BEA Wrap-Up: Day 3 (6/7)

(All photos can be found on The Midnight Bookworm’s facebook fan page as well as within these posts)


If you missed Day 1's wrap up, you can find it here!
If you missed Day 2's wrap up, you can find it here!

Finally the last day. As much fun as this week has been it was so tiring that I’m pretty glad it’s over. My parents and I decided we would only bring one of our suitcases because I figured it was a ½ day event so there’s no way we’d get as many books as Tuesday or Wednesday… WRONG! We ended up with only a few less than Wednesday’s haul, but still more than Tuesday’s. I’d come more prepared today, I had sticky notes with what things my parents were supposed to go to that I wouldn’t be able to make it to. It worked out nicely except that I gave myself a galley drop to go to and forgot about it, so I missed out on getting Origin. I was a little upset at myself for missing that one, but figured I had plenty to read in the meantime until the book is released. Anyway, while waiting in line in the morning, we all decided to get a picture in the Reached bubble (with our own cameras since the professional guys weren’t quite set up yet).




The main goal for Tegan and me at today’s event was collect as much swag as possible… starting with the “Authors Are My Rockstars” t-shirt being handed out at Sourcebooks in the morning. We made it over there, got the t-shirts, and were still able to run around to the rest of the morning galley drops.




From there we kind-of wandered around for a couple hours until the first signing event we wanted to go to. Which was for Jocelyn Davies A Fractured Light, and Sarah Crossan’s Breathe. (I sent my parents in line for Breathe while I waited in line for A Fractured Light) (Below: Left; Sarah Crossan, Right; Jocelyn Davies)

  

I’m pretty amazed at how many people would be “in two lines” (or more) at the same time because one signing hadn’t started yet so someone would stay with the bags while the other went off to a different signing, usually in progress, with a short line… then they’d come back and switch off. Tegan and I did this a few times throughout the week.




I thought the “For Dummies” swaggish items were adorable… I mean, who wouldn’t want some Spring Water for Dummies, or M&Ms for Dummies (Which actually say “For Dummies” on each M&M…



We thought the wrapper for the Wimpy Kid chocolate was cute enough to keep… I almost didn’t want to let my dad eat the actual chocolate though when he opened it because of the design in the chocolate! Talk about some expensive advertising… that custom chocolate design could not have been cheap!



Between all 4 days (BBC and BEA), books for me as well as my parents and giveaway titles totaled 166… I’d call that a huge success! I’m going to have lots of fun reading for a LONG time! On Friday, June 8, I spent 7 hours re-organizing my existing bookshelves (2 large five-shelf cases and 2 three-shelf cases) to accommodate the new books from BEA… they are now all in alphabetical order by author and separated by YA, Adult, and Middle Grade sections. The adult and middle grade books share one shelf… all the rest are YA and I was left with about 1/3 of a shelf on one of the smaller three-shelf bookcases left for more books… looks like I’ll need more shelves (and a bigger room) soon. I had so much fun at BEA this year, and met so many great people that I hope to stay in touch with as the year progresses. I am not sure that I’m up for another round of BEA next year, but I guess I’ll just have to wait and see what happens then!

YA & MG Titles Collected Today:

• Throne of Glass – Sarah J Maas
• Angelfall – Susan Ee
• Skylark – Megan Spooner*
• In Too Deep – Amanda Grace
• Ripper – Amy Carol Reeves
• 34 Pieces of You – Carmen Rodrigues*
• Deviants – Maureen McGowan
• The Near Witch – Victoria Schwab*
• The Vow – Kim & Krickitt Carpenter
• Breathe – Sarah Crossan*
• The Darkest Minds – Alexandra Bracken
• The False Prince – Jennifer A Nielsen
• Darker Still – Leanna Renee Hieber*
• The Twisted Tragedy of Miss Natalie Stewart – Leanna Renee Hieber*
• Ashen Winter – Mike Mullin*
• Indelible – Lani Woodland*
• Hourglass – Myra McEntire
• Code Name Verity – Elizabeth Wein
• Hunted – DJ DeSmyter*
• The Spindlers – Lauren Oliver
• A Fractured Light – Jocelyn Davies*
• Prodigy – Marie Lu
• The Diviners – Libba Bray
• Poison Princess – Kresley Cole
• Black City – Elizabeth Richards
• Return To Me – Justina Chen
• Torn – Stephanie Guerra
• Surviving High School – M. Doty
• Beta – Rachel Cohn
• Catching Jordan – Miranda Kenneally
• Eternally Yours – Cate Tiernan
• The Peculiar – Stefan Bachmann
• The Great Unexpected - Sharon Creech

PENGUIN SAYS COME SEE US AGAIN REAL SOON!!




