Saturday
June 1, 2013
Day 3
The last day of BEA was definitely bittersweet. At this
point my body was exhausted, and I know Gabrielle was getting tired of city
life (it’s always fun to see how a country girl reacts to the sights and sounds
and crush of people in a place like NYC). We knew that we would be leaving
right from BEA to the train station so we had to bring our suitcases with us
that were already half full with clothes and toiletries. This meant we knew
going in that we were limited in what we could bring home from BEA as we would
have to haul everything not only around BEA but also through Penn Station and
home.
We somehow arrived at the Javits super early and were
first in line. We hung out as more friend trickled in, sitting around together
and joking as we snapped pictures like it was the last day of summer camp or
school.
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| Jenny, Me, and Mary |
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| Hannah & Gabrielle |
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| Me with Nicole |
Actually, I wish I had a BEA yearbook for all my friends
to sign. How cool would that be?
We also made friends with the security guard stationed in
front of our entrance. Did you know that these people have to sit there all day
and can’t even partake in the BEA fun? How cruel would it be to be a book
lover, know there were hundreds of books just feet away and you couldn’t touch
them?!
Of course, we gave her some of our extra books and I
think Nicole somehow wound up with several bottles of water she gave to a few
guards.
By far I got the most amusement out of watching the Power
Readers trying to assimilate themselves. You couldn’t miss their neon green
badges. Or the way they didn’t seem to understand how lines worked. Did they
think we were sitting in front of the entrances to the hall for fun?
Don’t get me wrong—some (most) of the Power Readers were
sweet. They were energetic and enthusiastic and full of questions. Yes, a lot bumbled and fumbled their way
through a few things, but can any of us say we didn’t do that at our first BEA?
The ones that irritated me were the ones who clearly felt entitled. They
strolled up to the front of the line a few minutes before the doors opened and
argued with the security guards that they were allowed inside, emphatically
shoving their passes in the security guards’ faces and saying, “It says we go
into the exhibit hall.”
I actually listened to one lady start yelling at a guard in
front of me because she wanted to go upstairs but her mother needed an
elevator. The guard calmly told her where it was and she found it ludicrous
that there wasn’t an elevator right where she was standing and kept arguing.
Yes, because the security
guard was the one in charge of elevator placement when the Javits Center
was built.
When the doors opened, I made for the Harlequin booth as
they were having a massive signing with 13 authors at 10 o’clock. All at once. Gabrielle and I made it to
the booth and when we asked where the line was starting, the poor (but awesome)
Harlequin people seemed amazed people wanted to line up already. By the time
they started organizing the poles our group of four people waiting turned into
a crowd of 30. Within 15 minutes I couldn’t see the end of the line because it
winded around all over the place, disappearing down the aisle.
Being at the front of this line was fantastic. We got to
chat with the publicists and authors as they took their places. Some asked us
to take pictures for them. Plus Harlequin has some of the best carpet at BEA
and feet really needed that.
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| Gabrielle & Jordana Frankel |
I didn’t do much wandering. Honestly, my feet were
killing me. Like I said in my first post, BEA was hell on my feet this year
(last year I was fine). The last
signing of the day I wanted to hit was Cora Carmack and that didn’t start until
1.
At 11:30 I asked the girl working the front of her line
if she knew when they would start lining up. She said typically 45 minutes
before a signing is when they started lines.
I knew this be a lie because I’d already done two other
days of BEA.
No problem, I decided to stick close to the autographing
area and see what would happen. I noticed the line for Sean Williams’ Twinmaker was insanely short so I hopped
in and snagged a book, getting to chat with him for a minute. He seriously has
the best accent. Just, keep talking Sean.
Once I left that line I met back up with Gabrielle and
noticed there was now a new person (a guy) standing in front of the line that
would eventually hold Cora Carmack, who was signing copies of Faking It. It was now about 11:45. I
asked him the same thing I had the other girl (yes, I am that person—the one who will ask multiple people the same question
until she gets the answer she wants). He told me that the staff got a break at
12:30 so the line would probably get assigned right before that. Clearly this
boy did not know the appeal of Ms. Carmack. That’s cool. He would learn.
Exhausted, I went over back to Gabrielle, who had been
joined by another girl and I said I was just going to wait. The girl asked if I
meant for Cora Carmack and when I said yes, we unofficially started the official
line. Within 15 minutes out unofficial
line went from the three of us to close to 40 people. At one point, someone
grabbed a #8 sign for the line so people would know that we were waiting for
Cora and not staging a BEA sit-in. A little after noon I went back and pointed
out how big our line had gotten.
I kid you not, this poor kid’s eyes got huge and he said,
“Yeah. Let’s get you guys to move.”
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| With Jen, waiting for Cora Carmack |
Yeah.
Well, if you were going to use it, this was the line to
use it, so … Well played, my friend. I couldn’t be mad. And then after I got my
copy signed, another person used their front of the line pass. As I was leaving
I saw them escorting someone else up to use theirs.
Never underestimate the appeal of Cora Carmack. By the
way? I already read Faking It and
loved it. Not surprising, right?
After this Gabrielle and I wandered aimlessly. Truthfully
we were killing time. We figured our train left shortly after six and BEA ended
at four, so we would hang out and have fun and—
Lies. OK? Lies.
I think most people cleared out by 1. Even the publishers
were packing up shop as we walked around. We went over to the Sourcebooks booth
and hung out there. I got the chance to see Derry again (who is one of the
sweetest people ever). And we may have totally taken advantage of their comfy
table and chairs. A little after 2 I got to be a part of this awesome moment
where one of the people working at Sourcebooks told us we could start taking
display copies if we wanted any.
I had heard about this phenomenon from other people, but
last year I was too tired to stick around and see if it was true. I managed to
get ARCs of several of their fall releases they didn’t have available at galley
drops and signings (like TMI and Six Months Later). After that Gabrielle
and I decided we were done.
Another year,
another BEA. This one definitely felt different because I had so much more
going on in a shorter amount of time (last year I had an extra day to recover
before coming home). Last year I went to no parties/events and this year I was
lucky enough to go to several. When I left BEA last year I was sure I wouldn’t
be back for financial reasons and yet there I was. When I left BEA this year I
swore I was done, but that might have been my achy feet and shoulders talking.
See you next year, guys!
