Conference: Book Expo America #BEA13

As many who are involved in the publishing and book world know, this past Wednesday, May 29th through Saturday, June 1st, was the annual BookExpo America. Held in New York City, at the Jacob Javits Center, it's a pretty huge deal for those of us living on the east coast.

Usually I represent Read My Mind for the entire event, however real-life work commitments interfered this year, and I was only able to attend one full day on the exhibit floor.

Saturday, June 1st, the last day of the convention, also coincides with one of the event's newest venture, Power Reader Day, where the public can register to attend as avid readers and book lovers.


For some, BEA is not just about acquiring "free books". It's the chance to network and build stronger relationships with publishers, publicists, and representatives of the world that exists to promote authors, a love of reading for the next generation, and improve literacy overall. This is the approach that I have taken in the past couple of years and how I want to present Read My Mind at the event. I think, because this is my 4th BEA, I've gotten a bit over the idea of grabbing as many free things as possible. That's not to say that I don't get super excited to hear about some of the books and authors making an appearance at the conference, by any means!

Since I was only in New York for an abbrieviated stay, I did not have a chance to attend some of the events that sounded really exciting this year.

I was uber excited to hear about the Publishing Hackathon that started the week before BEA. The finalists were presented at the conference. The idea of this type of event intrigued my inner geek girl.

Check out the Hackathon website for more info about the event itself, and who the finalists were.

One of the other improvements this year at BEA was the mobile app, available for Android, iPhone and iPad. I thought the Android app was fairly user-friendly. I was able to not only look up authors and their events, but also the books they would be promoting. There was a complete list of books being represented, and an "email" section where the conference sent updates during the day for some of the advertised events.

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Check back to Read My Mind where I'll have a post about my personal experience at BEA, and of course, THE BOOKS!