ISN'T HE CUTE?!  This penguin was part of the Bloomsbury booth (I would have guessed the Penguin booth if I'd seen it, but maybe that's just me)

BEA Wrap-Up: Day 2 (6/6)

(All photos can be found on The Midnight Bookworm’s facebook fan page as well as within these posts)

If you missed Day 1's wrap up, you can find it here!

Day two! After yesterday, we were much more prepared for the day. My parents checked in our bags while I went to find Tegan, along with her sister Lexie, Briana and Tash, in line to get in. I had apparently missed the morning event again (the Carnival of Souls army was yesterday's). Today's was the Finale, by Becca Fitzpatrick, cover reveal... complete with gorgeous fallen angels walking around with flyers... and no shirts. (Pictured below is Tegan with said shirtless angels)




We all rushed around to the big publishers (and a few of the smaller ones) right away at 9AM, for the morning galley drops (let me tell you, these morning drops are intense… we got some awesome titles, but it is like a mad dash to the books with these people)! We missed the Becca Fitzpatrick signing for Hush, Hush, in which they were handing out t-shirts inspired by the series (upsetting that we missed it). Tegan and I went to Simon & Schuster later in the afternoon to ask if they still had any left and the woman working in the booth found 2 shirts left (we were excited). I had a ticketed author signing at 10:30 for John Green, so I went to that while Tegan grabbed a place in line for the Harlequin Teen Hour. I had to use my “avid reader pass” (a line-jumper pass) on the John Green line (which was absolutely insane) so that I could make it back to Tegan in time for the 11AM signings. I ended up within the first 10 people in line for John Green because of that pass, so it was worth buying. He even signed the book I brought from home, Let It Snow. (blurry picture, but you can still tell it’s him!)




On the way back from getting The Fault in our Stars I was able to get Lois Lowry’s signature on a Son poster she was signing (I thought she’d be signing the book, but figured a poster was better than nothing and it’s a pretty poster). Anyway, I made it back to Tegan in line for the Harlequin signings with a little time to spare (about 15-20 minutes I think), they really had fantastic authors at Harlequin teen signings on both days. (Below: Kady Cross at the Harlequin Teen Signing)




While Tegan and I ran around to all the different booths (many times over usually), I was sending my parents on missions of their own for signings or galley drops that I’d have otherwise missed because they conflicted with something else in our schedule. While we were randomly walking around (until one of our many signings), we spotted Tim Gunn from Project Runway. His line was long so we didn’t wait in it (and we really had no interest in his book), but I did get a picture of him with some random fan… mostly because I could and I thought it was neat to see a celebrity there (I hadn’t seen the others that were supposed to be around).




Later that afternoon, I was waiting in line for Maureen Johnson's signing (originally scheduled for 12:30), however the sign at the table said 12:00, so I figured "awesome it's been moved up!" and I could get back in line with Tegan (who was waiting in line for the HarperCollins teen hour at the time). (Below: HarperCollins Teen signings)




Apparently though, BEA had decided to change the time (or mistype it on the sign, I'm still not sure) and no one told Maureen, or her publicist... (so thoughtful BEA!). So they started lining us up at the table at around 11:50 so we'd be out of the way (at least a little), but then 12:00, and 12:05 came and still Maureen had not shown up. A couple people in line started tweeting her asking where she was (myself included because I know she lives on Twitter), and figured out she had no clue she was supposed to be there. The BEA people finally found her at 12:20 and got the signing started (I still think they're idiots for changing things the night before the signing and not telling the author that's supposed to be there). Maureen is a great person though, and despite being a little frazzled at the change of plans started signing books pretty quick. She even brought YA Saves t-shirts (YAY!) AND signed Let It Snow, completing the process of getting all three authors to sign it!




