BookExpo America 2011 and the Book Blogger Convention Part One: What I Did

Even though I have some serious Bronchitis going on right now, and have spent the past four days laying on the couch overdosing on the Casey Anthony “Tot Mom” murder trial, there is no possible way for me to write a short and simple blog post to share everything I experienced in New York last week at the 2011 BookExpo America and the Book Blogger Convention. Many of you already know how much I love to write long blog posts, and since no one wants to read long blog posts anymore, I have decided to break apart my recap post into several semi-long posts over the next few days, saving us both time and energy!

Part One: What I Did

I love to get the most from my trip planning, so this year was again filled with tons of activities, mostly book-related, since this was my sixth visit to New York.

Monday:

After going to bed for a half hour, it was time to “wake-up” (ha!) and leave for the airport at 2:30 a.m.  Yep, I am an idiot, and I sleep-deprived myself (again) before coming to the event. All I can say is that I blame The Real Housewives of New Jersey.  After a quick hour and a half drive, I got to the airport, flew to Washington, D.C., and then made my connecting flight to New York. Of course, I couldn’t check into my hotel room once I got there, so I checked my bags and headed out into the city.

Since it was overcast and semi-cool outside, I decided to walk over to Javits to register and check out the new titles section. This was my first mistake. Even though I was wearing my comfy Nike’s, my body was already killing me, since I had been traveling all day in small prop planes and I have severe degenerative arthritis due to a genetic connective tissue disease. Basically, my spine is collapsing and I need to be on narcotic pain killers, but I take nothing (other than food) for my pain. When you walk 2 miles while carrying a 25 pound purse, it isn’t a good thing. Thankfully, I got there, but I spent the next hour trying to check in. See, last year I registered at the press booth, so when I went there again and she checked me in, but then told me to go down all the way to the end to get my Book Blogger ribbon, I knew I was in for some trouble. Every registration booth kept passing me along to the next, and this was starting to get annoying. I eventually started approaching individuals, and finally some kind soul found the ribbons and gave me mine. After all that, I had to head back to my hotel, as I had a long walk back and had to get ready for my next event.

I finally got to check into my hotel, and had a few minutes to get ready before I had to head out for the Random House Reader’s Circle Tea. I decided to change shoes, which was a huge mistake. It took my longer to walk 1 mile in those shoes than it had taken me to walk 2 miles in my Nike’s. I was miserable, and then I started having a major hot flash, so it was no surprise when I ran into my friend Teddy and called her by the wrong name! I’m such a dork like that. We had a bit of a wait, but it was great, because the lobby of Random House is filled with thousands of first editions. Thankfully, I have seen their lobby on Kathy Griffin’s My Life on the D List, so I knew to look closely.

The reception was really nice, and I kept running into people I knew, and met a few cool midwestern librarians, but I was dying in there. Some woman from Random House interviewed me, and I kept joking did her video camera have anti-sheen button, since I was glowing! You can see how shiny my face was in the picture above, even though I kept blotting it with my Clean and Clear Oil Absorbing sheets. When I went back to the bar, I noticed that the Champaign I had been drinking had grapefruit juice in it and since I can’t drink grapefruit juice due to drug interaction, I realized I wasn’t going into early menopause, I was just having a small allergic reaction. Thankfully, I snagged the last available seat and sweated and spinned peacefully in the corner during Lisa See’s reading.

After attempting to fill up on cream cheese and cucumber tea sandwiches, it was time to hit the swag tables. I about died when I say what the had to offer–I nearly picked up every book. They were even giving away Elizabeth Berg’s latest book. Thankfully, I regained control of myself and just took the books I was dying to read.

I loved visiting Random house, but I was bummed on my way out when the security guard wouldn’t let me take any pictures in the lobby. Thankfully, I am a sneaky little shit and managed this shot from outside the building.

After Random House, I was tired, but not ready to go back to my hotel room and crash. Plus my feet were killing me and I was now carrying to heavy bags–my puse and my book bag from Random House. I wandered over to Times Square, and it was just crazy there–so loud. I made this video to capture the madness of it.

