Holy crap, guys. BEA. That’s all I need to say, right?
If you’ve been to BEA you would know my excitement and
horror. If you’ve read about BEA, you can probably imagine my excitement and
horror. If you’ve never heard about BEA, how did you get to our blog?
Bobbydinohunter and I went to BEA to visit family and enjoy
all of what makes BEA so awesome. I won’t go into to many details, but the
beginning of my trip was crap. Bobby (my husband and co-blogger) had made the
11 hour drive to stay with his family for the beginning of the holiday week. I
on the other hand still had to work during the week so I had stayed behind with
the Tater-tot. My school is actually remodeling, and I am getting an all new
library. So that week was reserved for only moving the entire collection into
the unused home-ec room. It was a killer. (Lesson learned: going to BEA right
after moving 12,000 books myself into storage is not a good idea.)
Then on Wednesday, my flights kept getting delayed, to the
point I would be arriving at 1:30 in the morning on Thursday. 0.o
From there, we knew it was about an hour from
bobbydinohunter’s mom’s house to the expo hall. We left before 6, and didn’t
get there until almost 9. I HATE NY TRAFFIC! For the rest of our stay, we got
up at 4 and was out the door by 4:45. This, for us, was the perfect timing. We
were able to get coffee, and still make it in time to get spots for author
tickets! Now, I don’t think I need to go into too many details about
BEA, but here are some points of interest.
1. I wound up in the Harlequin signing line about
45 minutes before they started. I had lost track of my husband, so I decided I
had nothing better to do, I’ll go ahead and wait. When the signing started, the
line was completely wrapped around the booth. Mind you, the Harlequin booth was
LARGE. And, they had the best set-up for
lines to begin with, IMO. Anywho, back to the story: So, the line starts
moving, and I am about number 15 in line. I am on my phone when a woman comes
up to me and says “I’ll pay you $5 If I can cut you so I don’t have to wait in
this line.”
I wish I had had the balls to tell
her fuck no. BUT I was dumbfounded, and just nodded my head with a “whatever”
shrug. She then proceeded to tell me how great I was and did I “really want the
5?”
Now, I was never going to take her
money. (I wanted to pretend I’d never
met her and she just pushed her way in, truthfully.) Yet this rubbed me the
wrong way too. If you are going to be THAT person that everyone hates, you
better be able to put your money where your mouth is.
2.
Stealing. HOLY SHIT PEOPLE. Not every book is
free. Why is this so hard for people to
understand? One booth that I saw have a huge problem with this was Sourcebooks.
They had four triangular pillars, with about 8 books displayed on each side. By
Saturday, there were just empty stands. The sad part is, they had signs that
said “DISPLAY ONLY” throughout the entire place!!! I sat there at about 1pm on
Saturday, waiting for them to close. I had asked, and they said when they
started closing down, they would let my husband and I take a couple of their
picture books for Taters. As I was
resting my feet, I saw a woman come up, pick up a romance novel, do the shifty-
eyes, and slyly put it in her bag and walked away.
Hello! Sometimes, just ask! If she had
asked, and waited (god forbid) 15 minutes, they probably would have gladly let
her take it. DON’T ASSUME YOU CAN HAVE THESE BOOKS!
While this happened, a group a young girls
came up behind us to another pillar. I then loudly started talking to Bobby
about how crappy the theft was. The
girls heard me, and started debating if they should take and go. I looked at
them pointedly and said “If you wait 15 minutes and ask, they might let you
have that book, you don’t need to steal it from them.” And they gave me the
dirtiest look, pocketed a book each (about 4 girls, a different book each) and
walked away.
And, do you know what I find to be my
biggest issue with these two specific incidents? Sourcebooks was on the SOLE
BEA side. Meaning these were NOT “general public” bookcon attendees. These were
people somehow related to the trade, and paid for all 3 days, and STILL felt
the need to openly steal from them.
3. The Mortal Instruments is HP fanfiction. I am ok with that. I actually love the
series. But dear Tween: if you can’t see the similarities, we have a
problem. Stop loudly defending the book when 1. No one was negative towards it
and 2. You don’t know what you are talking about.
4.
Book con was……. A madhouse. I’m not sure if my
trip on Saturday was worth the chaos.
5.
I met several bloggers, but I wish I asked more
for their cards. I met two in particular that I came across several times that
I really enjoyed. They were a ton of fun, but I can’t seem to find their blog
or find them on twitter at all. :(
In the end, my husband and I wound up with a bunch of books,
contacts, and new friends. It was a blast, and we have both agreed we will
return in at LEAST 2016 when it is housed in Chicago. Hopefully we’ll make it next year too!
