Pictures from BEA Part I

WARNING:  This post is PICTURE HEAVY.

I felt bad for the people who were missing out on Book Expo America this year.  Some have never attended, let alone have heard about it... which is why I tried to take a few pictures for you all to see how HUGE it was.  I know before I started blogging that I never even knew what BEA stood for, let alone what it was, so I was extremely excited about going on Wednesday and Thursday!

If you can manage, I highly suggest saving up for the trip to Manhattan for BEA11 next year.  Aside from extremely sore shoulders/upper back (yesterday I was sporting the overstuffed backpack, plus a tote on each arm all packed with books), I got to meet some wonderful bloggers like Heather from Darkly Reading (who was my BEA buddy. We were pretty much glued to the hip both days [dude, I still can't believe they ran out of Shadow Hills copies on the first day!]), Karen from For What It's Worth, Sandy from Pirate Penguin's Reads, Kristi The Story Siren, and many many more!  I also met Sophie Jordan (and didn't realize it was her until she mentioned who she was!), Gena Showalter (THREE TIMES--and holy crap, she remembered me and didn't even have to ask for my name at the following signings which kind of made me super happy [If you couldn't tell, I'm pretty much in love with her books]), Jennifer L Barnes (who was a HUGE sweetheart. We're both werewolf fans!), Beth Fantaskey (who recognized [and possibly visited] my blog!), Rachel Vincent, Leah Cypess, Maria V. Snyder, Artist Arthur, Melissa Marr, and so many others I'm going cross eyed trying to remember them.  A lot of authors, when I mentioned my name was Tori, asked me if it was short for Victoria.  Yes, it is.  Totally wasn't expecting them to be so chatty, it was wonderful!

It was so funny talking to bloggers while waiting on the autograph lines.  Pretty soon, I just started introducing myself as "The Book Faery."  I loved how peoples' faces would light up when they realized they recognized the blog's name lol! 

Anyway, I'll add little side stories with each picture.  I'm going to have to split this up into two different posts (Part II will be up on Monday) because I think I took too many pictures.  I went picture happy yesterday to make up for barely taking any on Wednesday.

Click to view the pictures

Also, clicking on any pictures will direct you to a larger version of the photo.

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WEDNESDAY

 
This is Sophie Jordan (author of the new series Firelight) and I!  I was standing by the booth, looking to see if Harper was going to distribute printed books (because around 9:45 when I got to their booth they were only distributing e-books [check the pic below to see what I mean]).  While I was waiting, she started talking to Phoebe and I.  Then suddenly, she introduced herself as Sophie Jordan.  It took me a minute to pin the name to the book, and when I finally realized she was the author of a book I've been dying to read, I kind of started getting all giggle-y.  Expect an interview in the near future, hopefully!


These were the e-books they were distributing to people.  It was pretty smart.  On the back they included a code so that you can upload it onto your computer.  You could then transfer the books to an e-reader…except for the Kindle.


As you can see, this was the Autograph Area.  They had about 30 Tables…each one occupied by an author either every 30 minutes (in some instances) or every hour.  I wish I could have jumped up onto a chair or table to take a picture of the entire thing… The lines were INSANE for this.


This was the Harlequin area.  I took this on Wednesday during the YA hour… and YES that is Gena Showalter standing behind the desk and talking to the woman with the blue bag.  A couple of bloggers I had been chatting with on the line started laughing at me because I started bouncing in place due to being so excited.


Took this picture when I was next in line.  Gena was signing Intertwined, her YA book, during the Harlequin YA-author hour.  When I actually got to speak to her, and when she recognized me, I kind of forgot how to speak English due to my shock/excitement.  At that point, I was just standing there grinning like an idiot.  Yeah, apparently I turn into an idiot when I get to speak to my favorite authors.

I’d also like to mention that, because there were about 6 authors all signing their books during this hour, it was PURE chaos.  I guess the people at Harlequin didn’t expect to have that many rabid fans (Rachel Vincent mentioned on her blog that they actually ran out of books to sign). 


Here’s another shot of the Harlequin “Spain” area (which was right next to the English area lol).  They had a REALLY soft and fluffy rug.  It was like standing on a cloud while all the books I gathered made me shrink into the ground.  Oh and the “3900” sign was that row.  There were a bunch of rows… I think it started from 1000 and spanned all the way to 5000?  I didn’t check, anything past 4700 was off my radar.

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THURSDAY


This was in the Penguin area.  I decided to take a few pictures of the awesome posters they had on their walls.  As you can see, this is from Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy series.


This is the book Matched by Ally Condie.  I’ve started to notice that I was a bit too enthusiastic about taking pictures of the posters at this point, and got a bit careless.  It looked a lot better in person!  Lol.


While walking in the isle, I couldn’t resist taking a picture of the new covers for Kelley’s books, along with Waking the Witch.  I love the new look!  (And I’m kind of really regretting buying Bitten when I did lol)


This was part of the Egmont booth.  Heather and I went here in hopes of obtaining a copy of Shadow Hills by Anastasia Hopcus.  Unfortunately, the woman we had spoken with yesterday was incorrect… they ran out of copies Wednesday morning.  Did manage to score a bookmark/pin though.


Here’s another picture of the ceiling and stuff.  No, I’m not obsessed with ceilings.  I wanted to show how BIG the 3rd floor was!


Kinda blurry, but here’s another display.  See that soft, fluffy rug?  It’s like walking on a cloud, I swear.


Here’s another angle of the Harlequin booth.  If you look towards the bottom right corner, there’s the desk Gena and the other authors were signing at the day before.  The red archway was a nice, unique touch.

 
Another angle of the Harlequin booth!  As you can see in the back, Simon and Schuster was beside Harlequin.  Pretty convenient.  And there’s the semi-circle desk where Maria V Snyder and Rachel Vincent were signing during the Paranormal Hour on Thursday.  There was also a super “secret” (except not really) room behind the Harlequin poster.  You can kind of see the door all the way on the right.


A shot of the Spanish Harlequin.  If you couldn’t tell, Heather and I were Harlequin lurkers on Thursday.  Wherever we went, we ended up back over here.  The chairs were pretty comfy at those tables.  Then again, I think anything I could sit on at that point was comfy.

 
Here’s Larissa Ione’s newest installment to the Demonica series: Sin Undone and yours truly.  It’s also the last book in this series.  But don’t worry, Larissa’s going to be introducing another series that branches off from this one.  I’m kind of mad about the flash.  You can’t see Con’s butt in this picture!  (And it’s a cute butt too…)  Also, the guy who was standing next to the desk probably thought Heather and I were weirdos because we wanted to take a picture with some poster. *g*


And here’s Larissa’s new book in the Demonica series (without me)!  Sin Undone looked absolutely amazing.  I wish the flash didn’t mess up the picture though =(  Well, at least you can see Con’s butt now ;)


And this is for Kiersten White, because I didn’t want to make her wait until Monday to see her beautiful cover on display!  I would have taken a picture with Evie, except that Harper pretty much had all their new release covers on a bunch of these displays.  I almost gave up hope that this one would flash onto Paranormalcy until, when I turned my back, Heather pointed back to the screen.  I GOT IT!  …and I must say this looks GOOD on the digital screen :)


Anyway that’s it for now, more on Monday, including the guy in the costume, plus the marijuana book!  (Yes, there was a marijuana book)  And if you want to see the books I managed to obtain the past 2 days, stay tuned for In My Mailbox this weekend.