Tuesday:

Tuesday was my day to explore Javits, so I got there at 7:10 a.m. and stayed until 5:20 p.m. I didn’t sleep much the night before, between the pain in my body from walking 7 miles, and the pain in my mind from spending 90 minutes the night before trying to get my bedding (Yeah, they gave me a bed with just sheets on it!) and my remote control, so waking up at 5:30 a.m. to get autograph tickets to see Temple Grandin, Julianne Moore and Eoin Colfer a little rough, but I did it. I had a great time spending the next 2 hours chatting to people in line to get, especially with these True Blood loving booksellers who could actually point out the same people who cut in line in front of them last year.

They inspired me to make another video, so I give you all the entitled assholes who cut in front of thousands of people in line who waited to get in patiently and orderly. I hate it when people feel oh so entitled to do what they want. I love nothing more than shaming people, so please watch it. Also, I meant to say all the people on the left, and I am thanking the staff of Javits, who were making many of these same people turn back around to go to the end of the line.

I had a great time meeting more fabulous bloggers, librarians, book sellers and famous authors, but I’m going to tell you more about that in a later post. I will tell you that I have never been more enraged in all my life than when the folks at Random House refused to start a line at the Tyra Banks signing, and then once I got to meet her, she didn’t even make eye contact, and her bodyguard decided to scream at everyone, including me, not to take pictures. If it is one thing I hate, it is getting screamed at. Bastard.  I forgot to get a picture of him, darn it. The things a stepmom has to go through, I tell ya …

I was in rough shape after this first day, even though I purposely tried to not take as many books as I wanted. I was hot flashing like crazy again, and I was exhausted. When I got back to my hotel room and noticed the maid had AGAIN took all the bedding and left me with just sheets, I about exploded. But I went downstairs and calmly told the front desk staff that I was enraged and needed to talk to someone about my maid. Thankfully, I was passed along to a tough Russian who appreciated my smile even though I was ready to murder someone.  Let me tell you, that never happened again, and I enjoyed my 2 free $20 breakfast vouchers, so it was a life lesson in remaining calm when people act dumb.

Wednesday:

I started my day off at the Author Breakfast, and somehow ended up sitting with big time bloggers Beth Fish, Presenting Lenore, and another wonderful woman whose name escapes me, due to the major antibiotics I am on. While $20 got me orange juice, a bagel and a muffin, it also got me extremely close to Mindy Kaling, Diane Keaton, Jefferey Eugenides and Charlaine Harris.

I loved listening to Mindy Kaling, and she was a great Master of Ceremonies at this breakfast. Her book, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, comes out this fall, and it is full of her witty observations, neurotic fears, and random opinions about everything from her favorite types  of guys–Sherlock Holmes, NBA players, and nineteenth-century fictional hunks, to life in The Office writers’ room, to her dieting, “I don’t travel, speak  other languages, do crafts, or enjoy sports, but I love reading about  new diets,” to how much she loves romantic comedies. If you haven’t already fallen in love with Mindy on her show The Office, you’ll fall in love with her after watching my video, or even reading her book when it comes out.

I’ve been a lifelong fan of Diane Keaton, and was looking forward to finding out more about her upcoming memoir, Then Again. Diane certainly has written a very moving book, and my biggest regret was not getting on tape when she was speaking about her mother’s 15 year losing battle with Alzheimer’s. I will admit that most of us had tears in our eyes, including Diane, who was so moved she couldn’t speak for a few moments. If you have 10 minutes, I highly suggest you watch my video.

Jeffrey Eumenides’ newest book, The Marriage Plot, sounds as interesting as his other books, Middlesex and The Virgin Suicides. Not only do I love him just because he is from Detroit and he is a Pulitzer Prize winning author, I love him because he has “a perverse love” of his birthplace. I look forward to reading his upcoming novel, because marriage is a serious subject that hasn’t gotten a serious look in the literary world in a long time. Unfortunately, his upcoming book doesn’t have a cover yet.

