BookExpo Shrinkage

By Andrew Porter: The most interesting part for me of the Associated Press article “Book industry looks to hold steady in turbulent time” was —

Square footage for the show has shrunk noticeably in recent years and the large gaps on the convention floor at times gave BookExpo the look of an idled factory. Publishers have wondered for years whether the convention was necessary in the Internet Age, when deals once negotiated at BookExpo are now accomplished online.

Having attended from the mid 1970s to now, I’ve seen the convention grow enormously, with extravagant parties and promotional events — parties on paddle wheelers in New Orleans, at Hugh Hefner’s mansion in LA, at Radio City Music Hall in NYC, and the party in DC for The Name of the Rose, held at the Italian Embassy’s estate — among memorable soirees, and then shrink from more than 40,000 attendees to the current ensmalled convention, with exhibits taking a fraction of the space they used to.

There were wide empty places on the exhibit floor that in years past would have had booths shoe-horned in everywhere; empty spaces behind black curtains where nothing was happening; meeting rooms that in previous years would have been on other floors.

Many of the older exhibitors I talked to commented on this shrinking convention, and wondered what the future would bring. The convention has already become a 2-and-a-half day event from 4-5 days previously. It’s rattling around in the Javits Center now, and I wonder whether it could go back to being held in a few large hotels instead. Or back to DC’s Shoreham Hotel, where it was held for decades, with the publishers displaying their wares on card tables in the hotel’s garage.

Here are a few of my photos; I took photos for Baen at their always excellent party.

Robert Gleason autographing for Tor Books:

Charlie Jane Anders autographing:

The exhibit hall:

Larry Correia with the cover of his new novel at the Baen party:

Tony Daniel with the cover of his new novel:

17 thoughts on “BookExpo Shrinkage

  1. Am I right in thinking that BookExpo and the BEA that some unknown canid was maundering about the other day are the same thing?

  2. Andy’s point about the Internet may be relevant; I get the impression that convention art shows have shrunk because artists can show their work online well enough for art directors to pay attention (while not well enough for it to be reproduced illegitimately?). Face time is not totally irrelevant — I know a Brit who spends a large part of their hours at WFC meeting with US authors — but it’s been becoming less so for some time. (I’m remembering coordinating 15-20 people doing exhibits for the 1992 Worldcon — it would have been a nightmare without email. Planning has become much more distributed since then.)

    One interesting point (contra my response to @Cora a couple of stories back): there was in fact a reader convention (BookExpo) co-running with BEA; the AP story doesn’t give attendance numbers, but it sounds like the drop is only in BEA and there would be a much higher attendance if the two were added together (although maybe not the six-figure numbers Cora quoted for German book expos).

  3. I was told by a bookseller some ten years back that he had decided that it wasn’t worth the time and money to attend. Someone from there staff was doing the regionals how but I’m not that’s being done currently by the new owners.

    Publishers have rapidly moved to digital services like NetGalley which allows them pretty much stop doing paper galleys. Though the death of galleys is still a long ways off as Saga and most imprints of Macmillian USA do them

    Some are doing a combination of NetGalley and / or the printed book which is for current Tanya Huff’s A Peace Divided. And the galley collection in the basement of Longfellow Books, some five hundred or so, shows publishers are servicing bookstores rather well.

  4. @Chip
    The Frankfurt Book Fair gets approx. 140000 industry visitors alone (and 278000 total). This is where agents and publishers etc… meet to make deals, buy foreign rights, etc…, something they apparently still prefer to do face to face in spite of the internet. Frankfurt has an entire exhibition hall set aside only for agents and other industry professionals, where the general public is not allowed to enter at all.

    Anyway, I enjoyed the photos. Frankfurt and Leipzig do get international SFF authors, e.g. Scalzi was at Frankfurt a few years ago, but the official coverage usually ignores them.

  5. Raccotding to new sources, Frankfurt actually had 340,000 attendees for the one just held. It’s definitely not a place where the retailers of the books that came of deals held here need to be there.

    Chip: did Amazon have a presence there? I would assume they as they’ve become a publisher over the past few years. And Audible certainly would be there to cut exclusive deals.

  6. Exhibit hall looks busy from that photo. And not being so overwhelming maybe means people can actually enjoy it and find each other.

    The glorious days of riverboat, Hef, and Italian excess seem like they’d have been great fun for the participants, but a waste of money for the publishers. It’s not like the mid-list authors or office workers got any benefit. I suppose the publishers wrote them off on their taxes, which means Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Public, Anywhere USA, paid for it. It was good for caterers? Are things less extravagant now there there are fewer publishers (less competition), more bean counters, and maybe less cocaine?

    There are a lot of events that don’t need to be as big now that we have the internet. This is one of them. With NetGalley, regular galleys, email, authors/agents/lawyers who know how to do business online, why spend a ton of money on a hotel room and food in downtown NYC? Especially since every business is frantically cutting costs and employees.

    The Big 5 and their divisions seem to be doing okay.

    Would be interesting to hear about BookExpo.

    Thanks for the pix and report, Andrew.

  7. The swedish BookExpo is usually around 100 000 visitors, so I am a bit surprised by the numbers.

  8. ‘Merica’s a big country, takes a long time to travel through. NYC is ridiculously expensive to be in. Email and FaceChat works fine.

