The BEAN is back!

I never left but I feel compelled to explain my lack of posting since BEA 2012 ended.  Being honest, the summer of 2012 was mildly overwhelming both on the BEA front and maintaining a semblance of a family life.  I will spare details from my family vacation (although happy to share with interested parties).  Traveling to Taipei for the International Book Fair Directors meeting in July and then Beijing International Book Fair at the end of August kept me busy in preparing for both trips and adjusting back and forth from the time change, well, I am not quite as nimble in flipping that switch as I once was with a 12 or 13 hour time difference.  BEA was quite busy on a lot of fronts.  

I will recap a few of the things that have transpired, and some I did manage to blog about, but still want to summarize some of the plans for BEA going forward as 2013 is only 36 weeks away!  Hey - it takes 40 weeks give or take for a baby to arrive in this world, BEA needs all 52 weeks come to term (speaking of which: Congrats to Brien McDonald who had his second baby girl on August 29th).  

• BEA CHANGED the Show Dates  for 2013 to May 30, 31 & June 1, 2013 - Thursday, Friday Saturday.  This was done in order to help reduce BEA hotel prices and will save between 10% and 20% if not more at some properties across the board at BEA.  This will be a big difference in holding travel costs down.  Also this will allow BEA to have a much strong consumer day on Saturday June 1st.
• BEA opened up to consumers for the 1st time in 2012 and it went exceedingly well, in particular because we limited the number of consumers and kept he expectations to minimum .  The consumers that attended had an unbelievably positive and fun experience.  BEA is eager to open the doors wider for 2013.  We will still have limits so we can insure having consumers at BEA is good for publishers and great experience for the fans coming to BEA.
• The BEA Bloggers Conference was not without hiccups in its first year under BEA's care, but still exceeded expectations and grew significantly.  We look forward to announcing our advisory board of Book Bloggers that will oversee the content for 2013 and will be a sounding board for BEA to insure this is an event for bloggers by bloggers.  We will announce in the next 2 weeks who is on that advisory board.
• BEA launched BookBliss - this is the podcast and video home for BEA content and book fans.  Sticking with the baby analogies - this is in its infancy and we look forward to watching this grow and expand, creating place and a community for people who are passionate about books and want to interact year round.  
• A few more tidbits: 
• We are working with the ABA to secure an ABA headquarters hotel for 2013 (this is much harder that is sounds).
• The Javits renovation is nearing completion so BEA 2013 will have all the exhibitor meeting rooms on the periphery of the exhibits, making BEA more efficient and easy for all
• Moving the ABA Lounge will be moving to the show floor too - more bookseller on the show floor and more exclusive programs for ABA members.
• BEA received our 3rd party analysis and it turns our BEA's verified attendance was up 11% - this great because it validates all the positive reviews from BEA 2012.

I typically avoid any sort of editorial here in this space - wanting to just share info that is useful and relevant.  However there is so much going on in publishing right now from the personnel changes at the highest levels, to the DoJ case, the Kobo deal with the ABA, the Bookstats report had a ton interesting data and more on a daily basis, it might be hard to not offer some comments.