We also met Sarah Beth Durst (Author of Drink, Slay, Love) and Jennifer L Armentrout (author of Cursed, The Lux series, and the Covenant series)




Tegan and I had a very special mission today because we had gotten the Survivors t-shirts yesterday, we had to go to the signing of book 2 in the series at around 2PM. I don’t know who was more excited, us for getting to meet the author and find a new series to start, or the author of The Survivors when she saw us in the shirts promoting her book. (Below: Amanda Harvard, author of The Survivors series… I caught her mid-laugh… oops!)




When I got home, before I had unpacked the suitcases of books, I told my parents about the Son poster Lois Lowry had signed and how I’d have loved to get a copy of the book (but I thought it was only given out at the children’s author breakfast that morning). My dad told me he thought he got a copy of it, but wasn’t positive if he’d actually taken it or just looked at it. Naturally, I kinda ripped apart the suitcase to see if he had snagged a copy (which he did because he’s awesome). I’m going to have to read The Giver #2 & 3 soon now so that I can get to Son. I then spent the next half hour positioning the books (& swag & tote bags) in our living room to take pictures of everything (which I’d gotten only a little better at since yesterday).

YA (& MG) Titles Collected Today:

• The Girl in the Clockwork Collar – Kady Cross*
• The Fault In Our Stars – John Green*
• Drink, Slay, Love – Sarah Beth Durst*
• The Name of the Star – Maureen Johnson*
• Destined – Aprilynne Pike*
• Insurgent – Veronica Roth*
• Masque of the Red Death – Bethany Griffin*
• Unraveling – Elizabeth Norris*
• Spellcaster – Cara Lynn Shultz*
• Skinny – Donna Cooner
• Flock – Wendy Delsol
• Allegiance – Cayla Kluver*
• Undead – Kirsty McKay
• False Memory – Dan Krokos*
• Chosen Ones – Tiffany Truitt*
• Son – Lois Lowry
• Iron Witch – Karen Mahoney
• Pushing the Limits – Katie McGarry*
• Queen of Swords – Katee Robert
• Busted in Bollywood – Nicola Marsh
• Daughter of Smoke & Bone – Laini Taylor
• Days of Blood and Starlight Teaser Chapters – Laini Taylor
• Entice – Jessica Shirvington
• Fathomless – Jackson Pearce
• The Innocents – Lili Peloquin
• Obsidian – Jennifer L. Armentrout
• The Iron King – Julie Kagawa*
• Time Between Us – Tamara Ireland Stone
• What’s Left of Us – Kat Zhang
• Ashen Winter – Mike Mullin
• Confessions of a Murder Suspect – James Patterson
• Cursed – Jennifer L. Armentrout*
• The Raven Boys – Maggie Stiefvater
• The Farm – Emily McKay
• In Her Sights – Robin Peror
• Altered – Jennifer Rush
• Prodigy – Marie Lu*
• The Survivors: Point of Origin – Amanda Harvard*
• The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell – Chris Colfer
• Keeper of the Lost Cities – Shannon Messenger

* indicates a signed title

Only one more day left to wrap up! Check back tomorrow for Day 3 coverage!

BEA Wrap-Up: Day 1 (6/5)

Photos from BEA can also be found on The Midnight Bookworm's Facebook fan page (they may be easier to see on there, and there's more)

I had originally planned on writing up individual posts for each day of BEA the evening after each day's events. However, when I got home every night last week I was so exhausted from running around BEA that I decided I’d just do them later. Today seemed like a good day to start, seeing as it's exactly one week after the event and it seems like many bloggers are posting their “Mailbox Monday” type posts as BEA editions this week. So anyway, here’s the beginning of my BEA wrap-up with all the goodies I got :) (this is just day 1 of BEA, days 2 and 3 will come in the next two days)

Tuesday was an early morning again to catch the train into the city. When we got in we checked our bags and headed up to level 3 for the exhibits. The Carnival of Souls army was out already by the time we got up to the line to get in.

Since this year was my first BEA, I essentially had no clue what was going on, so I missed all of the first day’s galley drops at 9AM (most of which must have taken a ton of time to set up because they were almost all circle stacks that were pretty high).

