Twitterpated at BEA

So I signed up for Twitter today (@BookFlack). I know, in the last post I said "no way," but that was meant ironically. I thought it would be smart to take the Twitter plunge because BookExpo America (BEA) formally kicks off tomorrow (with some preliminary events taking place today). This is the big publishing industry convention and runs through Sunday at the Javits Center in NYC. The place will be crawling with publishing bigwigs, agents, editors, etc. and more than 700 authors, including some pretty big names. It's always a circus and a lot of fun.

In the past I have attended as a representative of a publishing company, which meant I had a booth to use as a base of operations, and colleagues to interact with and borrow money from. This time I'm flying solo, wandering lonely as Wordsworth's cloud. Fortunately, Publishers Weekly invited me to be a guest blogger for them, reporting from the show floor on Friday (as noted on PW's website). It's good to have an actual reason for being there. And I thought I might do some tweeting (the accepted verb form of Twitter) while I'm at it. Or maybe not.

BEA is a trade show in the strictest sense--not open to the general public. (For a funny take on what it's like to attend, read this essay by Robert Gray from Shelf Awareness.) But even if you're not in the industry, Perseus Books has a clever promotion going called Book: The Sequel that you can get in on and contribute to. But you have to hurry--the deadline is 4:00 pm today.