Casual Friday

PLEASE NOTE: My BEA email has gone plum goofy thanks to a mid-week server switch here at Reed. If you sent me an email from 6pm Tuesday night until noon Wednesday - I never got it. Please resend! Sorry for any problems this has caused anyone.

My new best friend at Bantam Dell, Barb Burg has gotten my hands on the forthcoming Jonathan Tropper book, How to Talk to a Widower and I can't wait to read it. I loved The Book of Joe and hand sold the hell out of it when I was a bookseller, so I'm eager to tear into this. Tropper will be at BEA signing autographs. Thanks Barb!

Note our new Book Industry Character on the BEA web site, none other than ABA Board President Russ Lawrence.

The BEA podcast site was recently relaunched; look for compelling new content only days away including pre-show author interviews, a special How to Get the Most Out of BEA from Librarian rock star Nancy Pearl, a little intro on what's new at BEA from yours truly and much more. Sign up to receive the podcasts via RSS feed or via iTunes now (or you can listen right from your desktop)! Check it out at www.bookexpocast.com.

While on BookExpo Cast I encourage you to take some time and view the video of the panel on Protecting Privacy, Challenging Secrecy, and Standing Up for the First Amendment. This streaming video event was presented by the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, The Pen American Center and the American Association of Publishers this past fall. The panel features a cross section of reporters and librarians who were persecuted, in some form, by the U.S. government under the guise of the Patriot Act for not revealing sources or turning over patron information. In each case the groups challenged the U.S. government. The most compelling story is the Connecticut Librarians case. They stood up to the FBI and won. I'm sure some federal prosecutors got fired over it - sorry, bad topical joke......

-L

Slouching Towards Clearwater

I took a day for myself after BEA business in Atlanta and flew over to Tampa Bay. I caught a spring training game between my beloved Minnesota Twins and The Philadelphia Phillies. I sprang for primo seats, and you can see my view of Eden for a baseball fan in the picture below. I was struck by a few things:

- Phillies Fans , even in spring training when the games don’t count, and a vast majority of those in attendance are now octogenarian Floridians, are still Philadelphia fans. Remember the infamous game in the 80’s when Philly fans pelted Santa Claus at an Eagles game with snowballs (and bottles and batteries presumably). It wasn’t that bad, but there were a few obscenities hurled at the umpires. I kept my clapping for my small market heroes (The Twins) to a respectful minimum.

- There is no better baseball experience than seeing the St. Paul Saints play a home game it Midway stadium in St. Paul, MN. The saints are an independent league team (which means they are not affiliated with any pro team of any kind) and part owned by Bill Murray. I can’t do the experience justice but here are a few nuggets; the original play by play announcer for the Saints was blind, a pig brings balls to home plate, they had Randy Moss hood ornament giveaway night after Moss nearly ran down a Minneapolis traffic cop and had Dick Cheney hunting cap giveaway day. Neal Karlen wrote an exceptional book about the bush league Northern Leagues and the Saints specifically called Slouching Towards Fargo, it is an exceptional story.


Good to be home but 80 degrees, sunshine and baseball are tough to beat……

-L

Cliffs Notes: The ABA's Oren Teicher does a ballpark tour every summer with old friends. He's been to more big league parks than anyone. I admire him for this fact more than I probably should! Random House staffer Jack Looney has authored his own baseball book, And The Next Batter is, Number......Check it out, Jack can do it all.

Nerds (present writer included) and Literati

The Emerging Leaders continue to emerge. The group formed a few years ago as a band of young booksellers and they continue to search for an identity, but with people like Jessica "The Written Nerd" Stockton involved, emerge they surely will. I meet Jessica at a great little coffee shop downtown last week and took the temperature of the litblog world. If you don't read The Written Nerd your life is clearly lacking focus. Jessica spins a good yarn (in addition to books reviews), but she's just a damn good egg and I like to think the existence of her and booksellers like her paint an optimistic picture for the future of independent bookselling.