  9. Hampus Eckerman says The swedish BookExpo is usually around 100 000 visitors, so I am a bit surprised by the numbers.

    Lurkertype’s right. And many Europeans have little concept just how big we are. I had a Scottish band that I booked some years ago who got booked the previous night in upstate New York, a good six hour drive from here in Portland where I had them them booked for a seven o’clock concert that night. Three hours before concert time, they called and said they were here and where was the venue? Well they’d stopped in Portsmouth, NH, an hour south of here…

    And bookstores usually have few managers that actually do book purchasing decisions, so spending long distance travel tix, costly knotted room and covering that person while they’re away is not a good decision. Instead they go (maybe) to a regional, listen to Public Radio to get books in fast if they don’t have what was mention there recently, customer suggestions, Library staff and so forth.

    We’ve got a Book-A-Million in the store space built for Borders. Nice but it has no effect on local bookstores.

  10. “‘Merica’s a big country, takes a long time to travel through. NYC is ridiculously expensive to be in. Email and FaceChat works fine.”

    Well, the state of New York has about twice the population of the whole of Sweden on one third of the area, so I can’t really see the first part as an explanation. Note that the swedish BookExpo is not in the capital, it is in the city of Gothenburg with a population of around one million people in the larger city area.

  11. Hampus queries Well, the state of New York has about twice the population of the whole of Sweden on one third of the area, so I can’t really see the first part as an explanation. Note that the swedish BookExpo is not in the capital, it is in the city of Gothenburg with a population of around one million people in the larger city area.

    It’s not so much the size of the host region as it is the number of people both interested in attending and who have the not inconsiderable cost of five or so days in a city like NYC. I think the net took away much of the folks who needed the information and contacts they made there each year. And publishers know they can reach the people at bookstores like Longfellow quite efficiently.

    I’d be interested to know which publishers have stopped going. I know that Saga Press was there as was Tor and Ace / Roc et al. (Email most genre publicists during the show and you’ll get ‘Hi I’m at BookExpo this week!’) So who didn’t go?

  12. NickPheas: Book Expo America, BEA, was renamed Book Expo, starting this year.

    The comment about the internet wasn’t by me; it was in the Associated Press article.

    Book Expo is a trade show, for booksellers and librarians only. And it moves around; last year it was in Chicago. It’s been held in LA, DC, Atlanta, Dallas, many other US cities.

  13. NickPheas: Am I right in thinking that BookExpo and the BEA that some unknown canid was maundering about the other day are the same thing?

    Andrew Porter: The comment about the internet wasn’t by me; it was in the Associated Press article.

    That’s not to what NickPheas is referring, it’s this self-published Puppy engaging in wishful thinking that trad pub’s death is imminent because in-person interactions at BEA are no longer essential to successfully do business.

  14. For a small or especially mom and pop bookstore (which are doing pretty well), no one could afford to take off 4-6 days and leave the store so short-handed. And then there’s the monetary cost!

    I live on the West Coast. It’s 5 hours’ flight to NYC. Have to leave home 2 hours before that. Security screening, luggage check, jammed into cattle class. Then there’s at least an hour to get luggage and to the hotel. 8-9 hours, plus 3 hours time zone change — that’s an entire day.

    Then I get to rush around with jet lag for days, carry stuff, pay for taxis, sleep in a yoogely expensive hotel room, eat expensive food, and do the whole thing in reverse.

    Same for East Coast peeps who have to travel west. Folks in the middle are probably going to be going to the edges most years. Some places are going to require connecting flights, which add 1-2 hours even if they go right. Many people live in rural areas or small towns which are 2-4 hours’ drive to any airport. So they might be looking at over 12 hours and who knows how much $ just to get there.

    I have flown many places in the US, from many places, and basically it’s going to take all damn day no matter where you start or end.

    So the small store owner is just going to talk to customers, follow the news, be in bookseller interest groups/sites, email and get ARCs and eARCs. Maybe they’ll go if they live in/near a big city that it comes to, and commute daily — still a hassle, but do-able.

    The cost/benefit ratio doesn’t work for a lot of people. As Cat Eldridge has pointed out so very clearly.

    Maybe European publishers just aren’t good at intarwebs?

  15. I suspect the attendance difference between BookExpo and European book fairs is more due to cultural differences than to the fact that New York is expensive and far away (Frankfurt is also expensive and far away for many attendants and getting there is a hassle even if you fly. Leipzig is even more of a hassle).

    I don’t know about the Swedish book fair, but the two German book fairs in Frankfurt und Leipzig are major cultural events. National politicians show up for the opening ceremony. Plenty of celebrities attend. There are readings and signings. Both book fairs hand out important literary awards. There is mainstream TV coverage on the news and in dedicated cultural programs. TV programs interview authors and put these interviews online and broadcast compilations on TV. Newspapers devote their review sections to book fair coverage.

    Basically, if you’re German and at all interested in literature, the Leipzig and Frankfurt book fairs are major holidays like Christmas and Easter for you (ditto for the Days of German Language Literature in Klagenfurt, Austria). They’re basically SDCC or DragonCon for the literary set. So both industry folks and regular readers are a lot more eager to attend both fairs, because we’ve been told over and over that these are important, most-visit events.

    As for Book Expo, I have seen coverage on genre and literature websites, but is the general public aware of it? Is there mainstream TV and newspaper coverage? Is it treated like an event of national importance?

  16. Cora: Book Expo is for the trade only; no general public is admitted.

    On the Saturday and Sunday, there’s BookCon (so called because ReaderCon was taken), which is for the general public, with lots of famous types, including Margaret Atwood, etc.

  17. “Cora: Book Expo is for the trade only; no general public is admitted.”

    And there’s the explanation. The Swedish Book Expo is the main cultural event of the year in Sweden. Every author, every publisher, every journalist of name will be there. At least ten panels an hour apart from the readings and book signings. And not only publishers there, literary societies for every old swedish author will make an appearance. It is just crazy.

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