BEA2014 Recap Part III: The People

The parties are fun and the books are great, but the real reason I go to BEA is for these...

I'm kidding!

It's the people. Authors, Editors, Publicists and Bloggers, THEY are the reason I check my couch cushions for spare change, sell cupcakes, and forgo opening actual presents on my birthday and Christmas, because I'd rather have the funds to put toward a trip to spend time with bookish friends!

Over the past few years, I've had the chance to friend a lot of people online and last week gave me the chance to meet and hug many of them IRL (In real life). A few even got cupcakes. 

I'm just going to apologize NOW because I KNOW there where be people I left out. Please know it's not intentional. It's because I'm old. 

Here is a selfie sampling of who I met. 

Brooke - The Cover Contessa

Danielle - Love At First Page

Jenna - Jenna Does Books

The GORGEOUS Meg - Cuddlebuggery.

 I've had the pleasure of knowing this lady for a couple of years now and we've been on a few book related adventures together. ;)

Malissa - Reads All The Books

  

Love these two ladies!

Kate - Midnight Book Girl & Kimberly - On Wings Of Books

Katelyn - Tales Of Books And Bands

 Katie from Mundie Moms and I FINALLY got to meet, YAY! Sebastian is creepin' over our shoulders though.

  

Author Rachel Harris

Author Kiera Cass

I was hanging out in the Twitterverse a few weeks ago when this pretty face popped up in my feed and I did a double take. Why? Her name is Jennifer Cooke, she hails from Dublin and she loves books and cupcakes. 
MY name is Jennifer Cooke (my maiden name), I love books and cupcakes and you wanna guess where some of my Dad's family is from? 

I'll give you three guesses and the first two don't count. 

When I found out she was also coming to BEA, I KNEW we had to meet! And we did. Twice.

This is the better of the two pics we took. :D

Jennifer Cooke x 2 :D

People I met not pictured: 

 Hafsah Faizal - Icy Books. I was SO excited to meet Hafsah! I just wish I'd had a cupcake on me. Next time though, I promise. ;) 

  

Lauren James - Love Is Not A Triangle. She spent an obscene amount of time listening to me ramble on in the hallway outside of the bathroom at the Epic Reads party. 

DJ - Life In Fiction. *cries*

Jessica - Lovin Los Libros. Jessica and I ran into each other quite a few times while waiting in line. David Baldacci's was the best though because Cassie McGinty, Publicist Phenom from Disney brought us iced cafe mochas to make our wait a little bit tastier. 

Cassie McGinty - Publicist at Disney. I met Cassie back in October when Hannah and I did our PubCrawl but it was great to spend some time with her on Friday morning chatting about all the Disney titles we have to look forward to like Stitching Snow, Killer Instinct, and Hook's Revenge. Plus, she bestowed upon us the mega cool Alexandra Bracken totes!

Andi - AndiABCs. Andi and I had special "Jere" buttons made for Miranda Kenneally's Breathe, Annie, Breathe signing...




 and we FORGOT TO TAKE A PICTURE TOGETHER! #SelfieFAIL.

Kallie Ross - Author of Descent. 

The Hypable Ladies. 

Lauren Blakely - Author of the smexy No Regrets series.

Authors Mary Kubica and Robin Talley both came up and introduced themselves while I waited in line which was SO COOL! Thank you ladies. :D 

I can't talk about the people without mentioning the nightmare that was Book Con. I thought Power Reader Day last year was bad. (I was tackled at the Sourcebooks booth. For real.) Book Con was worse. 

Whoever thought it was a good idea to sell 8,000 tickets to Book Con was greedy and stupid. There were SO MANY people packed into the left side of the Exhibition Hall at the Javitz you literally could not move. At one point, I had the horrifying thought that if there had been a fire, all of us would have died. No joke. The exits were blocked and the mass of people had no clue where to go, what line to be in or how ticketed signings worked. 

I had two objectives on Saturday, get a signed copy of Sethie aka The Return by Jennifer L. Armentrout, snag a copy of The Fire Artist by Daisey Whitney and then get the hail out of Dodge! I accomplished all three but not without a lot of stress and a few bruises. 

PS - Thank you, KP Simmon for helping a sista out with The Fire Artist!


I told y'all the line for Seth started behind me. 

Photo Credit: Hannah

The majority of my time, along with Hannah, and Damaris was spent helping Kate Kaynak from Spencer Hill navigate the 250+ people who came out to see Jen and get a copy of The Return. Behind the scenes stuff is my jam though, it's what I love to do.

However, as much as I enjoyed chatting with JLA fans and learning all the different ways to spell names like, Amy, Emilie, Nichole and Teresa, I was really frustrated on behalf of the people that came out. Book Con was supposed to be fun. It was anything but.
A lot of the fans were teenagers or people who had traveled a long distance, got in line long before the doors opened and STILL didn't get to meet the authors they wanted to. 

They were upset, disappointed and mad. 

Real mad. 
Like, fussing at me in a language I didn't understand, mad.  

I couldn't blame them though, the autographing area of Book Con was total CHAOS. 

There were a few cool spots like Cassandra Clare and Holly Black signing next to Jennifer Armentrout. Both tables had extremely long lines of adoring fans.

Photo Credit: Hannah

I met Cassie and Holly, both of whom were rocking some amazing shoes. But I missed out on a photo because I didn't have my phone on me. But then I saw this one. It totally counts. 

Photo credit: Mundie Moms Twitter

<--- me

At the end of four very long, exhausting, but exciting days, Andye and I were ready to hit the road and go home. This is the point when New York City morphed into Hotel California, letting us know we could check out anytime we liked, but we could never leave. 

Not really.

Not even when we went to Brooklyn, made it as far as Andye's car and realized the keys were in her purse. At her hotel. Back in Manhattan.

Or when we came back a second time got the car and headed back for our luggage. 

Brooklyn Bridge - Detour

Canal Street - Detour

Every other street GPS gave us - DETOUR

DETOUR

DETOUR!

We made it out barely eventually. 

Thanks for having me, NYC and Book Expo of America! Until next time...

 P.S. Andye, do you have your keys? ;)