As mentioned the future of bookselling was on the agenda in addition to how I can better engage lit bloggers (which, is a sidebar, I am not good at asking people to link to my blog if I them. Something about that feels kind of weird to me, like walking into the lunchroom in middle school and asking people if you could sit with them. Jessica's advice to me on the subject: get over it.) I’ve offered my help to throw a party for the Emerging Leaders this year around BEA, and in a rapid fire session while I picked at a blueberry muffin, we outlined some plans not just for a par-tay but ideas on how the Emerging Leaders can arm themselves with knowledge to become an army of hell bent on reshaping the indy bookselling landscape. Yes, heady stuff to tackle over nothing more than a pastry and some caffeine, but it’s always inspiring to spend time with someone else who is passionate about what you are passionate about.

I headed up town from there and met David Poindexter, publisher of MacAdam/Cage and Julie Burton, Director of Publicity. I know Julie and my liver has the battle wounds to prove it, but I had not met David previously. Fresh off a fellowship in Jerusalem David shared his views on the global book business and where BEA fits in it - while his suggestion for fellowships for foreign editors at BEA was great I couldn't convince him to help me pay for it! It was nice to hear that the MacAdam/Cage Reader's Choice program is being well received (they are simultaneously publishing some new books in hardcover and paperback) and David said that the chain bookstore in particular are embracing the concept and its resulting in nice sales increases. He also mentioned an impending foray into nonfiction for the traditionally literary fiction house – cool stuff for a non fiction nerd like me. Sorry to Julie for not bringing up to impending Bon Jovi announcement as she has chastised me since then. Mixing meetings (or creating synergy as my corporate brethren would say) David and I had a nice discussion about the ABA, indy booksellers and the Emerging Leaders program I had just meet with Jessica about. Take note Jessica, David has soft spot for indy booksellers hit him up for some booze money for the next party!

-L

Cliffs Notes: A former bookseller co-worker of mind sent a nice note about the Corner Bookstore I blogged on last week. It turns out Susan used to work there years ago and wondered if Ray Sherman was still the owner. I don’t have an answer for her, but I do love how small our little book nerd world is! Thanks Susan!

Gayle Force

I just had a nice dinner with Gayle Shanks (owner of Changing Hands Bookstore, ABA Vice President and PW Bookseller of the year - but also one of the smartest and kindest booksellers you'll meet) and a few others here in Atlanta. It occurred to me that Gayle is the reason I am in this business today.

It was the winter of 2002 (I think) and I was invited to serve on an ABA panel on education. From there I got more involved in the ABA and eventually served on the Booksellers Advisory Council. I've since learned that it was Gayle that recommended I sit on that education panel (I had no idea who she was and certainly didn't know that she knew of me) and looking back my involvement with the ABA is what fostered my passion for the book business and created a connection to the book world beyond my store. If not for the interest she showed in getting me connected to the ABA I may have easily drifted off to the next challenge I saw instead of trying to continue to explore this wonderful community and career in books.

Funny how a chance meeting, or more so a caring person vested in her industry (and committed to engaging young professionals), can change the course of one's career.

She's the bookseller of the year to me because she cares about our industry beyond her own store or agenda. She's also going to be good for the ABA board - shake things up Gayle and thanks for opening up a new world of people and possibilities to me (and for sharing your steak at dinner, it was great!)

-L

Cliffs Notes: When I think back on that panel in 2002 I met some great people for the first time that I still remain close with: Kristen Gilligan (ABA), Len Vlahos (ABA), Peter Shertz (Maria's Bookshop), Ken White (SFSU Bookstore), David Walker, Carole Horne (Harvard Bookstore) to name just a few. People that believe in the importance of the book in our world and people that I believe in.

Lance Fensterman
Event Director BookExpo America
203-840-5507 (office)
203-417-3607 (cell)
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Slippery When Your Latte is Wet

Two big confirmations for BEA as of this morning.

The Saturday night fundraiser will feature Bon Jovi doing an unplugged concert with Amy Grant opening at Town Hall. I predict a private concert by Bon Jovi in NYC will become a very hot ticket. I'm planning some online contests, like an auction on Ebay, to raise additional monies for the Book Industry Foundation and create buzz around this gig, it should be a great show.

