• photo 1 – Lobby of BEA
  • photo 2 – Lilly on shelf a New Title Showcase
  • photo 3 – Me posing in front of Lilly
  • photo 4 – Lilly and Grandma Nellie in costume
  • photo 5 – Me with my high school friend and publisher of Triumph books (sports titles), Mitch Rogatz
  • photo 6 – Me with my attorney friend, Dave Ossentjuk, who used to work with me in Denver and now lives in LA

This was our first ever Book Expo America! As you can see, Lilly and Grandma Nellie went to the weekend event to meet and greet book lovers of all sorts. It was a very exciting and exhausting experience! Here’s what we learned:

  1. There are 800 books published every day of the year, and the sheer number of children’s books we saw was shocking!
  2. Not everyone is friendly at BEA. Some of the exhibitors are clearly not interested in talking to self publishers and frankly were lacking in sense of humor. But we did not let that stop us from pressing on!
  3. The positioning of The Travel Adventures of Lilly P Badilly: Costa Rica in the New Title Showcase made the book difficult to find amongst the countless titles at the event.
  4. There is large number of what I must call “vultures” who come to BEA only to get free bags and fill them up with free books and giveaways. They drag these huge loads behind them while racing through the showroom floors grabbing any and everything they can get for FREE.
  5. Blogging is phenomenal! We sat in on a seminar with a panel of 3 well known bloggers who each attract over 1 million visitors per month! These 3 authors had fabulous senses of humor, and we learned a lot from them. The written word can be so powerful!
  6. Librarians want to know about new titles. We attended 2 seminars with Librarian panels, and we were smiling each time. They explained that they welcome self published books, but they need to be available from Baker and Taylor, they need to have been reviewed, they must be of high quality construction, they love audio books, new children’s titles are always sought after and most importantly, librarians have a great sense of humor! And we all know lilly P Badilly readers need to have a great sense of humor!
  7. Wearing ridiculous looking costumes was a HUGE hit at BEA! From the moment we put our costumes on in the bathroom, we got a lot of positive attention. We were asked repeatedly who we were and what our book was about! We got smiled at, laughed at and pitied!
  8. There are a lot of other independent presses experiencing the same challenges as Smart Poodle Publishing! We met a lot of friendly folks who are also putting all their efforts into making their books a success.
  9. Ebooks and other internet works are on the rise. Reference books are becoming less and less popular because online content can be updated so much easier.
  10. Selling books is a competitive business! But it can be done with great success.

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