Last week was the biggest book fair in the US, Book Expo America, and I was lucky enough to get to head up to New York for one day to check it out! Now I’ve been to a couple cons at Javitz Center before, NY Comic Con being the most recent, but this expo was different. At NYCC, there are a lot of really big booths run by really big companies: Nintendo, Sony, etc. So even though the con took up a LOT of space, there wasn’t as much to look at as you would think.
Book Expo America was very much the polar opposite. Sure, there were some big companies with some rather large and impressive booths, but most were broken down into smaller parts, each featuring an imprint of the bigger company. That plus the massive amount of smaller press companies made for what seemed like twice as many booths to look at then there were at NYCC, in pretty much the same amount of space.
So what did I do at the expo besides wished I’d brought a suitcase with wheels to carry all the books I got in? Well, first went and checked out the Flux booth.
Flux is a YA imprint that covers everything from fantasy and science fiction to romance and social issues. It also happens to be the publisher for Tom Pollock’s debut novel, The City’s Son. I met up with Tom (@tomhpollock) at the Flux booth then went to the autograph area with him to get my book signed. For his first signing, there was quite an impressive line!
It was fun meeting up with another author that I only know online, and getting a copy of his book was the icing on the cake.
In line for the signing, I also met up with Stefan, a.k.a. Civilian Reader (@civilianreader) and we walked around a bit before I had to meet up with Justin Golenbock, the publicist for Amazon’s new genre imprint 47North.
Justin showed me all their new upcoming titles and gave me a huge stack of books to bring home with me, including an ARC for The Mongoliad: Book Two! Which was awesome until about an hour later, when I thought my arm was going to fall off. 🙂
After lunch, I walked through all the booths, collecting treasures as I went. I said hi to Chris Evans (@CEvansAuthor) at the Stackpole Books booth, and then decided I should probably start heading home. But as I was walking towards the door, I had a fangirl moment and had to quickly jump in a long line and hope that I wasn’t too far back to miss out on the signing. Who was signing books you ask? Well, only my husband and I’s favorite home improvement show host: Mike Holmes!
Okay, so that last part isn’t very fantasy/sci-fi related. But dude! I got to meet Mike Holmes! 😀
*clears throat*
Anyway, I had a blast and next year I need to make sure I can visit for more than just a day…that and bring a bag to store all my books in at the coat check area. 😉
Richard Marpole