Secondly we have confirmed that Ken Lombard, President of Starbucks Entertainment will be speaking at the BEA conference on Friday. We are still working on details, but this is an exciting addition to the program as Starbucks is clearly becoming not just a coffee company but a culture vendor as well. It will be interesting to hear from Lombard where he plans to steer Starbucks literary ambitions. No word if Sir Paul will open for him!

-L
Lance Fensterman
Event Director BookExpo America
203-840-5507 (office)
203-417-3607 (cell)
--------------------------
Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld

Hotlanta

I'm in Atlanta tonight to talk with Remainders companies in town for Larry May's Spring Book Show. Thanks to 3 hour delays leaving NYC I arrived late so I missed my dinner plans and am instead have a "refreshment" before bed (so the usual disclaimer to forgive me grammatical transgressions when I blog from the Blackberry are doubled as I am writing from the hotel lounge!) .

Did you know BEA is opening up the show floor on Thursday? Yup, we decided to throw the doors open to the remainders area from 12-5 on Thursday. All you need is a buyer badge and you can get a jump on the buying and selling. I came to Atlanta to talk with the remainders buyers and sellers about the added hours and how exhibitors can save 30 percent on drayage bills with our new book rate (I never knew what drayage was before I took this job so for you outsiders its the cost to ship things in and out of BEA).

The Remainders business is a lot like day trading on the stock market. Its capitalism in its purest form. In BEA DC I had an office that overlooked the entire show floor and on Thursday morning when everyone's booth was in chaos, the remainders dealers were already set up and selling. The early bird sells the book I guess. They wanted the extra jump on sales and to get buyers on the floor early they bought them exhibitor badges - sort of like sneaking through the loose plank in the outfield fence at a minor league baseball game, but something I'm not thrilled with.

So it occurred to me that we should take a cue from the market and open early this year and try and get the remainders business on the show floor recognized and those buyers acknowledged.

So here I am in Atlanta! I'm speaking to all the exhibitors tomorrow about this new offering. I hope its an example of what I am trying to bring to BEA which is an ability to listen to what my customers want and deliver it to them (damn, that sounded corporate).

-L

Cliffs Notes: The company I work for had a big meeting today and handed out awards. I'm really proud (and I know this is inside stuff, but its still cool) that BEA's marketing director, Kelly Hartman was recognized as the top marketing professional in the entire company. BEA's sales manager, Mike Carlucci was voted the best sales manager in the company. I know that is not the most exciting thing to you the reader, but know that there is a great group of people that work year round to build this show for you and I am very proud to work with them - and they are seen as some of the best people in the company so rest assured, the guy in charge may be a nut, but there are some damn fine people working with him!

Lance Fensterman
Event Director BookExpo America
203-840-5507 (office)
203-417-3607 (cell)
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Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld

Random Spouts

After looking closely at the literary social networking sites Shelfari and Library Thing, I can't really decide which one I prefer from a users standpoint (but log on and be my "friend" - it'll be cool!). I feel a bit old when I use these sites and am amazed at how vastly information is now shared and intrigued by the unrealized future potential (and yes a little confused about what I am supposed to do with it all). On Shelfari it blows me away that when you click to buy a selected book (via the newly struck deal between Shelfari and Amazon) Amazon immediately drops the book in your shopping cart. They've skipped a click - right into your cart it goes. Every click matters. Streamlining the already sparse "shopping experience" by just one click can mean a successful purchase or moving on. I am experiencing that right now as I work and re-work the BEA site, as multiple clicks are no longer acceptable in our keyword world.

Mrs. BEA and I saw the fabulous movie The Lives of Others this weekend, a German film about the Stassi monitoring a playwright in 1984 East Germany. One of the best stories I've watched in some time. I happened to have spent a week in Leipzig, Germany this summer (deep into the GDR) during the "holiday" celebrating the birth of the GDR. Still not a completely healed wound in Germany (nor will it ever be). The Lives of Others is worth the price of admission and has scary resonance for the times we are living in the U.S.

