were doing. And she was even less pleased to learn that PW was considering such a thing. ForeWord pioneered this a few years ago and took a lot of flack for it. I was one of the few in the media (or business) who stood up, supported them, and went on record saying this would be a good thing for the industry. I guess if you live long enough everything comes to pass. Anyway, Victoria said things were going well for the magazine and she has no plans to sell to a larger organization, as has been rumored from time to time. Victoria is coming out with a quarterly publication called eWord and it looks like something that we might want to advertise JAYA123 in. It is always good to see Victoria. She was the very first Official Book Babe... a whole bunch of years ago.  Victoria Sutherland of ForeWord Magazine Leaving ForeWord, I went over to the SPAN booth. I never got along well with the previous owner, Marilyn Ross but since it has been sold to Scott Floria, I have renewed hopes for the association. It has about a third the membership of PMA and I think their newsletter is every bit as good if not better. Deb Ellis said that they are going to perform a total "make over" of SPAN, starting with a new logo and format of their newsletter. They are planning a small publishers marketing conference in October in Philadelphia. I may exhibit JAYA123 there if they will either lower the cost, or attract more than the 100 they are expecting. Rick Fishman, Fern Reiss, and Brian Jud are headlining the event and that's a pretty good cast. I went to call on an old friend of mine, book designer Tamara Dever of TLC Graphics. I knew her when she first started out in Sacramento a number of years ago. She has since moved to Austin, TX and is doing very well. We had a nice chat about the cost of book design. It seems that most of the really good designers are raising their prices as most have not had an increase for the past three or four years. While a very short list of "name" designers get six or seven grand for a cover, it seems that the going price now is between $1800 and $2000 for a cover. Inside design pricing is all over the place, from $5 to $16 a page. The really good designers are always busy and you can't blame them for wanting to make as much as they can from their art and talent.  Tamara Dever (left) of TLC Graphics I wandered over to the large New York publisher booths in the center of the hall. I always do these on Sunday as they are less crowded. Today it was like visiting a morgue. While the large houses have money and contacts, they don't have much in the way of creativity. I saw a lot of the same old same old. That does not mean it was bad, it was just... well... boring. There were a few interesting political books and a few historical concept books. However most of what I saw was your basic pulp fiction. If there was a new, serious novel by a recognized writer in the hall, I missed it. It's all about celebs these days. The one thing that I did enjoy looking at was a massive table-top book titled The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker. This tome along with a CD will contain all 68,000+ cartoons from the venerable magazine. This has never been published before and I'm sure it will be a great gift item when it comes out this fall. If any of you have a spare $60 laying around and want to send me a gift, this would be it :-) BTW, the press release that the publisher, Black Dog & Leventhal, put out did not list a website. Tell me again about how the big houses are more up-to-date than the small press! On the spiritual front the usual suspects were there... Ron Hubbard, Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, Yogananda etc. However this year was a new entrant... Immortal Light by Swami Amar Jyoti. This is the biography of the late swami. I have never heard of this individual, but there was always a small crowd of people at the booth so I guess he was a popular figure in his genre. Truth Consciousness Publications. I took a look at the offerings of the various university presses. If there is one sector of the industry that has been hard-hit, it is this one. Many, if not most, have lost their subsidy funding and they have to make it "on their own" and it's not an easy task for academics who do not have a "market" background. These presses seem to do a great job with historicals.... such as GI Jews from Harvard.. I wish them well, but I don't know how many of them can or will survive without funding from"big daddy." I walked around the area that contained all of the "sidelines" that many bookstores carry... bookmarks, glasses, toys, etc. There were far fewer exhibitors of these items then last year. The one interesting thing I saw was a book light that you put over the page. You need to go to the Light Wedge site. to see this. I loved this thing and will order one. One vendor with a great name... Our Name is Mud... had a beautiful line of pottery-type gift items. Really nice stuff. Very unique. I'll be getting some of their stuff for holiday gifts. Check out the Our Name Is Mud site. The only new "thing" I saw in the healthcare area was by Health On Hand Press. They have an interesting collection of health kits... for women, men, kids, seniors... etc. that are a one-stop compendium of advice, record keeping, and information. As the population ages I can see where these kinds of "kits" will become popular. It is a good idea... and an item that can sell well over the web. I think avoiding bookstores is the name of the game... mainly because there are getting to be so few of them. It was lunch time so that meant meeting Maya at the PMA booth. While I was waiting, up walked Tom Alexander. We have not been exactly on the best of terms lately but just before BEA we settled our differences and agreed to disagree. Maya met us and we went to the back of the hall for a light lunch. Tom paid... which was a good thing since Maya had just about tapped me out! Tom is the publisher of Growing Edge, a magazine targeted to organic gardeners. We had a nice lunch and it was good to get together with him.  Tom Alexander (left) with the author While there were a lot of books being given away, there were hardly any totes or t-shirt promotion items. One vendor, Britten Banners had a "spin" for a t-shirt so I went over there to try my luck. My luck was good. They had over-estimated the number of shirts to bring so they were giving away as many as anyone wanted. I got three. It was the first time at the BEA for this company. They make vinyl banners and posters for booths or store fronts or anything. They are very cheap and are perfect for a book signing. Check them out. Next came trouble. I got thrown out of the Baker and Taylor booth. It's true. This year B&T had something new... a large roped-off area with red carpet for video production companies. And they had some big guns... Paramount, Disney, etc. who bought space in the section. It seems that they have talked these giant firms into using B&T to get DVD's into gas station stores, 7-11s, truck stops, etc. The B&T guy saw my press badge and told me I could have some free popcorn but that I was not allowed to speak to any of the company reps that had sub-booths in the area. Well, you know me. I started talking to the Paramount guy. I asked him why a big company like his would use a company that is as inefficient as B&T is as a distributor. The rep was real interested in why I thought B&T was close to "the pits" in the wholesaling biz. However the B&T drone came over and asked me to leave the booth and said he was calling security on his cell phone. I thought about making a scene, but decided that there really wasn't a story here and left. Of course, the question remains WHY anyone with half a brain would chose B&T over Ingram or half a dozen other wholesalers to distribute anything more complex than a paper clip is beyond me. Either B&T has some really good pitchmen, or the folks who make these kinds of decisions at the large video production companies are dumb and dumber than even WE think they are! Anyway, whatever the answer is, it was not worth being tossed out of the hall for and perhaps being arrested. It's just another example of how B&T has its head up its corporate ass. It was getting late and I had saved the best for last. We have a terrific JAYA123 client named Silverback Books. These folks make very upscale cookbooks and instead of selling to the book trade, they concentrate on kitchen stores and speciality outlets like Crate and Barrel, Pottery Barn, as well as the large department store chains. They have about 100 titles and all of them sell well. I had never met Peter Dombrowski but we had spoken many times over the years by phone. So it was good to finally meet him. He has given us many good suggestions for features to incorporate into JAYA123 and I'm ever so grateful. It was my last stop of the day, and the most enjoyable. As I walked back to the PMA booth the final bell rung and the show was over. I talked to Jan Nathan for a few minutes, said farewell to other book friends and like Elvis, I left the building. THE END |