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Live from the Acela, Part Deux: Back on Track
by
Bethanne
10:12 AM
Categories:
the reader's advocate
It's 8:00 p.m. EST on Sunday evening, and I'm once again on the Acela, this time heading back to DC from NY after a Book Expo America that was so productive it has provided me with blog fodder for several entries (and maybe even several weeks, if I think about things carefully) (Nah).
Moments before I began to type, the train started to move again after a long delay due to traffic ahead on the track. We should be at Union Station by 8:30, and that means I should be back home with Mr. Bethanne, the Mini Mavens, and our incorrigible hounds before bedtime.
Ahhhh, home. There's no place like it, as Glinda the Good Witch instructed Dorothy.
However, there's also nothing like being with your professional kith and kin -- which is why BEA remains an important event. As many people have been saying (on Twitter, in blogs, during the conference itself), BEA may not remain an important event in its present guise. It may have to drastically change. It may vanish completely.
What will remain? I believe that even if orders no longer matter, if sales relationships and independent bookstores dwindle even further, and publishers decide to develop a completely new business model that doesn't require (very expensive) show floor real estate that the publishing industry will still need some way to gather professional kith and kin for education and conversation and recreation. (This is even more important considering that some of those "kith and kin" resemble Clampitts and Trumps as well as Addams Family members and Munsters -- and fight like Hatfields and McCoys.)
I'll be sending a blog in shortly that will describe and deconstruct a remarkable party that took place last Friday night, but before I talk about pure fun, I want to think for a bit longer about pure connections. What needs to happen to something like BEA? Do you wonderful readers and responders have some thoughts to share?
PS: This happens to be a post that I should have sent in last Thursday -- but I was too busy attending panels and grabbing galleys to sit down and write. My apologies!
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(smile) "Kith and Kin" Don't often find Gaelic phrases thrown about "friends and family".
Looking forward to the deconstruction.
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I'd like to know more of your thoughts, about the whys and wherefores of this venue, Bethanne. I'd address it, but I know nothing about it.
Kathy
Edited: Bethanne wrote:
BEA remains an important event.
BEA may not remain an important event in its present guise. It may have to drastically change. It may vanish completely.
I want to think for a bit longer about pure connections. What needs to happen to something like BEA? Do you wonderful readers and responders have some thoughts to share?
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