Lastly, we started our search for a new home in NYC this weekend by officially looking at our first apartment. It was a great place on East 92nd street but was way too small, even with our adjusted NYC expectations. However, I walked out the front door and right there on the corner was, appropriately enough, The Corner Bookstore. It's a great little independent book shop with a perfect mix of fiction, non and children's books. Mrs. BEA said somewhat exasperatedly, "We 're not really going to rent an apartment due to proximity to a bookstore?"

Ah, life with Mr. BEA.........

-L

The BEA Story Project

National Public Radio has featured an organization called Story Corps in recent years. The goal of Story Corps is to create a modern day version of the oral histories undertaken by the WPA in the 1930's (and similar to an audio version of Studs Terkel's great books like The Good War and Working). It’s an impressive project where they teach (and even equip) people to record the stories of friends and family. Sort of like a DIY This American Life. Story Corps has set up a booth in Grand Central and a few other locales (a move that was mimicked recently by corporations like Jet Blue to encourage people to record their Jet Blue "experience". Boy that move backfired with the recent troubles they've had. I don't think stories of being held hostage on a plane for 12 hours with overflowing toilets was exactly what they envisioned peoples Jet Blue experiences being! But I digress).

The Story Corps project gave me an idea regarding BEA. Most everyone I run into has a great story from a past BEA (or ABA). Some bookseller friends of mine can trace the birth of their child almost exactly 9 months after a BEA 4 years ago. Or the infamous story of Sara Nelson having to shimmy her way under a jammed Javits bathroom stall door only to find a notable author standing on the other side looking down on her. Or one from behind the scenes of having to get an unnamed author their personal stylist flown in or the person would refuse to make an appearance. How can we lose these stories?

On a flight somewhere (this is when I tend to come up with my more hair brained schemes) I hatched the idea for the BEA Story Project to catalogue our BEA stories. The plan is a web site to collect both text and audio stories of peoples BEA experiences from embarrassing to harrowing. We're working out the details but in the works is a simple posting board, an 1-800 number users can call to leave there story (which will be automatically uploaded to an mp3 file and posted online) and a BEA Story Project booth at the show to record your BEA story.
We'll categorize the stories on www.bookexpocast.com for all to peruse and podcast a story a week to our podcast audience. Perhaps I'm overstating the resonance BEA has with attendees, but I don't think so. Going back 100 years when it was the ABA convention, this show has been the singular gathering for the publishing community in America and now the world. The stories that happen here are part of the fabric of our community and are worth holding on to. We are in the business of telling stories after all.

Look for more on the BEA Story Project soon and in the meantime, tell me if I'm crazy for creating this forum, but something tells me that if I am crazy, it'll only make for another great BEA story.

-L

Garrison Keillor: Andy Rooney for a Slightly Younger Generation?

In his Salon.com article this week Keillor tells us that he grew up with “mixed gender” parents (pretty funny line) and then postulates on how the world has changed around him so fast he can hardly recognize the faces of the children in a school classroom he is visiting; “Only about six kids looked anything like the kids I went to school with, and of those, three were Croatian.” It’s actually kind of a witty article but the tone seems to represent an even more curmudgeonly shift for him, which seems hard to imagine! Perhaps my bookseller mate, Martin from St. Paul will weigh in as he now roams the shelves at Keillors recently opened bookstore in Cathedral Hill in Good Ole St. Paul (which happens to be located in the basement of the building I owned a condo in – oh I miss that place).

When I ran a bookstore in St. Paul, Keillor was a great customer of ours, so I really shouldn’t pick on the guy too much, but it’s hard not to……

-L

1000 Words.....

I'm back in the good old US of A after a 14 hour journey. I hate to rag on Connecticut, but going from the canals of Venice to the Long Island Sound of Borewalk, CT in around 36 hours is a little to stark of a contrast for me! I thought I'd share a few pics from the 3 country jaunt I just completed.

