Book Exhaustedpo America

Back when I was first starting to blog, I used to make weird puns in my titles. I am bringing back my inner 17-year-old for today’s post. Anyway, where have you been, JJ? you might ask. (Or not. You probably don’t care.)

I was here. Book Expo America. And at social invents related to BEA.

BEA itself was amazing. I managed to attend the Young Adult Editor Buzz panel (featuring St. Martin’s Press’s very own Jen Weis) and steal a few galleys and ARCs, including MATCHED, which I have been anticipating for the past 6 months. (It won’t be out until the end of the year though so MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.)

However, the highlight of my day at the trade show this year was managing to fangirl Arthur A. Levine. He was also at the Young Adult Editor Buzz panel, but he happened to be leaving the Javits Center at the moment my coworkers and I were leaving and we had the amazing privilege of sweating our way to the subway with the man who essentially defined children’s literature for my generation.

Who but me would fangirl an editor? Whatever. This man found REDWALL. HARRY fucking POTTER. And the divine cherry on his apotheosis cake was HIS DARK MATERIALS. Did he sell me on PLAIN KATE? On the strength of the other books of his I adored, hell yes.

I didn’t grab as many galleys as I wished and the galleys I did want I didn’t have time to wait for (BEAUTIFUL DARKNESS by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl and THE CLOCKWORK ANGEL by Cassandra Clare). This being my first year at BEA, I don’t know if they had e-galleys last year, but I did manage to secure a copy of Diana Peterfreund’s ASCENDANT for Tomas the E-reader.

ASCENDANT by Diana Peterfreund. This took approximately 30 minutes to figure out how to upload onto Tomas.

In theory I really like the idea of an e-galley: no more wasting money on printing ARCs. However, after having wrestled with this DRM nonsense and conflicting e-reading programmes, I was almost ready to give up. (And I really wanted to read more about killer unicorns!) Finally I got it to work, but in the end, I think printing a physical galley might have been easier. Ack.

Anyway, the most exhausting part of BEA is the socialization that occurs around it. I’m an introvert. I work in publishing! I’m bookish! I like staying by myself and reading books. What is this “drinking” of which people speak?