BOOKEXPO AMERICA: NOT DEAD YET

On Wednesday, the opening day of BookExpo America (BEA), North America's biggest annual publishing event, Garrison Keillor had an op-ed in the New York Times that declared “the publishing industry is dead.” Even without this verdict from the host of "A Prairie Home Companion", such concerns were on the lips of most of the 29,000 publishers, booksellers, authors and publicists who attended. Not that such grand proclamations went down easily. At a breakfast hosted by Jon Stewart, for example, the host of the "Daily Show" and author of the forthcoming “Earth (The Book)” quipped, “Here I and thought [Keilor] was dead… No one understands cutting-edge media like a man who does written radio plays about a fictitious town."

The internet has created the greatest changes in the industry since Gutenberg's breakthrough. This was in high evidence this year at New York’s Javitz Centre, where in addition to booths by publishing houses, imprints and booksellers, there were many booths for e-readers and plenty of the Kindles, Nooks and iPads themselves (along with sundry foreign knock-offs).

Yet to this outsider, BookExpo 2010 looked like the bustling gathering of a fairly healthy industry. Some veterans claimed that this year’s crowds were padded by the many who couldn't attend the London Book Fair last month, owing to Eyjafjallajokull's flight-cancelling belches. Others put the frenzy to the fact that the expo was only two days, instead of the usual three, and on one floor instead of two. Perhaps, but the energy I felt while combing BEA's aisles was one of real curiosity. And that’s what books still provide—who’s the new author, what’s the new trend, and of course, what’s the new diet?

Blogs and free online content have reach, but books remain a potent way to attract attention. And publishers still have better access than bloggers to big names, which, as this year’s BEA once again proved, are what sell books. Whether it was Tim Gunn, Bernadette Peters, Donald Margulies or Mika Brezinski, all of whom signed books within an hour of each other, people are still willing to spend either money or time in line (most BEA books are galley giveaways) to learn what these people have to say.

"For a dead industry, this seems pretty lively,” I noted to a publishing vet on the convention floor. "That’s funny," she replied, "another friend of mine said the same thing yesterday.” Dying or not, BookExpo America will be back in New York next year—restored to three days.

~ JAMES C. TAYLOR

Picture credit: LearningLark (via Flickr)