First up is a shot of Steve Rosato and I in the square outside the Duomo in Milan, Italy. I often refer to the BEA team, but I certainly don't give them enough credit for all that they do. I am the benefactor of the skills and talents of a great group of people. There are about 12 staffers on the BEA team full time and another 6 or 8 that work on BEA and a few other shows (operations managers, finance, managers, registration , etc). At the core of the BEA team is Steve Rosato, Steve is the Director of Industry Development and Strategic Accounts (or something like that, I never get his title correct - nor do either of us really know what it means!) but the best way to sum it up is if I don't do it Steve does. I think big picture and he then tells me I'm crazy and reigns me in then we figure out a workable plan. Steve has been working on BEA for roughly 8 years and is the heart and soul of the team and what we do. Steve also ends up being my frequent travel partner so we now behave like an old married couple when we travel ("You seem grouchy this morning, did you not sleep well?" "Did you remember your Lactaid?" things like that). I'm lucky to work with Steve as he's great for our customers, our show and he always reminds me to pack enough clean boxers - thanks dear.

A quick bookstore montage from my journey. I have found that no matter where I go in the world I hit the bookstores. By my count I've wandered through about 60 different stores around the world since taking over BEA. The first picture is in Amsterdam in front of the largest English language bookstore in the city where I found some great short story collections (UK imports is mostly what is found in the Netherlands for English titles). The second shot is me sifting through the stacks of books at the Hoepli Bookstore in Milan. Hoepli is the largest bookstore in Milan and owned by a great guy named Giovanni Hoepli. They predominantly stock Italian language books but did have a great collection of art, design and business books all in English. Giovanni absolutely loves coming the BEA for the very same reasons U.S. booksellers do; to get the buzz on fall books, network, meet authors and learn the latest trends in marketing and store operations. He is a disciple for BEA in Italy for certain.

And last is proof positive that I was working hard while in Europe. Really. I thought that perhaps to augment the food service at Javits this year we'd add a English style pub, but to be sure I needed to conduct some rigorous field research. I'll be releasing my findings via an official BEA memo in the coming weeks, but first I have to sift though and organize my napkins, er notes, on the subject. This is at the Porcupine in the SOHO neighborhood of London.

Good to be home and sleeping in my own bed for just the third night in over two weeks. Tomorrow I have to try and catch up on everything I've been putting off until after this bout of travels so if I owe you an email or a phone call, please be gentle with me!

-L

Fargo Rock City

I'm at the tail end of a long stretch of travel right now and  I wanted something light and poppy to read so before leaving the house I grabbed Chuck Klosterman's, Fargo Rock City.  I have to admit a few things here:  First, I have read all of his other books and loved them, but I never read Fargo Rock City, shameful, right?  Secondly, I am from Fargo.  Yup that's right, I was born in Fargo North Dakota

I'm glad I got those things off my chest. 

This quote comes after his assertion that bookstores are a great place to pick people up:  You can always lie about something book related to make yourself look cool and impress the object of your affection.  Klosterman says, "Bookstores have always been a great place for liars and sexual predators."

Back to my book.

-L
Lance Fensterman
Event Director BookExpo America
203-840-5507 (office)
203-417-3607 (cell)
--------------------------
Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld

Special Event Tickets

I've read your comments about the lack of availability of special event tickets and I am working on it as we speak!  As soon as I can find an Internet cafe in Venice I will proof the information that my registration manager prepared and approve it so we can get special event registration on the web ASAP!  Sorry for the delay......

-L
Lance Fensterman
Event Director BookExpo America
203-840-5507 (office)
203-417-3607 (cell)
--------------------------
Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld

Venice.......

Good morning from Italy, I'm currently on a train from Milan to Venice.  My work is done so I will take 2 days of holiday before flying home.  Wednesday I did a presentation to the Italian Publishers Association about BEA and trends in the U.S. Publishing market.  The event was very well attended and the questions and conversations were  thought provoking.  I dedicated a portion of my presentation to developments in publisher to consumer marketing and selling including the rise in social networking, peer to peer marketing and viral marketing.  I was struck by the fact that much of these developments have no respect or regard for geographic boundries.