Walking around the exhibit hall was completely overwhelming. I had an Excel spreadsheet listing all of the books I definitely wanted to get (most were signing events that I had found on the BEA website). At 11, the Harlequin teen hour was starting so my parents and I started milling around the booth around 10:30 so we’d get a good spot in line. I saw a group of girls talking to one of the Harlequin people about where the line would start, so I kinda stalked them so I’d be behind them (at the front of the line). That’s where I met Tegan and Tash, who I pretty much followed around for the rest of the day because our schedules were pretty much the same. Tegan & I stuck together for the rest of the week, which was great and we even found out we only live like 20 minutes from each other. We found a bunch of books by accidentally being in the right booth at the right time (like Wake by Amanda Hocking in the MacMillan booth during the time of Gennifer Albin’s Crewel signing), as well as getting to many of the books we had marked as “must get” on our pre-made schedules.

I don’t think I felt much less intimidated by the size of the exhibit hall by the end of the day, but I ended up with some awesome titles! Tegan & I also got T-shirts for “The Survivors” series by Amanda Harvard. (Pictured below: All swag from Day 1… the shirt is down at the bottom)

After the event, we had planned to get to go to the Teen Author Carnival. The Javits Center however, had other plans for us. There’s a really big sign outside the center that says “TAXI LINE” so that people can line up where the taxis can drive into the circle and line up at the curb. Apparently because of the buses, Javits (or BEA, or some other idiot) decided that taxis weren’t allowed in at the end of the show, only the shuttle buses that went around the city. We only knew one shuttle route – to Penn Station – because that’s the only one we’d used in the morning. So we had to go to Penn Station to get a taxi from there to get to the Library where TAC was being held. BEA must have hired a third party bus company to run extra shuttles at the end of the day because we had a different company’s bus taking us to Penn Station. So we get on this shuttle and the driver starts asking the guy that’s directing the buses how to get to Penn Station! Like WHATTTT?! What person who’s driven anywhere in NY before DOESN’T know how to get to Penn Station? The 8th & 31st street stop comes up (right next to Penn Station) and the driver blows right past it. The entire bus starts screaming because people had planned on catching trains that were leaving in like 5 minutes, so the driver pulled over right away and let us off randomly at the side of the road. Finding a taxi wasn’t so bad though, (my mom’s not the jump into traffic for a taxi type so we had to go next to the train station where the taxis were already lined up). I figured if I told the taxi that we needed to go to the library (even just a branch) they’d know where it was… false. Apparently, you MUST have a street intersection for the taxis to know where the hell they’re going.

After all this fun, we headed to a little pizza place near the Jefferson Market Library before the Teen Author Carnival. My parents and I were totally exhausted before TAC even started, but we stayed for the first panel so that I could meet Jeri Smith-Ready & get her to sign my copy of Shine (which was totally awesome)!!


My mom’s advice to NYC: When you know you have out of town guests coming, clean up the city! At least just from the train station to the Javits Center… the view was not fantastic. The city looks pretty run down in that area.

At the end of the day, my haul was really heavy and pretty obnoxious to take on the train back home. I’m very glad I had my parents with me or I’d have been in some trouble with those bags (well, I wouldn’t have had near as many books I suppose).

These are all the tote bags I got during day 1… the Angry Birds one that my dad picked up was probably my favorite. I also love the Clifford one because I was able to get my picture taken with Clifford at Scholastic’s booth! (I’ll have that picture on the blog’s Facebook page soon)

YA Titles Collected today:

• City’s Son – Tom Pollock
• The Immortal Rules – Julie Kagawa*
• Princess Academy: Palace of Stone – Shannon Hale*
• Eve & Adam – Michael Grant & Katherine Applegate
• Carnival of Souls – Melissa Marr
• Falling Kingdoms – Morgan Rhodes
• Partials – Dan Wells*
• Venom – Fiona Paul
• Speechless – Hannah Harrington
• Alice in Zombieland – Gena Showalter
• Soul Thief – Alison Lorimer*
• Innocent Darkness - Suzanne Lazear*
• Goddess Interrupted - Aimee Carter*
• Glass Heart - Amy Garvey*
• Inside – Maria V Snyder*
• No Peace for the Damned – Megan Powell
• Feedback – Robison Wells*
• Crewel – Gennifer Albin*
• The Dark Unwinding – Sharon Cameron*
• Wake – Amanda Hocking
• Sanctum – Sarah Fine
• Birthmarked – Caragh O’Brien*
• Promised – Caragh O’Brien*
• In A Glass Grimmly – Adam Gidwitz
• The Raven Boys – Maggie Stiefvater
• Matched – Ally Condie*
• Soul Screamers Vol 1 – Rachel Vincent*
• Captain America Joins the Mighty Avengers*

* indicates a signed title

Stay tuned tomorrow for Day 2's wrap up of BEA!

