How BookExpo America Turned Into A Ponzi Scheme for Booksellers, Exhibitors, and Readers
From Reluctant Habits:
Imagine being forced at gunpoint to attend the world’s most useless corporate retreat without a compassionate euthanasist offering suicide capsules and you have a pretty good idea of what BookExpo America has turned into. The conference is now so cheap that the badges no longer come with lanyards, leaving one to pin the back of the badge to one’s coat using the feeblest metal imaginable. The printed schedules don’t list all the sessions, much less offer a detailed description. The website is unnavigable, leading one to use arcane Google skills to extract the most basic details. And the information offered at ABA is less helpful than the world’s most ineptly written self-help book.
In short, this trade show is now a racket. And everybody knows it.
. . . .
Indeed, BookExpo now carries a bizarre prohibitionist instinct. For the first time ever, there are signs forbidding people from filming the panels, as if tired sentiments about the “either and” future of print and digital were on the level of Coronado discovering the Seven Cities of Gold. The annoyingly peppy moderator Dominique Raccah kept referencing a “pre-interview” she conducted with the five participants, as if this atoned for the vapid predictability of her questions. I had to stop myself from approaching the stage to pin a gold star on her lapel for the job well done she courted. I counted twelve disappointed souls storming out, the telltale screech of the heavy doors competing with the unfathomably soft levels of the amplification system. The crowd was half as numerous as last year.
Link to the rest at Reluctant Habits and thanks to Bill for the tip.
, Amazon will pay Passive Guy a small affiliate commission on any of your purchases. 
As I’ve said before, if you want to go to a convention where you’ll actually get something out of the panels and the exhibit hall, you should come to GenCon in Indianapolis. Especially if you’re an indie or small press writer/editor/etc.
I’ll second that. Haven’t been there in five years since our first time, but it was interesting. Even got to sit in on some lectures by Michael Stackpole. He was already talking about self-publishing, and that was before the e-revolution had fully begun.
Wow, this looks awesome! Probably too late for me to make it this year, but if I’m not on the PCT next summer I’ll plan to go then. Thanks!
I live eas driving distance from GenCon and have been there once, but it was so huge, I felt overwhelmed and just wanted to go home. (Not meant at a criticism of GenCon, which seemed to be well run and bustling with activities. I am just easily confused.)
it’s my old stomping ground, indianapolis, stick with me Laura, I’ll navigate and you can ride shotgun. After Frankfort, London, BEA and ABA of ancient history, I gots the goods on how to do it without running screaming from the building.
Want to give some of us other unwashed a clue? I’m about a 2-hour drive from Frankfurt and want to go possibly this year. Am still a little intimidated by the idea.
Sure, Here you go: just a few guidelines…
1. wear shoes that do not maim you.
2. Second, score ahead of time or online a program of events and booth locations. Mark it all up with priority #s. Number 1s for MUST SEE. Number 2s for IF I HAVE TIME. No number 3s. Trust me you will grow eyeballs on springs if you try to do too much. The idea is to explore and enjoy and learn stuff and make contact if you wish with whomever.
3. Print out the freakin’ map of the joint large enough for you to be able to read the booth numbers.
4. Double check when you get to the floor each day that all your 1s and 2s are happening as scheduled and WHERE. Double check with the helpful people usually ensconced behind many counters and often roving the aisles. Look at their badges to know who is who.
5. Take a snack [protein bars/ thermos full of coffee if you need 'fein'... otherwise know you will stand in line interminably for coffee behind 70 attendees ordering latte with whip/lo fat/ crema de lah dee dah, for oh, about an hour. And food courts, if you care to eat clean, just know they are trying to feed upward of 50,000 people and... bring your own. Bring bottle of water. And your meddies if you have some, and a second pair of eyeglasses if you wear them.
6. then have a great sit down dinner with peeps you just met or friends you are reuniting with. Be thoughtful about drinking too much. Your safety re trip back to your hotel, esp if by yourself in part. How you will feel the next day, glaring headache and glaring expo lighting are a misery I hear... [and if y ou have appointments/ if over age 30... body doesnt throw off toxins as quickly and can smell sour/stale next day no matter how many showers.]