To that same point, while in the Netherlands it was clear that reading in English was becoming the norm (my driver told me that well over half of his daughters text at university is in English) but no one had figures or statistics on the sale of books in English. After speaking to several people around the city (in cabs, bars, hotels, restaurants - yes a very scientific survey) it seems that most books in English are purchased from Amazon.com (not .uk but .com an important difference).  We'll be studying this movement towards English language reading at BEA in a new program called the Global Markets Forum.

Yesterday I had breakfast with my friend Marco Ausenda who was recently promoted to Director of RCS Publishing.   He's now responsible for one of the largest publishers in Italy (they have about 13 percent of the Italian market) but he misses living in New York! 

Later in the day I walked through the Hoepli Bookstore, Milans biggest bookstore.  I had met the owner on Wenesday and he loves BEA and meeting booksellers.  His store was exceptional: five floors in a lovely setting with very knowledgable booksellers.  I was particularly impressed with his selection of art and design books.  And while there I could not help but notice the strength of Mondadori Books as there logo seemed to be on half the books on display in the store - I wasent far off, Mondadori controls 40 percent of the Italian book market (some say even more).  Late Thursday I met with Massimo Turchetta the Managing Director for Mondadori.  I enjoyed learning how he uses BEA and what his goals are for Mondadori, it was interesting to learn that at BEA he is looking to aquire rights, meet authors and see the marketing trends in the U.S.  All aspects of the show that I would consider strengths, but we hope to grow Mondadori's involvement in BEA in the coming years.

Whew, its been a busy trip.  More posts to come but for now Ciao.  And thanks for overlooking the typos.

-L

Lance Fensterman
Event Director BookExpo America
203-840-5507 (office)
203-417-3607 (cell)
--------------------------
Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld

Drum Roll Please! Here are the BEA Author Events For 2007

I am posting from Milan, Italy this evening.......As I have been promising, I would let my dedicated blog readers get a sneak peak at the authors selected for BEA before the media or anyone else – I think I owe you that much for occasionally submitting yourself to the punishment of my blogging. BEA will issue a formal press release tomorrow morning on this subject.

I think we have assembled a pretty amazing group of authors and have some interesting personality mixes as well. The process in which we select these authors is pretty arduous. We assemble a group of independent booksellers, some media types, BEA people and some special guests to go over a list of some 300 authors submitted. Now, this is a fascinating process as independent booksellers are, by very description, pretty independent (I know because I was one!). So to get a group of 25 people, many with rich and well formed opinions on authors to agree on 15 or so finalists is no small task. I’m happy to report that there was never any bloodshed and no tears.

However that’s just the beginning as once we choose the authors we have to confirm them with publishers. And I have to say that some publishers submit authors that are not actually available, which is incredibly frustrating (not just to me, but to the bookseller that gave up a day to labor over selecting that author). So of the authors we selected about a quarter were not available, so then we go back to the list later and pick the right author to fit (or at least I hope I picked the right author).

The other item worth noting is that as of now BEA has no opening night speaker. Often we find that publishers have a late add to the fall list that emerges as a great candidate for the opening night event. However if I don’t find the perfect author for the event, we won’t stage it this year. It seems best to me to select the right person as opposed to just someone who is available, so stay tuned on that.

Lastly, you’ll notice on the breakfast events we have created a two tier pricing and seating scheme. After BEA last year a lot of people told me that didn’t want to have to buy a less than stellar convention center breakfast (stale bagel and one cup of cold coffee) to see the authors. So in response I’ve created a choice: breakfast or no breakfast ($15 vs $35) but note that the breakfast seats (round tables) are at the front of the hall and non breakfast (theatre style seating) is at the back. But fret not, you also told me that we must have video for all events, so taking my cue from you, we will have video screens for all events. Thanks for all the advice!

And with no further wait…….

