BEA 2011 and NYC

Once again I was very pleased to be able to attend Book Expo America in New York City. I arrived in New York on Saturday evening with plans to go to the Javits Convention Center on Tuesday morning. There were a few hiccups with my accommodations but once that was sorted out everything with my trip went smoothly.

Tuesday morning came and I caught the shuttle bus going to the Javits from my hotel. That shuttle is so convenient - one of many that services convention attendees. The bus let us off at another entrance to the building than the one I'm normally used to going into. I'm not sure if that's because the building is undergoing renovations or because it's just less congestive. In either case, I found the registration line for check-in easily. There were maybe five people in line ahead of me but the process was so quick - less than a minute a person - that I received my badge in no time. I made my way into the main exhibition hall and picked up a tote. It was about 9:30 by that time and the hall was already quite crowded.

I spent the following hours visiting booth after booth, chatting with publicists, authors and other bloggers. I don't know if it was just me, but I found the hall a bit smaller than in previous years. When I realized that it was split into two sections due to the renovations I lost perspective of how big it really was. No matter, I found what I thought were the missing publishers when I discovered the hallway leading to the other part of the center.

I ended up bringing home about 30 books in all. I took only books that I thought I or my fellow Montreal blogger friends would like. Of course, given that there are six of us, that would add to more than thirty books but I only attend the conference for one day and so didn't pick up any of the available books on Wednesday or Thursday.

And that brings me to the only negative part of my trip. Last year Avis of She Reads and Reads, Cindy of Cindy's Love of Books, Linda of Better with Books and Tina from Bookshipper (Amanda from Tales and Treats is relatively new to our group and did not attend BEA with the rest of us last year) all traveled to New York along with my husband and I. We had a fabulous time and I missed having them there this year. Fortunately we're already talking about BEA 2012!