Julie Burton, publicist at independent publisher MacAdam/Cage, spent most of her time at Book Expo America working at her own booth, talking about its upcoming fiction and nonfiction offerings. One morning, she snuck away to the signing area to get the new autobiography by actor Kirk Cameron. I went thinking it would be cool to meet a childhood crush, but I was surprised at how giddy I was.
How giddy? Just like in the picture.
Carolyn Kellogg
Fantagraphics Books is a top publisher of graphic novels. Founded 35 years ago, it has brought the work of R. Crumb, Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez, Peter Bagge, Dan Clowes, Chris Ware, Jessica Abel, Joe Sacco and many others to shelves. Jason Miles does Fatagraphics' sales and distribution. I'm used to comic book conventions [which focusing on selling directly to consumers]. For me, BEA is exciting. I get to talk about what I love -- cartooning, comic books -- with bookstores, schools, libraries, movie producers! They're all interested in graphic novels.
Carolyn Kellogg
Simon Lipskar is a senior agent at Writers House, where he represents a wide range of authors in literary and commercial fiction, narrative nonfiction and young adult fiction. This is not a rights fair, so [instead of working on deals] my role is to be with my clients. It's my most Ari Gold moment -- but I'm not like Ari Gold.
Carolyn Kellogg
New York-based Other Press publishes novels and nonfiction, and their BEA booth featured upcoming work in both genres. Above, Other Press publisher Judith Gurewich poses with author Michael Greenberg; his book "Hurry Down Sunshine" -- a memoir of his daughter's struggle with mental illness -- is due in September. Gurewich says: What has been really wonderful is that so many booksellers and revewiers have heard of "Hurry Down Sunshine" already -- and the galley just came out.
Carolyn Kellogg
Stesha Brandon handles events and publicity for Seattle's University Bookstore, the oldest and largest independent bookstore in Washington state. This was her fifth year attending Book Expo America. She says: I've been seeing a lot of high-quality mid-list and also debut books this season. I tend to meet with the fantastic literary fiction publishers -- Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, MacAdam/Cage, Random House, Harcourt, Norton -- they're really giving people a shot. Across the booths, I have seen a lot of really fantastic, strong debuts and growing mid-lists.
Carolyn Kellogg
About a year ago, it would have been easy to explain what Richard Nash does: He was the head of independent publisher Soft Skull Press. But after Soft Skull was acquired by Winton, Shoemaker and Co. (which is part of Perseus), Nash became editorial director there, turning three imprints into two. Soft Skull publishes books on politics and current events, poetry, and literary fiction. The thing that taught me I should be in publishing is that I like book fairs; I got that DNA. [when I explain that means days of standing under flourescent convention center lights, chatting with strangers] People say, 'That sounds like my worst nightmare.' But I love the energy of it, I love the hustle of it. I don't think it is bad to try to hustle to sell books. I not so secretly like that -- clearly, not so secretly.
Carolyn Kellogg
I thought "The Children of Hurin" was it. With its 2007 publication, the depths of J.R.R. Tolkien's  excess materials had been thoroughly plumbed. Who was I kidding? At their booth, the Houghton Mifflin team proudly announced the publication this fall of "Tales from the Perilous Realm." Then, I realized that this was not a new work, but new packaging for old stories that have been around for many years, some dating to the 1940s. The book gathers several of the master's shorter works--"Farmer Giles of Ham," "Leaf by Niggle," "Smith of Wootton Major" and "Roverandom"--as well as a book of poems, "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil." On the one hand, it seems like just another publishing tactic to keep the Tolkien industry's momentum going long after fresh discoveries have dried up. On the other hand, here will be a good opportunity to reconsider some of his more obscure works.
Does Tolkien even need to have the final word on the universe he created? At the booth for Orbit Books, the publicists displayed galleys of "Orcs," which gathers a trilogy by Stan Nicholls that has sold well around the world. This will be its first U.S. publication. The striking image on the cover (right) drew a steady stream of visitors. When I approached sales director Gina Wynn, before I could even say a word, she smiled and said, "Yes, there are Orcs in it. Want a copy? I haven't been able to keep them on the shelves." If the convention response was any indication of future success, "Orcs" should do just fine this fall.
Nick Owchar
The Los Angeles Dodgers may have been on the road yesterday in New York, but there was still an all-star lineup on the field of Dodger Stadium. Noted children’s authors Judy Blume, Louis Sachar, Polly Horvath, Christopher Paolini, Kate Klimo, Marjorie Priceman, Marc Brown, and Judy Sierra participated in Random House Children’s Books Saturday night cocktail reception for the BEA.
The authors camped out at tables spread along the beginning of the outfield grass: They signed autographs on specially designed Random House baseballs for various members of the book publishing industry. The signing of baseballs was a first for the authors--it was nice to see them sign something  other than books for a change.
