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BEA 2007 report

07.06.07 Gayle Feldman

It was a busy BookExpo America at New York's Javits Convention Center last week, with about 30,000 visitors--including 8,000 booksellers, librarians and buyers--sampling a varied, lively schedule.

The fair, which ran from 31st May to 3rd June, was buzzing with a packed line-up of panels; specialised sessions directed at the growing black and Latino sectors; a lot of good books, but no "book of the fair"; and a good number of visitors from Australia and South America.

The UK collective stand, previously the largest, this year slipped to second place behind Perseus, which increased its turf with the Publishers Group West clients taken on from bankrupt wholesaler AMS. And yet, ever since the American Booksellers Association's annual ABA gathering became the more diffuse BEA, ever since the chains, warehouse stores and internet retailers shaved the independent portion of the pie, there's been a duality about the fair. This year it was especially keen.

There were the easy symbols: sweltering heat inside the hall on Friday giving way to air-conditioned deep freeze on Sunday; and the Brooklyn location of the indies' "Hotel ABA", separated by the East River from the taxi-challenged Javits on Manhattan's far West Side.
But it was other kinds of dualities that lingered. At breakfasts packed with independent booksellers, bestselling authors Khaled Hosseini, Lisa See and Alice Sebold thanked them for changing their lives. But one publisher lamented privately that if he'd had as many as "a half-dozen real conversations" with indies during the fair, he "would be surprised".

There was Book Industry Study Group's Trends report, predicting a couple of excellent years for elementary and high school textbooks, while at the same time, others predicted that digital filtering down from professional and college would dominate el-hi sooner than expected. BISG reported that hardcover trade sales slipped and trade paperbacks rose; revenues increased slightly overall, but only because of higher prices.

David Wolfson, Harper vice-president of international sales, commented that export business had been "great", but also noted: "What we saw less of were the Europeans." There were also fewer Indians, Middle Easterners and Africans than at the London Book Fair.

Panels dissected the decline in book review pages in America, while a session with Starbucks' Ken Lombard highlighted the fact that the Starbucks brand, when hitched to a book, can catapult sales in ways most review pages only dream of. Farrar, Straus and Giroux had sold in between 15,000 and 20,000 copies of Ishmael Beah's A Long Way Gone before it was pushed through the coffee chain. Starbucks has now sold more than 140,000 copies of the 400,000 copies FSG has in print. It has already started selling books in the UK, and is considering other options, such as expanding into audiobooks.

Much talk was devoted to the nexus of community and technology. Rick Wolff, executive editor for business books at Grand Central Publishing, told how an author used internet communities to market a book with a problematic title. Retailers were loath to touch Bob Sutton's The No Asshole Rule, but Sutton connected with bloggers and sites, and more than 100,000 copies later, Wolff is "a total convert".

Another experiment marrying technology and community attracted attention. Powell's, the large Portland-based bookseller, is launching "Out of the Book", a series of short films about authors and their work. The first, made with financial backing from Random House, focuses on Ian McEwan and On Chesil Beach. It was previewed at BEA, and 54 indies have already signed on to show the DVD in stores, local bars and other venues.

Borders c.e.o. George Jones, meanwhile, referred to his plans to use instore technology to help build "added value and more of a community and overall experience".

The community of American publishing meets at BEA for all sorts of reasons, including educating itself about new technological developments. Most important, though, is talking face to face.

Bridget Marmion, director of marketing at Houghton Mifflin and a veteran of three decades of ABAs and BEAs, recognises the benefits inherent in serendipitous conversations and discoveries, but also posed a few questions.

"What is the fair doing beyond that talking in light of publishers' substantial investment?" she asked. "Is the timing right, given the changing rhythms of our business? Is a big, random show the best format to get to know the next generation of independents and taste-makers, and to maximise conversation? We should all be asking ourselves those questions, as an industry and individually, for the future."

US Gayle Feldman BEA

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