BEA Recap Part 3

Read here for Part 1 and Part 2 of my recap of my trip.

Thursday, May 27 - I had a good long sleep after being exhausted from carrying about 10 plus pounds of books around NYC. I swore that I would not pick up too many books today as I was struggling to figure out how in the world I was going to bring all of them home. I wasn't shipping them from the Javits center because it was too expensive for me. My brother in law had offered to ship whatever I couldn't carry media mail (I think he might regret that when he gets back to his place) but I was still worried at how I was going to get around the steps in the subway with a heavy suitcase and bags of books.

So the plan was to get less books and do some more networking if possible. Well that would have worked if Little Brown YA Books hadn't have some fabulous offerings throughout the entire day. Seriously I could have camped out at their booth all day and have been completely geeked at what they were offering. Very exciting to pick up several Poppy titles as I love their line and got a Monster High T-shirt as well. I was also very excited to see Miriam from Hachette Books as I haven't seen her since last year when I met up for lunch in Blacksburg at the end of my honeymoon. By the way, the Hachette booth was CRAZY PACKED INSANE PUSHING SHOVING MADNESS Thursday morning. I got pushed into a pile of Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff, not once but TWICE. Luckily it was not the big circle pile that someone spent a long time putting together but still, I felt extremely bad for ruining the display.

Thursday was mainly YA and MG books for me. This was nice as I like to think my tastes are expanding beyond Christian fiction. There were a lot of choices to look over and I was able to talk to several publishers and gave my business cards. There weren't any big authors I was dying to get signed books for on Thursday so I didn't wait in any of the big lines. I would have liked to have met Rachel Vail especially since I just reviewed her newest book but then I realized that I already owned her book and didn't need an extra one to bring back home. I did go to Sourcebooks (where I met the wonderful Paul yesterday) and got a signed copy of the upcoming Water Wars by Cameron Stracher. It's a dystopian YA book and I am very excited to read it. I did get two books not for myself - a signed copy of a cookbook/history book about delis for my brother in law and a signed emotional baking cookbook from the Harlequin booth (I had no idea they were branching into nonfiction) for my sister.

Believe it or not, my day actually ended around 1pm for me. I was just exhausted at that point. My feet were burning and my shoulders were killing me. I just sat on the benches and people watched as I couldn't even bring myself to start reading the books I had gotten. I did walk around every now and then to see what was going on but other than that I pretty much just rested. I did complete my goal about not getting TOO many books so that was a relief and self control on my part, hah. I did see Tony Hawk at one of the booths but alas I was too late to meet him.

At 4pm was the Book Blogger Convention Reception. That was SUCH a fabulous time. First I'd like to say that the chocolate chip cookies that was provided were SO GOOD. This might have been due to the fact that I had nothing to eat during the entire day except two crackers prior to the reception. But they were very chocolate-y.

There were so many people that I met at the reception that I don't think I can name them all but here were some highlights

• Anna, Valerie, Kelly from Hachette - so nice to FINALLY meet them as I have been working with them for years. They told me how they've used my picture in presentations because they like to tell how they actually know the bloggers they work with - they know about my wedding, my school, etc because we actually talk
• Joy Strazza, publicist from Joan Schulhafer Publishing and Media Consulting
  
• the gals from Big Honcho Media - I have been wondering how to get in touch with them forever and was thrilled to finally be able to give my card
• author Sarah Pekkanen - who I eagerly told I was currently reading her book THE OPPOSITE OF ME
  
• author Beth Kephart - I totally geeked out at meeting her!!!! seriously Swapna tapped me on the shoulder to introduce her and I immediately shook her hand and was like "OMG, I am a HUGE fan of your books!!!!!! I have read them all!!!!!! And I'm really excited to read your newest one!!! Seriously I LOVE YOU!!!!!"
• Richard C. Morais - author of the upcoming The Hundred Foot Journey
• Ami from GetGlue.com - yay it was so nice to finally meet someone from Glue! She showed me the new IPhone app which looks very exciting

And of course all the wonderful bloggers that I met there as well, that forgive me I cannot remember, but as I said, I have your business cards! It was just so cool that people recognized me after seeing my name, my blog name or my twitter name.

The night was not over yet as it was time to go out to dinner at Tony DiNipoli's with Jennifer from 5 Minutes for Books and Snapshot, Carrie from Reading to Know, Natasha from Maw Books Blog, Swapna and Amy (MFA) among others. Swapna's and my trip to the restaurant was memorable because it started POURING when we got into Times Square. I was completely drenched when I got into the restaurant. I mean completely soaked to the skin - shirt, jeans, socks, hair and all. Thank goodness I was wearing a black shirt. The rest of the night was rather chilly, thanks to that. We had a fabulous time at dinner. It was very loud in the restaurant but the food was delicious and there was SO much of it. It was a great end to another wonderful day.

Coming soon...my recap of Book Blogger Con.