The highlight of the night was the special introductions given to the authors in front of a crowd of about 400 people. All eight authors sat in the Dodgers dugout before the PA announcer called each of them onto the field with a special introduction. Among the interesting baseball nicknames given to each writer, there were: Judy “the scooter” Blume (left), Marc “the big unit” Brown and Louis “Sluggo” Sachar. The authors gave each other high fives and lined up, waiting for the next author to be introduced.
The atmosphere was youth-spirited all the way down the line from the most senior author (Blume is 70) to the youngest (Paolini is 24). The legendary Blume, whose famous books include “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” and “It’s Not the End of the World,” couldn’t resist the energetic atmosphere. Blume grabbed the mike and announced to the crowd that her husband’s birthday was Saturday. Moments later she led more than a handful of people in a rendition of “Happy Birthday” for her husband who was in attendance.
Paolini, who is best known for the novel “Eragon” (the next volume in his "Inheritance Cycle" is "Brisingr," which will be published in September) wanted to be able to say he had played baseball on the field of Dodger stadium. So, the author grabbed a baseball and, with a friend, began a game of catch on the field. The baseball-themed event was embraced by all the authors, some of whom even wore baseball caps. Brown wore a Boston Red Sox hat (his home is on Martha’s Vineyard); Sachar wore a San Francisco Giants hat, which made several people laugh. Why? He explained that he just couldn’t resist wearing his favorite team’s hat in the stadium of its worst rival.
Joshua Sandoval
(Blume photo credit: Sigrid Estrada)
William Shatner is a multifaceted cultural icon. He's not just "Star Trek's" Captain Kirk, or the Priceline spokesman, or a recording artist (whose 2004 CD was titled "Has Been"), or that guy on "Boston Legal," or the guy who in a 1963 episode of "The Twilight Zone" spotted a monster on the wing of a plane. He's also an author -- credited on more than 20 books -- with a new autobiography, "Up Till Now."
Shatner was at the BookExpo America convention in Los Angeles on Saturday to sign the hardcover editions; fans queued up early on the convention floor. The publisher had brought along 260 copies, which were handed out to those waiting in line. It took the company's publicists 26 minutes to pass them all out, but there weren't enough books to go around.
That's quite a rate: 10 books per minute, or one Shatner autobiography every six seconds.
-- Carolyn Kellogg
Photo credit: Carolyn Kellogg
Bruce Bauman (left) and Steve Erickson (right) from Black Clock with Los Angeles magazine's Kit Rachlis.
When Book Expo is in New York, the only thing between you and party-hopping is the number of invites you can score. When it's in L.A., transportation is the issue.
BEA's activities are downtown at the Los Angeles Convention Center, but Friday night the parties were all over the place. The famed Knopf dinner was at Lucques in Beverly Hills. Harper Collins served cocktails in West Hollywood, as did Weinstein Books up the hill at Chateau Marmont. Me, I was all the way out in Santa Monica at Bergamot Station for the Los Angeles Magazine/Black Clock party.
As if writing novels and nonfiction and running the writing program weren't enough, Steve Erickson is also the film critic for Los Angeles magazine. Kit Rachlis is its editor -- years ago, the two worked at LA Weekly together. And CalArts' Black Clock -- which takes its name from an Erickson novel -- is edited by Erickson and Bruce Bauman. Luckily, they were all taking a break from their writing and editing responsibilities to throw this lovely (if extremely Westside) party.
Tonight there is one party right near the Convention Center, at the Figueroa Hotel. Whew!
Carolyn Kellogg
At 3:05 p.m., it was hard to tell who had the longer line: R.L. Stein or Berkeley Breathed. At the autograph area, a throng of conventioneers queued up for the chance to get books signed by two very distinct authors; one a weaver of juvenile horror and the other a penguin-obsessed, mustachioed cartoonist.
Although Stein's serialized novels -- "Goosebumps," "Fear Street" -- have become nearly an industry of their own and Breathed has settled with aplomb into life after Bloom County, I couldn't help but be the slightest bit enthralled. After all, I cut my teeth on the "Fear Street" series and spent most of high school figuring that Binkley and Milo had the right idea. The authors are themselves potent gateway drugs. Getting ensnared at the right age often leads to indulgence in books by Stephen King and H.P. Lovecraft, along with a potent sense of whimsy and the tendency to laugh at jokes no one else thinks are funny. At least that was my experience.
But who was in line to get their books signed? Lanyard-dangling name tags ranged in origin from the Santa Monica Public School System to Harper Collins Publishers. It was almost the end of the day and conventioneers stood in patient, bubbly lines, chattering about the day's events and waiting to say hello to their heroes.
George Ducker
Book publishing may be struggling, but there’s one area that seems to be managing fine under the circumstances: audiobooks. There’s a reason for it, as Nicolas Soames of Naxos AudioBooks explains. “People have less time to read but the desire is still there,” he says, “which is why they turn to us.”
That makes sense. With BEA this year in Los Angeles, the kingdom of commuters, it makes even more sense to see Naxos AudioBooks and similar companies here--and that they're doing reasonably well. As Soames notes, a worthy portion of their customer base, along with public libraries, consists of commuters.