7. Bring a back pack or a shopping bag with handles that do not cut your hands when they are filled to hilt. PUt a collapsible bag inside the bigger bag. Trust me, you’ll likely need it. Know that you will never read the catalogs you bring home, never again use the maps etc, never look at most of the business cards you collect unless they are really handsome or are from someone you dig. As for free books, if you dig ebks, ask for a chit for a free ebk and see where that goes. Curate your booty before you go home.
8. Most all events are first come, first seated. Get there early unless you want to stand halfway out the doors in the back, butt to belly with others trying to crowd in.
9. shuttles to and from your hotel, well, just this, not everyone wears deoderant and again it’s butt to belly, and the lines are long. Ask someone when the lines might be least long. Or be aggressive.
10. have a great time, do not wear anything you would weep to lose or have banged up, or misplaced. And let us know how it goes!
Wow… thanks so much for that. It’s also perfect advice for larger Cons – I’m attending WorldCon in London this summer – I’m already intimidated by the prospect – and will be able to use this priceless advice.
I’ve copied this and made a nice pdf which I can use in preparation for WorldCon. I’m hoping it will help me to be less timid.
And packing a small thermos for coffee in my suitcase to take with me is a great idea (along with a small jar of instant coffee).
I have a couple of really nice, comfortable meeting suits that I bought a couple of years ago. They don’t need ironing and I can just change out the shirts. A nice pair of jeans and festive tops for evening and my suitcase is ready to go.
If I knew who you were, I’d gladly write you personally and give you a report when I’m back.
Sharon, you bio is …. geo thermal seismologist and more.
wow. And good luck with your series; the cover i saw is outstanding. I think the folks at worldcon will be happy to meet you.
Thank you so much for the tips and compliments and encouragement. It is scary thinking about being around the royalty and all the hoi-poloi of SFF. I’ve volunteered to be in the program. We’ll see where they stick me. But if you don’t jump in with both feet you might as well just stay at home, right?
To USAF’s excellent list of suggestions, I would add that large expos often have a UPS/Fedex booth set up on the last day of the convention.
Using UPS to send home the various & sundry things you have collected is easier (and maybe cheaper) than bringing an extra suitcase or jamming your suitcase so full it weighs a ton.
I will second USAF’s suggestion to cull handouts, tchotchkes, etc., ruthlessly. 99% of the stuff that seems cute or interesting at the con seems dumb back at home. When my kids were little, they sometimes used all the tech t-shirts I collected at cons as pajamas for one or two nights.
PG thanks, and that is an essential you mentioned re UPS/Fedex, esp if one cannot say no to the beguile of free readers’ copies from the Expo vendors.
[and man, you k now how to spell "tchotchkes". I am not worthy, I am not worthy...]
Heh, great rant.
My daughter is manning a booth for Andrews McMeel. She is accompanied by a taxidermied red fox, which she spent the last three days getting through US Customs. It was placed in a cage (no sh*t) in Memphis by Fish & Wildlife until they figured out what regulation applied. Easy fix, they sold her an “importer’s license” for $100 and the fox was freed.
The fox is part of a promotion for Much Ado About Stuffing, a compendium of posts from the twitter page, “Crap Taxidermy.”
Ironically, you probably reached more people who would be interested in the book than she would.
Oh snap.
I go to BEA to interview indie publishing supporters and gather intel. It’s a short train ride, too. Maybe GenCon next year.
Metacomment: I’ll be ecstatic when the fad for unreadable light gray sans-serif type dies its well-deserved death. Do they not want people to read their site?
Seconded, Tony.
Thirded…
fourthed
I just click on the “Evernote Clearly” icon in my browser’s widget bar and never notice.
I usually just move on to another site. There’s too much good stuff out there to spend time on stuff that the author apparently does not want me to read.
How effective is a rant in pale gray, anyway?
This is my last year at any bookselling function. We’re done, and it’s sad to see how Book Expo has slid into nothingness. The publishers have shrunk their presence to an almost embarrassing size, and everyone suffers from ADS blaming the demise of the indie bookstores on Amazon instead of the changing Ecommerce economy and traditional publishing’s antiquated distribution system. The business is changing so quickly that the old biz model cannot survive. It’s the best time for indie authors and the worst time for traditional publishers and B&M stores.
The good thing is I’m sure more indie book conventions will pop up in the future.
I’m looking forward to those.
“Welcome to PV-Con 2015!”
Now that’s a con I would travel for.
In other words, sitting in a room to listen to people speak about anything other than technical bits and writing craft is nearly useless now.