Charlene Harris is the beloved author of those HBO True Blood books, and since I am a fatigued by the vampire genre, I thought I was going to tune her out. However, she was charming and funny and I decided to keep my copy of Dead Reckoning, just in case the urge to read it hit me. Fans of her went wild and if that is you, I am sorry you missed her speak at this event.

l spent the rest of my day at Javits, getting bumped and pushed by crazy book grabbers, who mysteriously showed up on the big celebrity day. Assholes. Then I had it out with the lady who checked me in at the Press Booth, because something happened and I wasn’t registered as press, so I couldn’t use the press room for the free internet as I had planned. I was very frustrated and on the verge of tears, probably due to the pain I was feeling, and by the kindness author and filmmaker Micheal Moore had shown to me.

Thankfully, I recovered after taking a time out in front of Javits, and spent the rest of my time at Javits either taking photographs or sitting on the ground in several 1-2 hour lines, so I tried my best to ignore them and focus on the good company I was keeping with plenty of east coast librarians. My body hurt like crazy, and I just wanted to go home, but I had to stay to the bitter end to meet one of my top 5 living authors, Chuck Palahniuk, which I will write about more this week. I will tell you that again, I was yelled at by security at the same Random House booth, but this time I fought back. I will leave you with this photo, and hope you appreciate it as much as I do.

That evening, I attended the HarperCollins Celebration of Book Bloggers event, which I had high hopes for. I made the mistake of wearing high heels (why?) and walking half a mile to get there, so I was already over-heated and in more pain by the time I got there, and highly sensitive after watching one of the organizers of the BBC literally get up and walk away from me when I was trying to talk to her. Sure, she could have been thirsty, or saw a freind, but I was already sensitive and took it the wrong way. I could see that was how the night was going to go, and while thankfully none of the HarperCollins staff acted that way, I noticed a ton of people trying to rush meet as many people as they could, and it was frustrating to me. I know I am not a “hot and in high demand” book blogger, especially after taking off a good 6 months last year, but I am still a human being, and it hurt to feel the sting of getting ignored by people I met last year, or by new people who “didn’t have time” to mingle with me this year. I was being overly sensitive, and the over-crowding and extreme heat was getting to me, and the emotions of the day were creeping in, but regardless of the cause, I had a not so great time near the end, so I left early. Thankfully, one of my new favorite authors (Simon Van Booy) was there and reminded me to take a picture of us before I split. Since I was drunk from one glass of red wine, I couldn’t make it all the way to my hotel, so I spent a good 20 minutes in the lobby of the Waldorf, just people watching.

Thursday:

I woke up Thursday morning and decided to do a boat tour, especially since I brought my fancy camera. I skipped the last day of BookExpo and the Book Blogger Convention reception completely and have no regrets, other than forgetting that I’m half Finnish, and that as a white person, spending 5 hours in the direct sun will get you sunburned to a crisp. I had a great time, and even though it was hazy and partly cloudy, I managed to get a lot of great shots. Actually, I took a total of 987 photographs in New York, but I’m a little crazy that way.

Thankfully, I managed to check my email that afternoon at my hotel and saw that my Sweet Get Together at Serendipity 3 that JKSCommunications was hosting was moved up to 8 p.m., so I went walked around the city a bit and took even more photographs. I had a really nice time at Serendipity, but I was bummed since the 40 or so guests were sat at separate 6 tops tables. I was the only book blogger at my table, which is fine, but I was slightly intimidated by all the talent surrounding me. I had the yummiest hot fudge sundae and fries and went to bed a very happy person, even though I got back to my hotel close to midnight and had to wake up at 6:00 a.m. the next morning.

I arrived at the Book Blogger Convention around 7:30 a.m. Thankfully, I sat down next to some fun and snarky people and had a ball with other bloggers and writers, including Genna, Amanda, and Andy. While I thought the breakfast was worth the price, a certain someone who won’t be named started off my day with “this is a jip” which made me laugh for reasons unknown. As this unnamed person explained they meant the whole event, I couldn’t help but agree by the end of the day, as I compared this year to the previous year. If I was a first time attendee like they were, I would have been disappointed, too. I was shocked to leave breakfast and head over to the build your own swag bag line, as the amount of items they were offering had decreased dramatically from the previous year. Then I got a look at the gift bag there were giving away, and laughed at its small size, as it was big enough to only hold 5 or 6 books, when the bags last year could hold up to 30 books.

