Field Report: Book Expo America Visits Los Angeles
by Barbara DeMarco-Barrett

Eight suits crowded around a round table, listening intently to a woman with smooth black hair and thin black-framed glasses. She held up a catalog and pointed to something on the page and they watched. They might have been discussing education reforms or staging an incognito revolution. Instead they were focused on books, those forthcoming from this particular publisher, and I thought—and occasionally said to my companion and radio show co-host, Marrie Stone: "There are people still obsessed with books!" On this last weekend of May, 2008, at Book Expo America, the largest U.S. book convention, held at the Los Angeles Convention Center, there were many such intent, hunched-over groupings. And each time I passed one, with a degree of amazement, and happiness, Marrie and I took notice.

Yes, I was astounded. All this talk about no one reading anymore, well, you'd think no one was reading anymore. But funnily enough, the more that 2,000 exhibitors, 1,000 authors and 25,000-plus people who sat behind tables or wandered the exhibit halls seemed to think—or act as if—people still read. The librarians, bookstore owners, and authors who attended panels, even they were assuming people read. The agents, editors and publishers—they too thought people read. Authors, publicists, assistants, author escorts who were milling about and charging down wide hallways that connected the various halls, they were behaving as if books, and the people who wrote them, were a big deal. Imagine! Yet, it was apparent that the news of flat book sales didn't thrill anyone, but instead of wallowing in the woes of it all, attention was paid to other forms and ways of getting people involved with books. Dozens of panels were devoted to digital publishing and how to use the Web to market to customers. One panel I attended, Social Networking for Authors and Publishers, talked about how online social networking sites that connected authors and their books with the reading public were proven to increase sales and author visibility. One HarperPerennial editor declared that it was past time for authors to have Web sites and a presence on sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Shelfari, Ireadbooks.com, Goodreads.com and Gather.com. These sites are seen as vital to the prospering of books and an author without some sort of Internet presence is not good news.

"It's obviously such a new world with different marketing strategies that folks need to stay abreast of the latest trends, regardless of their age," said Marrie, 37. "I'd always shied away from those sites because I thought they were for the under 30 set. Clearly, I was so wrong." There also was buzz about young adult fiction and how the genre continues to grow. Graphic novels, too, are viewed as a growing genre. Walking around, Marrie and I marveled at the number of exhibitors of romance fiction and fantasy. Clearly, these are booming genres.

I asked my friend, Los Angeles publicist Kim Dower, what she thought about no one reading anymore. She said: "There are always those baffling and contradictory remarks regarding the book business: Books aren't selling…no one reads fiction…it's all about the Internet…literature is dead…on and on…and yet, yes, there at BEA in Los Angeles thousands of people running around to meet their favorite authors, hear them speak, get books signed. The crowds are endless in the publisher's aisles, clumped around the booths. What gives? "It's true that all the people who attend BEA are in the book business—booksellers, publishers, agents, authors, but it's clear by the energy at the convention this weekend the business of writing and publishing books is thriving and exciting, and books continue to and always will entertain, move us, connect us to one another, and change the way we see ourselves and the world. It all starts with the written word. Every movie, every television show begins with words! Without books there are no stories, no recorded history. Technology may be changing the way many of us get our information, but books will never go away.

"Many of my own clients including Robert Crais, T. Jefferson Parker, Philippa Gregory and Brad Meltzer were mobbed by their fans who all came to hear them speak and to get signed copies of their books. These authors are adored by their fans. Try to tell those people books no longer matter!"

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Barbara DeMarco-Barrett is editor of The ASJA Monthly and author of the award-winning best-seller, Pen on Fire (Harcourt, 2004). She hosts Writers on Writing, which podcasts at http://writersonwriting.blogspot.com Her essay, "Knitting: My Urban Escape," is included in Knitting Through It (Voyageur Press, 2008).