Book Expo America

Preliminary results from an ambitious new book publishing industry survey show growth in both revenues and units sold across the contemporary book publishing landscape.

Having been very recently reorganized out of my vice president position at a book publishing company, I've been neck-deep in conversations that can be placed into one of three categories:

(Press Release) Norwalk, Conn., March 30, 2010 — Barbra Streisand, the legendary actress, singer, and director, will appear at this year's BookExpo America (BEA) at the Opening Night Keynote Reception on Tuesday, May 25th.  She will be interviewed before thousands of booksellers and book industry professionals about "My Passion for Design", to be published by Viking on November 16, 2010. It will be Ms. Streisand's first appearance on behalf of the book.

BookExpo America (BEA) organizers have today announced the official debut of New York Book Week (May 23-29, 2010), a concept which embraces all literary and book activity in New York City and which is designed to draw attention to authors, books and publishing.  The program, which was conceived as a way to expand on the presence of BEA in New York City by making even more authors available to the community, has grown to include a wide range of author events at various literary venues.

BookExpo America (BEA) officials announced a new cooperative venture with Above the Treeline, a provider of business intelligence tools to the publishing industry, to create an online catalog of new titles on exhibit at BEA. Called Books@BEA, participation in the online catalog will be free to all book publishers exhibiting at the New York event, which will be held at the Javits Center in New York City on May 25-27.

One night recently, I woke suddenly, due to a horrifying dream about … do I dare admit it? … Twitter. The dream made no real sense; I was tweeting—or posting, for you non-Twitterers—quotes from various people in the book publishing industry, one quote after another, but I couldn’t post them fast enough. I have similar work/stress-related dreams quite frequently, but I was amazed that I had one about Twitter—tweeting is one of the simplest things I do. So why the tweet dreams?

Book publishers combined to pull in $40.3 billion in net dollar sales in 2008, a 1-percent increase over 2007, according to Book Industry Study Group’s (BISG) “Book Industry Trends 2009.” Total unit sales, however, slipped 1.5 percent from 3.13 million in 2007 to 3.08 million last year.

In advance of this year's BookExpo America (BEA), held May 28-31 at the Jacob K. Javits Center in New York City, one might have expected to see tumbleweeds blowing through the aisles, based on pre-show media coverage and word in the blogosphere pondering the show's future and its role in the industry. While a number of exhibitors noted that traffic seemed lighter this year, and many publishers downsized their booth space or decided not to exhibit at all (Thomas Nelson, which announced its decision prior to the 2008 BEA, was among the most notable not to exhibit), the event was successful for many publishers—though their objectives for "success" varied, and few seem to include actual sales. Also, many publishers' booths were difficult to traverse due to crowds.

Missed Part I of This Series? You can find Part I of this two-part series here. Taking the time to step back and evaluate your company’s publishing software can be challenging enough in the midst of the daily grind, but once you become aware that real problems exist, the bigger challenge can be figuring out how to successfully address them. Part I of this article explored “the decision phase”—or, how to recognize the need for a new system and the triggers that alert you to that situation. In this second installment, you will learn ways to analyze, select and determine the success factors

Lance Fensterman, event director of BookExpo America (BEA), has immersed himself in many areas of technology in order to promote BEA and gain valuable feedback from industry professionals. One of the ways he has done so is through his blog, BookExpo-Lance.BlogSpot.com, where he claims to blog from his travels around the world via his Blackberry. Prior to his current position, he was an independent bookseller for several years, and he says he draws on that experience frequently. Book Business Extra spoke with Fensterman to discuss the theme of BEA 2007, its online community, his blog and more. EXTRA: BEA 2007 had the overall theme