I’m planning on going into more detail about this event once my last box of books arrive with my notes, (hello, why did I ship them?) but I will say I missed being able to hear everyone speak, I missed having the whole audio-visual experience that we had last year, and I hated the destraction the swag bag area caused us folks seated near the rear of the conference room. A large group of young bloggers were hanging out outside the open doors by the swag tables, loudly talking, and not realizing that we could hear them, which I found extremely disrespectful to the organizers, the presenters and of course all the other conference goers who couldn’t hear because of them. Lunch was good, and thankfully Amanda and Genna sat with me again, but I was extremely horrified by the cluster fuck that was the speed author dating sessions. There were way to many adult authors and not enough adult bloggers. I hear the children’s author session went much more smoothly, though. I maybe met with one-third of the authors I wanted to. I was stuck at a table with a psycho who I met Monday night. I shouldn’t have sit near this person, after sitting near her during the Lisa See reading, because that night when I whispered to her “She’s good, isn’t she?” this woman passed me her business card and said nothing else to me the rest of the night. Then I watched her basically promote herself during a Q&A session, prompting people to send out tweets such as “Was that a question?” I watched her blatantly tell authors “I can’t afford to read outside of my genre,” and kept listening to her brag about reading a book a day. SHUT UP! I know that I am a required taste, but this lady was beyond required taste, and her actions and words really took away from my experience of this event. Now, I read fast, but there is no way this lady reads 365 books a year, so listening to someone lie on top of being rude was like stabbing me in the eye repeatedly for 2 hours. My favorite quip from her was when she personally attacked my reading tastes, and told me that Fantasy books are Reality books. Ha ha ha. For her, if she finds her way here, I must define both:

Fantasy – noun

1. imagination, especially when extravagant and unrestrained.

2. the forming of mental images, especially wondrous or strange fancies; imaginative conceptualizing.

3. a mental image, especially when unreal or fantastic; vision: a nightmare fantasy.

Reality – noun, plural

1. the state or quality of being real.

2. resemblance to what is real.

3. a real thing or fact.

After listening to the nutter for 2 hours, I had to leave the convention early, as this woman just wrecked it for me. The speed dating session was new, and I was really looking forward to it, but since I probably have O.C.D., the disorganization physically hurt me and I was disappointed. Plus, quite a few authors who weren’t signed up actually snuck in and talked about their books, taking away the time alloted for the authors who did sign up, so I felt bad for all those authors who didn’t get the time they deserved. Trust me, I wish I was one of those easy-going normal people, but I’m not even normal, let alone easy-going. I left at 3:15 p.m., shipped my books home, and had to walk in the hot sun for 2 miles, as everybody was trying to leave the city, and an empty cab wasn’t in sight during my entire walk home. People were getting violent with one another in the traffic jams that surrounded me, and more than once I had to beg someone to stop laying on the horn. That evening, I completely forgot about the Planned Television Arts blogger party, and managed to stand on a street corner next to another nut who had a RAT sitting on his shoulder. I recognized it as an omen, since I’m terrified of mice, and it had stared me down, so I decided to call it a night. The whole week I had meant to call my friend Pam, but I wasn’t my merry, fun-loving self, so I figured why bring her my misery? It was a lonely week, full of really fun moments (those are coming soon, I swear!) that were bookended next to bitter ones. I knew I was going to be in pain, but I didn’t expect to get sick, and I certainly didn’t expect to watch a gate attendant be rude to active military. That story is so heartbreaking that I can’t even tell you about it now because I’m trying not to leave this post on a total bad note.

While I’m glad I went, and enjoyed meeting so many new people and authors, I’m bummed that I didn’t have as much fun as I did last year. Thankfully, I’ve managed to bring home some really good books, and some business cards of some fantastic people, and over time, I’m sure I’ll forget all the bad memories I had of New York last week. Thank you to everyone who helped me get there, and who stopped by last week during my virtual BookExpo week!

To read more about my time at BEA/BBC 2011, visit More Shameless Bragging about BookExpo America 2011 and the Book Blogger Convention Part Three: What Books I Got and Shameless Bragging About BookExpo America 2011 and the Book Blogger Convention Part Two: Who I Met/Who I Saw.