FRIDAY, June 1, 2007
8:00AM – 9:30AM CHILDREN’S BOOK & AUTHOR BREAKFAST (Special Events Hall)
Presented in cooperation with the Children's Booksellers and Publishers Committee [A cooperative committee of the American Booksellers Association (ABA), Association of Booksellers for Children (ABC), and the Children's Book Council (CBC)] this opening-day breakfast will feature Mo Willems, author of Knuffle Bunny too! A Case of Mistaken Identity (Hyperion Books for Children); Jacqueline Wilson, author of Candyfloss (Roaring Brook Press); and Daniel Pinkwater, author of The Neddiad (Houghton Mifflin Children’s Book Group). Libba Bray, author of The Sweet Far Thing (Delacorte Press) will be the Master of Ceremonies. General Admission: $15. Breakfast Admission: $35.

11:00AM / BEA’S CONFERENCE KEYNOTE WITH ALAN GREENSPAN
(ROOM 1E12)
Former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Dr. Alan Greenspan, will discuss his eagerly anticipated new book, The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World (Penguin Press), in a an exclusive live “on stage” interview with Andrea Mitchell, Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent for NBC News.

SATURDAY, June 2, 2007

8:00AM – 9:30AM SATURDAY BOOK & AUTHOR BREAKFAST (Special Events Hall)
Saturday morning will feature Ken Burns, author (with Geoffrey C. Ward) of The War: An Intimate History, 1941 – 1945 (Alfred A. Knopf); Lisa See, author of Peony in Love (Random House); and Khaled Hosseini, author of A Thousand Splendid Suns (Riverhead Books). Stephen Colbert, author of I Am America and So Can You (Warner Books/Hachette Book Group USA) will be the Master of Ceremonies. General Admission: $15. Breakfast Admission: $35.

12PM – 2PM SATURDAY BOOK & AUTHOR LUNCHEON (Special Events Hall)
This year's lunch will focus on political, cultural and social change and will feature Muhammad Yunus, author of More Than Profits: How Social Business Can End Poverty and Change the World (Public Affairs); Paul Krugman, author of Conscience of a Liberal (W.W. Norton); and Russell Simmons, author of Do You!: 12 Laws to Access the Power in You to Achieve Happiness and Success (Gotham Books). Alan Alda, author of Things I Learned While Talking to Myself (Random House) will be the Master of Ceremonies. Admission $50.

4PM – 5PM THE HEARD WORD: BEA’S AUDIOBOOK & AUTHOR TEA (The Galleria, River Pavilion)
Come hear Roy Blount Jr., author of Long Time Leaving: Dispatches from Up South (Highbridge Audio); Jennifer Egan, author of The Keep (BBC Audiobooks America); John Lithgow, author of The Poets Corner: The One and Only Poetry AudioBook for the Whole Family (Hachette Audio); and Tom Perrotta, author of The Abstinence Teacher (Audio Renaissance) talk about their recent and upcoming audiobooks and the experience of hearing their works translated into audiobook format. Hosted by the Audio Publishers Association. Admission $20.

SUNDAY, June 3, 2007

8:00AM – 9:30AM SUNDAY BOOK & AUTHOR BREAKFAST (Special Events Hall)
Sunday morning will feature Paul Coehlo, author of The Witch of Portobello (HarperCollins); Alice Sebold, author of The Almost Moon (Little Brown and Company); and Ian McEwan, author of On Chesil Beach (Doubleday). Rosie O’Donnell, author of Celebrity Detox (Warner Books/Hachette Book Group USA) will be the Master of Ceremonies. General Admission: $15. Breakfast Admission: $35.

Italia!

I am on my way to Milan after spending a rainy cold night and day in Amsterdam.  It hit me as I got onto this Transavia (?) flight that this is the 6th flight I've taken in the last 7 days!

I will post the 2007 BEA author events later tonight and will also blog a bit more about what I've been up to in Europe.  Lastly, check out BEA.com for a new Book Industry Character (profiles of book biz hip cats to highlight the forthcoming My BEA social networking and show planning feature) its FSG's Jeff Seroy, not just a hip cat, but a damn smart fella and all around nice guy.

