Book Expo America 2013 - Day Two - Post 2.2

I recently stumbled upon the author Rainbow Rowell. I had been seeing Eleanor & Park so often come up in book searches that I decided to download a sample, which I haven’t read yet, by the way, but hey, I only found her like three weeks ago…maybe. Anyway, after I downloaded the sample, I searched for other books and found Fangirl. What? She wrote a book about my life? I was intrigued. Sadly, it was not out yet. So you can imagine how pleased I was to see that Fangirl was a MacMillan giveaway. I didn’t have it on my schedule, but I did see it listed in the daily paper. I could have sworn the signing was at 2pm. I was quite surprised when I walked by the MacMillan booth after I was done with the Harlequin signing. I looked to see what the galley was. Can’t remember now, but I walked by the window where the signing was and saw what book was being autographed at that moment. You guessed it. Fangirl. Had I gotten my times mixed up???? I have no idea how I thought the signing was at 2pm. I immediately went back around to the end of the line. One of the bothers was standing there. She told me that she thought the books would run out and I probably wouldn’t get one, but that I was welcome to wait and see if I wanted to. Well, I did want to. I didn’t have anywhere else to be at that moment and this actually made one less possibility for 2pm, so I decided to stick it out. People were lining up behind me and they got the same spiel. We started trying to eyeball the stacks of books that were left. Finally after about 15 minutes or so, the bother decided to go take an accurate count. Oh frabjous day! Calloo Callay! They had enough copies for me and about 10 people behind me. I was so overjoyed that I didn’t wasn’t even irritated that the bother almost talked me out of not staying on line. So, I got my book. Going back over my assorted papers, the event schedule for the booth did give a start time of 11:30. I knew it conflicted with something, but I was this close to missing it all together. So happy (sigh).

 

After my near catastrophe, I went to the baggage check and dropped off a load of books. I feel I was being fairly successful in my attempt at restraint. If you will recall, Thursday had me making three trips to the baggage check plus the tote I had at the end of the show. AT midday Friday, I was making my first trip of the day to drop off and I am proud to say it was the only drop off I made for the day. Any additional books I picked up I carried until the end of the day when I left.

While I was waiting to drop off, someone was standing there with an awesome Hobbit tote bag I had been seeing for the two days everywhere. Being the geek that I am and fan of JRR Tolkien, I just had to know where it came from. I was told it was being given out by Houghton Mifflin I believe, but the next drop was at 2pm. Well, I just had to get one of those bags. I grabbed my sandwich and headed back up, looking all over for the booth. I finally found it right next to MacMillan and they did confirm they were dropping it at 2pm and it would be the last chance. OMG!! The last chance??? Against any and all odds, I had to be there for that tote bag!!!!

It was about 1ish I guess, so I walked around near the booth, not hovering, mind you. Just looking for a nice flat clear space to have a sit down and eat my lunch. Some other people came and joined me on my square. I ate my lunch, checked my schedule, formulated plans of attack for the remainder of the show, but mostly killed time. When I felt a sufficient amount of time had passed, I got up to go hover around the booth. I turned the corner into their aisle and was met with chaos. They were have a signing for a children’s picture book, but people were also lining up for the tote. The line for the picture book was actually in the middle of the aisle causing all kinds of blockage. The line for the tote was along the edge. Still, quite a few people got in line for the tote thinking it was for the picture book. Even more people walked by asking what we were in line for. They seemed unimpressed that we were in line for a tote bag, but it is such a freaking cool tote bag. Do not let your hearts be troubled. I scored a tote. Aaaawesome!!


Once I had the tote in hand, I checked the schedule again. Everything was very carefully orchestrated. I had 5 events planned at 2pm as well as the tote, so I had to optimize my time. Optimization. It was my catch word for the day. There was a signing for Art2 D2 at 2pm nearby, which was basically a how-to for Star Wars origami. It was really tempting and I would have loved to pick it up as I have a wonderful little friend who is a Star Wars nut and she is 8, going to be 9 in November. I mean, she cried when she found out Ahsoka was leaving the Jedi Council on the Clone War Adventures. Anything Star Wars related tended to have a long line and didn’t last long. I had wanted to get her a copy of the Star Wars Jedi Academy book from Scholastic. Oh, yeah. That’s another thing I missed on Thursday, but I did manage to get her a Darth Maul pin. 

I’m way off track here, though. As I’ve stated many times before, I have been a big fan of myths, legends and fairy tales since I was a young child. While I don’t remember a whole lot, I do remember that. So when I saw there was a book called Mermaids in Chelsea Creek by Michelle Tea, I knew I had to go check it out. Sadly, it was a signing the book had to be purchased for and while I am not opposed to that, I was also not prepared to shell out $20.00 right there on the spot. Perhaps I should have. Perhaps if I had, the mermaids would have brought me good luck. But what to do next?

Completely forgetting to go back and check out the Art2 D2 book, I checked the schedule. There were some signings I had already picked up the prior day, so I could ignore them. That left a Jennifer L Armentrout signing for one of her books she wrote as J. Lynn. Now, ordinarily I would be all over that, but I found out the day before that she was not in attendance. They were handing out pre-signed books, but you still had to go stand in line at the tables. I don’t like the idea of getting a book signed when I haven’t actually met the person, so I skipped that. That left one of two options, either Viscious by V.E. Schwab which looked very interesting or I could be totally selfless and pick up something for hubby. Well I’m a softie.