Soames and his associates are publicizing the release in July of an award-winning production of “Othello” featuring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Ewan McGregor, Ian McKellen and many others. We would all like to spend our days reading in quiet, of course, if our lives allowed it. But if you don’t have this time, consider this as a consolation: McGregor as the cunning Iago. By Janus, commuting has just gotten better.
Nick Owchar
The man (with Hefner) back in 2004. (photo: Carol Kaelson ABC)
It was a crush of crepey cleavage and vintage Hollywood royalty Thursday night at George Hamilton’s book party at Il Cielo in Beverly Hills. We nibbled on porcini ravioli and tiny lambchops from hand-grown, organically fed micro sheep. We swilled house Chianti and watched as vintage 1980s television superstars paraded, air-kissed and lined up for photo ops.
There was leonine Loni Anderson, newly remarried and glowing behind her majestic cheekbones. She spooned chicly shagged and laid-back Stephanie Powers, who cocked a knee beside Linda Gray, still radiant nearly 20 years post-“Dallas.” Plumped lips curled into super-pro camera smiles all around. New York publishing lackeys watched in awe; this is why it’s good to hold Book Expo America in L.A.: star power, baby.
Suddenly the crowd parted and there was Hamilton himself, radiant in a bespoke suit and his signature 500-watt smile. His hair was shellacked to perfection, his teeth adazzle, skin burnished to the sheen of a fine, old wallet. The man, on the brink of 70, is still a total chick magnet. Women of all ages flocked to him, pulling wee cameras from tiny evening bags and jockeying for a photo, letting their hands linger in his as he smiled down at them.
It was an anticipatory party for his October book, “Don’t Mind If I Do,” an intimate look at behind-the-scenes Hollywood, and if his ghostwriter (William Stadiem) did his job right, it should be a pip. Hamilton was at the "Cleopatra" wrap party where Richard Burton declared his love for Elizabeth Taylor in front of Eddie Fisher; he witnessed one of Judy Garland’s suicide attempts and, apparently, skinny-dipped with JFK (giving new meaning to the phrase “I knew John F. Kennedy and you’re no John F. Kennedy").
“I came on the scene in the '50s, and I didn’t want to be stuck in that plastic era,” Hamilton told me as I tried to stay focused on his words and not be hypnotized by his animal magnetism. “I wanted to write about what really happened.” He was inspired by David Niven’s books “The Moon’s a Balloon” and “Bring on the Empty Horses,” which brought the insider Hollywood memoir to a giddy new level in the 1970s.
There’s hope for similar fun from "Don't Mind If I Do" because Hamilton clearly knows everyone -- and is in on the joke about himself. The promotional goody bag was an assemblage of personalized M&Ms, sunglasses and exotic tanning products. The book's cover photo has him posed in a leopard-skin chair, in ascot, nonchalantly gesturing toward the camera. He has a reality show in the works, also called “Don’t Mind if I Do,” in which he freeloads his way around the world on his charm and good looks without ever having to touch money.
In this new age of the stubbled, rude and tattooed, Hamilton is old guard Hollywood. Back in the 1950s, Hamilton told me, his idols were Rudolph Valentino and the Duke of Windsor. “I was 30 years out of date back then!”
Erika Schickel
At the Amazon Kindle booth in the L.A. Convention Center, there are just two Kindles, which is not quite enough. People don't give them up easily, no matter how closely other Book Expo attendees gather. Scrums of conventioneers form. Everyone wants to hold it, to "turn" the "pages" of the electronic books within.
Kathy Schalk-Greene (above), a librarian from New Jersey, had seen the Kindle -- an electronic reader that can download and hold 200 books -- before, but this was the first one she'd gotten to hold. "It's very cool," she says. "I can really see the advantage of having that much content in that small space." Better than a bag of books, I suppose.
But Shalk-Greene sees this as just one more reading tool, one good for "convenience and mobility," rather than something that would replace books. Like so many book lovers, she has a fondness for the physicality of the books themselves.
Yesterday I heard a new term for these lovers of books with pages and binding: "Ink Sniffers." Add "Paper Caressers" and count me in.
Carolyn Kellogg
 On day one Book Expo kicked off with a panel called Editors' Buzz. Six editors each lauded one upcoming title. When they were done, the audience streamed past and picked up galleys of the books, stacked head-high by the door. (Note: that's head-high for me; I'm about five-foot-two.)
Notable was the omission of titles by such heavyweights as Stephen King or James Patterson -- his new book is being advertised on a massive banner outside the L.A. Convention Center. Instead, the five novels featured were by newcomers. (The sixth book, a nonfiction title, was a follow-up to a bestseller.) One seasoned attendee seemed to find this disturbing -- no names, no bigshots -- but I found it kind of exciting.
For publishers to push new novelists, to find something exciting about new voices -- that, to me as a reader, is good news. It's evidence of a kind of vivacity in the field if publishers focus on good, perhaps risky new works, in lieu of a proven writer. Although booksellers might be happier with another Harry Potter. Grabbing the swag after the buzz panel.
Carolyn Kellogg
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