Ciao

-L
Lance Fensterman
Event Director BookExpo America
203-840-5507 (office)
203-417-3607 (cell)
--------------------------
Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld

L.A. - Times Square West?

I'm blogging from a flight to London, and I'm tired and the only one awake on the plane, so forgive me for typos, profanity, or other offenses (such as just being boring!)

I was in Los Angeles on Wednesday to check out the convention center, city and hotel stock in preperation for BEA 2008.  The show has not been in LA for a few years and I thought it best to go get a first hand llok at how they do things out West.  I was impressed with the ammount of development and energy in downtown L.A.  They have added about 7,000 housing units in the last 2 years with another 8,000 due to be built in the next 2 years.  They are also embarking on a huge development project around the convention center called LA Live that will include 20 some restaurants, shops, a movie theatre, a huge music hall and an outdoor pavillion my hosts refered to as Times Square West - ok so they were laying it on pretty thick.  But all of this will be completed by BEA next year and it'll be nice to have all those services right outside the convention center.

I took a 90 minute walking tour of downtown and leanred a ton about the city and generally enjoyed not walking through snow and ice while I learned about the city.  However, the guide was so enthralled with LA that he sounded a bit like a stalker.  Everything was "world class" and it was the leader in every possible category, "there is no city in the world with as much outdoor space committed to art as LA". Like who would even know if he was lying?

Bottom line: I expected to find this sparse, boring, spread out city and what I found was an incredibly vibrant arts, entertaintment and residental scene.  I think BEA in LA next year is going to be pretty cool actually.  I saw spme great spaces for publisher parties (the LA library for one, which is really amazing), some cool venues for outdoor author events perhaps and some great little bars for the real business of BEA.

I'll blog on and off this week.  I'm traveling through Europe meeting with publishers and rights agents this week for BEA.  Tomorrow is London so perhaps I'll blog over a pint....

Cheers!

-L
Lance Fensterman
Event Director BookExpo America
203-840-5507 (office)
203-417-3607 (cell)
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Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld

West Coast Strutting

That's a lyric from a Guns and Roses song from my youth, trust me, I've been doing no strutting at all, but I have been on the West Coast.  I flew into San Francisco and met with Chronicle and MacAdam Cage on Wednesday. 

Chronicle is such a cool, funky, creative publisher and I'm a little dissapointed that we, as a team, have not done a better job of engaging them and getting them more involved in BEA.  I hope our meeting Wednesday was a start at correcting that.  They have a really cool author that's a late add to the Chronicle fall list and we hatched a pretty cool event idea during our meeting - stay tuned!

MacAdam Cage was a nice dinner with good people.  They are one of the good one's in the world of independent publishing.  The new Readers Choice program they've launched is great.  They will be releasing spring titles in both paperback and hardcover form and the move drew cheers, literally, from booksellers at the ABA's Winter Intitute.

In between meetings I haunted the aisles at Green Apple Books for a few hours.  Kevin Ryan, one of the owners, has become a friend, but I'd never seen his store.  What an operation they've got, its fits the storied SF indy bookstore look and feel to a tee.  Dirty (in a good sense) a little confusing, full of character and books from the floor to the ceiling.  I was in heaven but limited myself to just 3 books.

After some shopping Kevin and Adam from Green Apple took me to the Bitter End across the street to discuss such weighty things as the future of bookselling and the difference between the new and old Stars Wars films over 3 dollar beers.  It was there that I realized yet another thing I hate about living in Connecticut:  there are no jukeboxes in that state (and if you can find one I gurantee its filled with junk).  The Bitter End?  The Pogues, Tom Waits, Peggy Lee, all the good stuff!

Yeah, Kevin's got a great gig: a cool bookstore and a bar across the street with a great jukebox - I'm grateful he let me visit his world for an evening......

Please forgive any typos as I'm working without a net.

-L
Lance Fensterman
Event Director BookExpo America
203-840-5507 (office)
203-417-3607 (cell)
--------------------------
Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld