Daily Thoughts 5/24/2011 Book Expo America

Still frame from the animated cartoon "Superman: Billion Dollar Limited" (1942). The film has fallen into the public domain, as its copyright has expired. It's available at the Internet Archive and many unlicensed videotapes and DVDs.




Daily Thoughts 5/24/2011


I was at Book Expo America today. I walked the floor which is an experience at the Jacob Javits Center.  I walked for six hours looking at all the different publishers and distributors  I saw Abingdon, Scholastic, Diamond Comic Distributors, Dark Horse Press, Da Capo, Hachette Book Group, Ingram, BWI, Baker and Taylor and many different publishers on the floor.

There were not as many galleys this time on the floor.  People were giving away cards for access to online e-galleys instead.  I still managed to pick up 43 pounds of books to send back to our libraries.  This is in addition to what I picked up yesterday.  It was very interesting looking at all the different booths.  There was a lot more coverage of ebooks including custom publishing for the Ipad.  Libredigital was selling a design for a custom ebookstore.

I said hello to Ellen Datlow who was at the Horror Writers of America booth.  There were a lot of authors at the conference.  Many of the books being given away were combined with author signings.  Gwyn Forster and Rochelle Alers were at the Harlequin booth, both of whom are very popular African American romance writers.

I stopped by the Hermes Books booth which is a specialist in the history of comics and the salesperson gave me a copy of Creators of the Superheroes by Thomas Andrae for my library.  It has interviews with Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, Bob Kane, Bill Finger, Jerry Robinson, Jack Kirby and Will Esiner.  I especially like the quote on page 34 from  from Joe Shuster:

"Jerry created all the names.  We were great movie fans, and were inspired a lot by actors and actresses we saw.  As for Clark Kent, he combined the names of Clark Gable and Kent Taylor.  And Metropolis, the city of which Superman operated came from the Fritz Lang movie, which we both loved."

There were quite a few interesting books which are worth adding to the collection.  A few that I especially liked were an unabridged audio cd of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte read by Nadia May,  Point, Click, and Save Mashup Mom's Guide to Saving and Making Money Online by Rachel Singer Gordon put out by Information Today Inc., Rachel Singer Gordon is known for running the job website, lisjobs.com for librarians, and an Advanced Reading Copy of Super Diaper Baby 2 The Invasion of the Potty Snatchers by George Beard and Harold Hutchins published by Scholastic.

I had a chance to sit down at the Librarians Lounge and read the Publishers Weekly Daily on the show.  A lot of the daily was about ebooks, Kobo, Google Books, Nook, Ipad and others. As usual, I took a break for coffee and sat for a while, going through my bags deciding which catalogs to take ranging from Nolo Press which is a self help legal publisher to Pyr Books which produces science fiction.  As usual there were a few knick knacks.  Harvard Business Review was giving its catalog out on a thumb drive which was interesting.  There were also bookmarks for a new Tony Hawk skateboard comic.  There were not as many freebies as last year.

Tomorrow, I plan on going to the panels at the convention for librarians which should be enlightening.  I had my chance to walk around the show floor and see things.