BEA Blogger Convention Wrap Up

ohmyfreakinggod!!! I am definitely scared for BEA's exhibits after today.  There were about 400 people at the Blog Convention in the Javits Center, NY along with the 60+ authors and speakers, so needless to say it was pretty crowded around the tables that had the books on them!  Registration was fairly easy, I got into the city about an hour before registration was supposed to start so there was exactly no line (which was great since I went back around the registration a half hour later and the line was super long).  After registration we were (of course) still early for the convention's breakfast, so we stood in line outside the room and waited... and waited... and waited. They finally let us (me, my mom & my dad) go around the corner toward the door to grab our swag bags (pictured below), which was filled with, what else, books!  Each bag had different books too (so I was super glad to have my parents with me).

Once in, we stuck with a few girls we found in line outside the room to sit with at the lovely table #5 (there were assigned tables for the authors to sit at in a 15 minute rotation schedule).  Marie Lu (Legend) sat with us first and was pretty much just as nervous as the other first timers sitting at the table.  She was super nice and all too cute (outfit and personality), we all chatted for the 15 minutes and then got to meet Ally Condie (Matched).

Ally was great, we talked about the Matched books and when Reached was being released and what she'd be doing after the Matched Trilogy was finished (thankfully she'll be writing more).  Paul Huljich was the third author we met at breakfast and his book is about how to avoid/live with stress.









After breakfast we had a 15 minute break, in which I spotted Michelle Madow (Remembrance).  After a little convincing from my parents that I should just go say hi (like for real?! She's an author! They're like celebrities!!!), I went over and asked if I could creep her out by asking for a photo.  Apparently, she'd never been recognized by a fan in public before so I was glad I went over to say hi (and fangirl about her books)!

Beyond breakfast was the keynote speaker, Jennifer Weiner, who was positively  spectacular.  Her speech is posted on her blog and pretty much had everyone cracking up... her agent/publicist was probably having a conniption through the whole thing.  The basic dialog can be found on her blog... personally my favorite part was: "Or her asking, over lunch, 'Do you write your blog so that people will LIKE you?' (And oh, if I'd just been the tiniest bit quicker, I would have said, 'No, silly, that's what the blow jobs are for!')".  Oh we were all dying at that one!



After the keynote speaker there was a panel discussing blogging today in general.  Featuring Erica Barmash from Harper Perennial, Patrick Brown from Goodreads, Jen Lancaster (author), and Candace Levy (editor/blogger).  It was a super fun and informative panel.

Then we got lunch, and more authors to meet.  Leanna Renee Hieber (Darker Still) seemed to be the most confident person in the room (aside from maybe a couple of the panel speakers)... turns out it's because she's an actress as well as a writer/blogger.

After lunch everyone broke into two groups for different panel discussions.  I went to the Critical Review discussion where we talked about negative reviews, opinions, and the legal issues that surround both.  It was definitely an interesting panel.  We almost ran over our time because we were discussing so much (review policies came up a lot and trying to figure out how to get people to actually read the policies... we came up with no definitive answer for that one).

The final time slot had two panels as well.  I went to one discussing the Book Blogger and Publisher relationship and what both parties expect from each other.  The panelists were Jenn Lawrence from Jenn's Bookshelves, Lucille Rettino from Simon & Schuster, and Lindsey Rudnickas from Netgalley.  Jenn had some great advice for how to start the blogger/publisher relationship.  I learned (finally) what stats publishers are actually looking for on Netgalley and other similar review sites.  Hearing from an actual publisher's representative was so helpful with all the questions everyone asked.

Overall, the panels were really informative, my parents weren't even totally bored (and they don't care about blogging very much).  We skipped closing remarks to get home a little earlier (since we're taking the train in every day it's taking longer to get home).  I dove right into the tote bags filled with books to take pictures and start this blog post!

These are all the books we picked up (and received in the blind grab for swag bags):



The first picture is of all the books, the second one is the ones that are more YA or I'm excited to read! (I haven't even read the premise of Jennifer Weiner's book but if the voice is anything like how she is in the real world it's going to be awesome).

And as a random side note... HOW 'BOUT THEM STEPS?!?!



AHH I'm so stoked for tomorrow's line up and can't wait to take more pictures to share with everyone!! :)