BookExpo

Jay Steele did not expect to win BookSense.com's first-ever Poetry Slam, held on Saturday, May 31, at BookExpo America in Los Angeles. In fact, Steele didn't even intend to read his winning poem, "Trans-Substantiation," a riveting and personal composition about his transsexuality. But he finally did stand up before a crowd of over 100 people to read at the end of the event. "It was a last-minute [decision]," Steele told BTW. "I usually write and hide it."

It had to be a cultural milestone in the mainstream acceptance of graphic novels. The in-store book group at the unquestionably mature Elliott Bay Books in Seattle, Washington, recently chose as its featured discussion title Chris Ware's Guardian Prize-winning graphic novel, Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth (Pantheon).

Talking before a large crowd of independent booksellers on Friday, May 30, at BookExpo America, ABA CEO Avin Mark Domnitz presented the financial findings of the ABACUS 2003 study. Introducing the session, Domnitz told attendees, "It's a big day for me, to go publicly with what we've been working on for a year…. In our heart of hearts, we hoped to put together 150 bookstore submissions [of financial data] -- we thought that would be a good sample. We ended up with 197 submissions."

Writing is a solitary endeavor, it's said. But for those writing children's books, there are all sorts of collaborators -- before, during, and after a work is done -- to help a writer produce a book.

On Friday, May 30, at BookExpo America, over 40 current and potential BookSense.com users attended the hour-long BookSense.com Users Group meeting, where they heard about the latest features of BookSense.com, as well as planned enhancements to the product. Moderator Len Vlahos, BookSense.com director, told BTW it was a productive session.

On Saturday, May 31, at BookExpo America in Los Angeles, the session "Economic Impact of Locally Owned Businesses" attracted a large crowd of independent booksellers who came to hear about a recent study that documented how local retailers contribute more to the local economy than do national retailers. The panel featured Steve Bercu, CEO of BookPeople in Austin, Texas, and Dan Houston of Civic Economics, who discussed the report "Economic Impact Analysis -- A Case Study: Local Merchants vs.

As was announced at this year's BookExpo America in Los Angeles, the American Booksellers Association has signed a letter of intent with Givex to launch a national electronic gift card program for stores participating in the Book Sense marketing program.

BookExpo America recently released attendance figures from this year's BEA, held May 28 - June 1 in Los Angeles. And, despite concerns that this year's show attendance might suffer due to the war in Iraq and the nation's ongoing economic woes, attendance figures were strong. The total figure for all industry professionals attending BEA 2003 in Los Angeles was 27,143. The total number of book buyers attending BEA in '03 was 6,684.

"Stacks of books were piled high all over" reads a passage from the opening chapter of a new work by German author Cornelia Funke -- a passage that might almost describe the literature-laden aisles of the Los Angeles Convention Center last week, during the 2003 BookExpo America. "Small piles of books, tall piles of books, books thick and thin, books old and new. They welcomed ... with invitingly opened pages; they kept boredom at bay ... and sometimes you fell over them."