A Run Of Short And Completely Unearned Observations About BEA

I'll admit I know every little about Book Expo America, the book industry's big trade show. I've only even attended twice. But reading this article by Calvin Reid and Heidi MacDonald and this follow-up personal post by Heidi MacDonald at her own site stirred something in me. Something dark and talkative.

My first completely unearned observation is that I would think they'd just quit dithering around and go full Comic-Con after what I believe is either an already-happened or a soon-to-happen move to New York. There's no reason you make that move otherwise, is there? The second is that the promised publicity boost out of having the event in New York sure didn't reach me this year. If it wasn't part of my workday to dig up stuff about comics I would have wondered around the fourth of July if the event had happened at all. The third is that I wonder if it isn't a really bad sign that the industry has rotted out a bit that it's a less vital show for that focus as opposed to a more vital show. Comics seems to have the same problem in that it seems like it could really use an industry-only convention but when they try to have some approximate it seems like there's very little to talk about or do. There's little industry to the comics industry, and it seems less all the time in books. The fourth and final observation is that I can't help but think the fact that a company like Fantagraphics can go to a convention like this with a Joyce Farmer book as one of their two main things to push isn't the strongest sign ever that companies like that have done well the last half-decade within book publishing because their infrastructure best matches the modest rewards available to a company through the bookstores. If you have offices in New York and maybe still a few highly-paid editors that survived the last purge and a team of marketing folk none of whom really understand the thrust and direction of media right now except to maybe make a Facebook page for the book in question, you have to bring a celebrity or a vampire to the show. If you're Fanta, you can show up with Moto Hagio on one arm and Farmer on the other.
 
posted 7:00 am PST | Permalink
 

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