A Fair Fair
by Jim Milliot -- Publishers Weekly, 6/2/2008 8:29:00 AM
The expectation among publishers, booksellers, distributors and other industry members that the 2008 BookExpo America would see a decline in attendance was proven correct as the annual confab moved from New York to Los Angeles. Although official figures aren’t yet available, there was a noticeable drop in people both in the booths and in the aisles. Bookseller attendance was solid, but attendance by librarians, hurt by budget cuts and the fact ALA is in California later this month, was off. European attendance was light, although the contingent from China was reported to be strong. And with the convention out of New York, the number of people from publishing houses was down.
Perhaps because of the modest expectations, there was little real complaining about the show, although there was also not much excitement. “It’s a fair fair,” one publisher said. “that’s what you get when you come to California.” But it is possible the show may not be back in the Golden State for awhile. Although Reed Exhibitions has an agreement to do one more convention in Los Angeles, sources said it is possible they will buy-out that obligation to move the show to a more Eastern location. Next year BEA is in New York, followed by trips to Washington, D.C. and Las Vegas. BEA execs hope Vegas will be enough of a lure to entice foreign publishers as well as Americans to travel past the Mississippi River.
The biggest buzz was about two events off the floor—the hype for Scott McCellan’s What Happened, which made for a happy Public Affairs contingent, and events at Borders. Among the many rumors about the country’s second largest bookstore chain, one that is true is that the company will announce layoffs later this week. That course of action is inevitable, given CEO George Jones’ remarks last week that the company is looking to cut expenses by $120 million, a reduction that will include cuts in payroll.
At the convention itself, the ABA introduced, IndieBound, its new initiative to help independent booksellers compete in the marketplace. At a widely touted speech, Amazon head Jeff Bezos praised the success so far of the Kindle, while also defending the e-tailer’s print-on-demand strategy. Keynoter Thomas Friedman held out hope that America will see the green. Big fiction books were everywhere: Toni Morrison’s novel A Mercy, coming from Knopf in November, looks at racism in the 17th century. Dennis Lehane’s The Given Day (Morrow, Sept.), set in post-WWI Boston, got snapped up and lugged around despite its door-stopper size. Anita Shreve and Julia Glass both have new books that look at family dynamics: Glass’s third novel, I See You Everywhere (Pantheon, Oct.), follows the relationship of two sisters over the course of 25 years, and Shreve’s Testimony (Little, Brown, Oct.) explores the aftermath of a sex tape scandal that ruins marriages and the lives of several boarding school students. And, of course, there’s Philip Roth’s coming-of-age story set in the Korean war era, Indignation (Houghton, Sept.), Salman Rushdie’s The Enchantress of Florence (Random, June) and Marilynne Robinson’s follow-up to Gilead, Home (FSG, Sept.) . In nonfiction, books of interest included We Bought a Zoo by Benjamin Mee (Weinstein Books, Sept.): The Book of Animal Ignorance by John Lloyd and John Mitchinson (Harmony, Sept.); The Wrecking Crew by Thomas Frank (Metropolitan Books, Aug.), an examination of corruption in Washington, D.C.
For complete coverage of the fair, follow these links to our roundups from Thursday, Friday and Saturday..
