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There was an unmistakable sign of companies in retrenchment , according to various reports from BookExpo America, with many publishers absent altogether from the annual trade show this year.
The LA Times reports that for major publishing conglomerates such as Random House, which scaled back its presence to nearly nothing, or Farrar, Straus and Giroux and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, which opted off the floor altogether, there was a feeling that the business model had irrevocably shifted -- although to what exactly, no one was quite sure.
Publishers Marketplace notes that just under 30,000 people registered for badges this year and "verified" attendees was 12,025, down 11% from the last New York city show in 2007. About 7,000 of those attendees were book buyers, which is down about 13% from 2007--but significantly better than last year's LA show.
Otherwise, according to the LA Times, evidence of cost-cutting was everywhere, beginning with the convention itself, which occupied 21% less floor space than last year's show in Los Angeles. As for giveaways, once a hallmark of the show, they were almost nonexistent; even advance reading copies were in short supply.