It’s the final day of Book Expo. The day we get to learn from yesterday’s mistakes and become ultimate super bloggers! We got out the door earlier. We planned our breakfast (which did not work because ice melt water got into our lasagna :'( ). No breakfast for us. We grabbed our show program and I made furious ARC drop notes. It’s going to take some tight planning and a little bit of luck, but we are going to do this!
We managed to get in line early for Daniel Handler (Lemony Snicket) early. We’re 2nd in line. (How are we on our game?)
Weird things have happened and it’s only 10 am. Check out this dog in the bathroom. (Srsly?)
And we already have some great unexpected finds. This X-Files children’s book is the most adorable stories with some stunning art. I’m in love.
We remembered to feed ourselves on time. Without breakfast we were dying at 11 am. I don’t think food has ever tasted so good and then it’s planning for the big afternoon of chaos. 2 book drops and 2 important authors all scheduled at the same time. The line for Leigh Bardugo started at 12 for a signing that started at 1:30. The unofficial line was full of good people insanely excited for this. Everyone else was panicking. Originally Penguin wasn’t going to respect the unofficial line but there are sooo many of us here they came around to our organizational skills. Me and Alexandra were pretty zen. Tag teaming book drops while we waited. The hype for Wonder Woman paired with how much the book world loves Leigh makes this such a big draw.
She was so nice and happy to see people in her line. But if you thought her line was big John Grisham’s line was mammoth.
Then of course there is Holly Black’s line for The Cruel Prince. This one is important to us. Number 1: we have been reading and loving Holly Black faerie books since we started high school. Number 2: our first Book Con, when Book Con was still small and relatively unknown, and we were young, naive and has no idea what Book Con really was we picked up just happened to be in the right place at the right time to grab the ARC of The Darkest Part of the Forest. It was the moment that cemented for us that this was a place that we needed to come to every year if we wanted to be bloggers and we wanted to be successful. And we have been coming ever since.
We managed to get nearly everything on our list BEA. I don’t think that has ever happened before. We are used to Book Expo being a day longer. One more day on the show floor. It went by so fast.
Our feet are sore. Our backs and legs and knees are sore. We probably have 75 lbs worth of beautiful, exciting books and it’s 365 days till next year. If there is a next year for book bloggers at BEA. As of now we are taking a break in our hotel room, happy and tired. Tonight’s reward for a job well done is Cheesecake Factory and properly aged tiramisu (oh my god yes).
Tomorrow is Book Con and the utter insanity that will be. Pray for us.
