Confluence Counts

I don't if people realize it yet - but guess what? BEA happens to overlap with Internet Week for 2012.  The confluence of activity that week will be highly interesting and create unforeseen opportunities through one of BEA's key raw ingredients: planned serendipity.  

Aside from BEA and all the events that are part of Internet Week, under the auspices of BEA the week's activity will include:

• The ABA's Education Program
• The IDPF Digital Book 2012 Event
• Publishers Launch
• BlogWord & New Media Expo
• The Audio Publishers Association Conference
• The Book Bloggers Convention
• New York Book & Media Week
• BEA's Global Market Forum (GMF) program featuring Russia.

There will be a lot happening at BEA plus all over New York City and I do mean the whole city.  Russia's GMF program is the most ambitious ever done at BEA and will be bringing over 50 authors + librarians, booksellers and dozens of publishers on top of a whole host of cultural programs.  The New York Book & Media Week will see events in libraries, independent bookstores, Barnes & Noble and the Apple stores + more.  Blog World is going to more than double in size from 2011.  The IDPF Digital Book 2012 will likely get close to 1,000 people in their 3rd year of being co-located at BEA.  This is the second year of Publishers Launch which will run an outstanding in-depth program. 

What do you want from BEA???

We are in the midst of shaping our plans to make more of the BEA experience available via video, starting with the 2012 show.   Our initial plan is to stream our marquee events live along with some action from the show floor.   The marquee events are the Book & Author Breakfasts along with the various Buzz Panels - which is Adult Trade, Middle Grade & YA each have their own Buzz Panels.  

What we want to know is: 
If you that have been to BEA, what are the most compelling events?
For those that never have been to BEA, but wished to from a far - what do you want to see?  
Would you like to see what is happening in the exhibitor booths?
Is autographing more exciting? 
We do audio podcasts for almost all of the conference sessions - is there a need to offer video?  

We have to make decisions as to what we can include on video because covering it all is not a viable option, at least for 2012.  Please let me know what you want to see or who - should we interview people from the show floor - do you want to hear from publishers or booksellers?  Would you like to have pre-show video promoting authors so you can plan your time better at BEA?

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving - truly my favorite Holiday on the calendar.  Special thanks to anyone that takes the time to offer their opinions - they  will be most appreciated.

At what temperature do e-books burn?

Is there irony in Fahrenheit 451 being released as an e-book?  I think it is exciting that such an iconic piece of literature can be given new life as it is delivered in a new format.  But the essence of the format goes against spirit  of the book.  I cribbed this passage from Wikipedia (I know - not the land of true facts), because it brings me back the lectures from high school about the meaning of the book and what I thought about when I saw the news today.

Bradbury has stated that the novel is not about censorship, but a story about how television destroys interest in reading literature, which leads to a perception of knowledge as being composed of factoids, partial information devoid of context. 


I strikes me that e-reading devices are exactly what Bradbury portended is being destroyed, what was television in the 1950's are now iPads, smart phones and every other device that competes for our attention and eyeballs.