BookExpo - I'm officially Excited.....

Last night the Editor in Chief asked me what I was looking forward to at the show, it’s funny as I don’t feel like I’ve even had time to think about that, you know? I gotta level with you, this has been a challenging 2 months for me. NY Comic Con was a huge success but it is so energy intensive and to have BookExpo just 6 weeks later made it really high stress. So it felt great to wake up on Friday morning with the energy, excitement and giddiness that’s been buried under piles of to do’s and deadlines for the last month and a half. I woke up Friday hours before my alarm clock knowing that BEA was just around the corner. And now I’ve rounded that corner! I’m about to head to the airport and by dinner time I’ll be in L.A. and I’m hoping to see a ton of you while I’m there so make sure and say hi when you see me racing around the LACC! So just what am I excited about?

Wednesday

The Emerging Leaders Party at The Woods from 7-9. I hosted this same party last year with the ABA and the Emerging Leaders Council. If you are in the business, under 40 and looking to network, meet authors and have some fun then come out to The Woods in Hollywood!

Thursday

The ABA’s Celebration of Bookselling at 5pm where they will unveil an all new plan for Booksense. I was luck enough to get a full preview a month ago and it is awesome. Really revolutionary stuff.

Friday

I am honored to introduce Tom Friedman for his conference keynote talk at 11am.

The ABA Town Hall meeting at 3pm is one of my favorite events of the weekend.

Jeff Bezos at 3 will be a huge event and promises to provide some new insights to Amazon.

The Children’s’ Author Breakfast at 8am.

Too many panels to mention, but here are a few: The Future of Reading (1pm), Global Market Forum – China (1pm), The Caravan Project (1pm) – I think I have too many 1pm panels. The New American Character: John Zogby (10am), Steal This Book! Selling and Promoting Literature on the Edge (11:30am),

Too many parties to get to in one night. I’m going to do my best to get to 5 between the hours of 6 and 11! Whew.

Saturday

The Diamond Graphic Novel Breakfast at 8am.

The Author Breakfast at 8am

More Panels! Unshelved’s Surviving The Public (11am – and I get to intro Gene and Bill!), Pen American Reception (4pm), The Gen Z Reader (4:30pm), The New Comic To Film Machinery (11am) Librarian Book Buzz (3pm), Upfront and Unscripted with Dan Pink (11am).

Lewis Black doing the Saturday night fundraiser at 9pm. I asked PW’s Sara Nelson to do the intro as she’s known Lewis for many, many years. It’s going to be a lot of fun.

Sunday

The Sunday Author Breakfast at 8am.

Meet the Bestsellers lunch at noon.

Whew, then I finally get to rest after these two blockbuster shows just weeks apart!

-L