I was a BEA zombie...Endgame

I was very excited about the children’s galley giveaways and had put them all into a spreadsheet. Out of all the galleys I saw, the one I coveted the most was Tiger’s Destiny by Colleen Houck. The publisher I had on my wish list, though, was Splinter according to Amazon, so when I was preparing the publishers to visit last week, I didn’t find them. Then Monday night I had found a link that posted all the galley giveaways and it was on the listed, only the publisher was listed as Sterling. I finally put two and two together and pulled out my mobile app on my iPhone to locate them and while Terri was on line for a signing, I made my way to the Sterling booth. I asked if they had any more galleys. No, they’re all gone. It was, after all, Thursday. I begged, I pleaded. I’m going to buy the book anyway; I just need to know what happens!!! After much wailing and gnashing of teeth, they let me in on a secret. The galley did not include the ending. That was to be kept a secret. Still, I couldn’t quite hide my disappointment. Little did I know that it would not be my only disappointment of the day.

Dejected and defeated, I made my way back to Terri. We made our way to the autographing are so we could get a copy of After, an anthology by Terri Windling and Ellen Datlow. We got there about 11:15 and the line was already closed off as they had run out of books. Not to worry. There was also a booth signing at 1. So, we made a drop off with our books, feeling refreshed that we had gotten a load of our shoulders and headed back for more.

After reading the book description for Darker Still, I wanted to get an autographed copy at 11:30, so I made my way over to the Romance Writers of America booth only to find that the singing had been postponed. Terri had gotten in line for Skylark, so I decided to join her. At noon, I made my way real quick like to the Penguin booth because I wanted to pick up a galley of Venom by Fiona Paul. When I got there, however, they did not have the book out as they had run out. I could have asked Terri to pick it up for me Tuesday or Wednesday, but it was one of those last minute add ons after I had read the book synopsis. So I missed out on that. I strode purposely back to line to catch up with Terri and it was just in time. We got our books signed and thought to get in line for Curiosities, which proved to be one of those must have books and very popular. We decided to get in line and see how long we would have to wait. The line went around the block, snaking into the shadows behind curtains and we lost sight of the end. As we couldn’t see then end and there were already at least a hundred people cued up, we decided not to wait. We were both tired and Terri’s knee was bothering her, so we made our way over to the booth for the afternoon signing of After. As we were a half hour early, we had to make busy for a bit. David Levithan was also signing at 1, and I had added him to my agenda last minute. His book, Every Day, sounded quite intriguing. We decided Terri would go back for After and I would get on line for David Levithan.

The line for him didn’t seem too long and just as I was about to cue up, someone got in front of me and said there were more coming that had been waiting in line God knows where. They just appeared and kept coming and lining up in front of me. I was then told by an official person I would need to wait for the end of the line. Like I couldn’t figure that out, but where the devil was it? I decided not to wait out of frustration and made my way back to Terri. As no one seemed to be getting in line for the other book, I decided I would go back after all, but now I was back even further. I had a very nice chat on line with the woman behind me. I took it from her comments that she was an author, but I was afraid to ask in case I hadn’t heard of her or if I had read her at didn’t like her, so I just made light conversation. She was talking about one of her books coming out on audio already and my curiosity got the better of me. I glanced down at her name tag and saw that it was Jeri Smith-Ready. My eyes got real big and I quickly tried to cover it up by acting cool. Terri had texted me to say the books for the afternoon signing of After had never been received, so the signing was cancelled. She eventually met me on line and I was trying to do that head bob thing to the side in Jeri’s direction. Now, I have never read any of her books, but Terri is a huge fan and she was clearly not picking up on my signals. She decided to go explore while I was on line so I texted her to tell her that Jeri was on line behind me. Unfortunately, she was getting lousy reception and didn’t get the message until after I was through the line. I believe she will never forgive me for this or at least never let me live it done, but then, neither will I. She said she didn’t recognize Jeri because when she has met her, Jeri has always been sitting down and she recently died her hair blond. Uh huh. She also berated me for not texting her while standing right next to Jeri and she thought I was just being weird with the head bobbing thing.

I went back to the Romance Writers of America booth to get Darker Still, but I also wanted to get a copy of the Paladin Prophecy at the same time, so Terri offered to stand on line for me, Jeri-gate forgotten for the moment. She is such a pal. Once I finished up on line, though, I had no more activities scheduled. Things seemed to be really winding down, though, and a lot of the booths had already started packing up. The show was promoted as ending at 5pm, but Terri had read a tweet that said the show was closing at 3 and I had read an email on my mobile app that indicated the same. It was a bit weird because there were scheduled autographings at 3 and 4. One was a book that Terri really wanted to pick up called Blood Born, so we made our way over to the booth anyway. It was about 2. They were packing up everything. They did have a stack of the book and when Terri asked if she could have a copy, they said no because they had to be taken back. I’m a bit confused by this. The books were brought to hand out. You are trying to promote the book. You have a person in front of you who wanted to come to the signing, she’s wearing a press badge and you tell her she can’t have the book you were going to hand out for free anyway.

After that, we kind of lost it. The sound while earlier was the constant hum of conversation was now replaced by the sound of packing tape being pulled from the roll and we knew it was time to go home.