BookExpo America and Publishers Lunch Launch BEA Marketplace

Last week, BookExpo America (BEA) and Publishers Lunch launched BEA Marketplace, an online resource designed to facilitate communication and enhance the face-to-face contact between convention attendees and exhibitors. BEA Marketplace allows exhibitors to post comprehensive and searchable information about all their convention activities, promotions, personnel, and more, and it is updatable any time prior to, or during, the show. Convention attendees can use BEA Marketplace as a convenient way to plan their show experience.

"This is just the tool that so many of our exhibitors and attendees have needed to make their time at the show more productive," said Greg Topalian, vice president and show manager for BEA. "BEA Marketplace is a mirror image of BEA on the Web, and it complements all levels of convention business."

The new online resource is available on the BookExpo America Web site at www.bookexpoamerica.com/beamarketplace.

The joint venture between BEA and Publishers Lunch takes advantage of technology and database services developed and utilized by Publishers Lunch through its PublishersMarketplace.com Web site.

"It's like a super-charged electronic directory of everything that's happening on the floor," Michael Cader, publisher of Publishers Lunch, said. "We've built easy search boxes to let [convention attendees] find galley giveaways, key personnel by department, author booth signings, contests, exhibitors by specialty and lots more."

BEA Marketplace has a special rights component for both exhibitors and Rights Center participants in an effort to help interested buyers get a specific sense of what is being offered, whom to contact, and who is open for appointments.

BEA Marketplace is free to everyone who has an exhibitor booth or a Rights Center table at this year's BEA.

Additionally, the site allows non-exhibiting attendees to promote what they are doing at the show and gives visitors a way of finding them. Attendees who are not exhibiting or who do not have a Rights Center table at BEA may register for BEA Marketplace at a cost of $100.

Among the publishers and exhibitors who have now begun entering data and building a Web presence at BEA Marketplace are HarperCollins, Hyperion, Rodale, Baker & Taylor, and Tuttle Publishing.

For more information concerning BEA and BEA Marketplace, call (800) 840-5614, or visit the BEA Web site at www.bookexpoamerica.com.