The Moment of Truth

I had the whole thing mapped out in my head; my blog announcement of my move to NY despite a lack of job. A scary and exciting prospect that has me leaving many loved ones behind. I had the explanation of why and how I could afford to do this and the confident ending that stated, “I’m not the type of girl who turns away from my fears. And while this move is scary there are so many adventures and experiences to look forward to, so I will step onto that plane with confidence and looking towards my future”.

Which is exactly what I did.

Yeah… that’s right… did.

I got off the plane to Long Island (2 hours of driving away from where I need to be – thanks free ticket touting step-dad) with two giant suitcases and a handful of things at 3:55PM yesterday. Of course, even a 2 hour drive tuned into a 5 hour journey with traffic and dinner in the mix. My explanation for the move is simple; I needed to do it. I have a far better chance of getting interviews and meeting the right people here in NY than down in Orlando, FL. The how: I have a free plane ticket and a friend who needs someone to pay half the rent. I was going to drive up in my original plans, after the realization that the move was possible, but some people talked me out of that. So all I have with me is two giant suitcases full of clothes and small knickknacks.


I’m going to be living on a air mattress for a little while and looking for an interim job as well as a start to my career. If I’m lucky, maybe I can get an unpaid internship during the day and work somewhere part time at night. If I’m super lucky, I’ll get the perfect entry-level career starter right off the bat and be exactly where I need to be. Right place. Right time.

It certainly seems like even taking this small step forward towards this place has opened up a few avenues that weren’t previously available already. Like the unpaid internship option. Even the process of getting from MacArthur Airport to Jersey City (where I’ll be living) opened up some new contacts. Apparently, I have more friends than I thought up here. Friends of friends and contacts of people I know have been flowing in since I made the decision to move. It seems that everyone I know knows someone up here and they’ve all offered to help me out.

The experience is a humbling one.

The next step is to settle in then start the search.

The Importance of Gratitude

This entire week I have been sending out Thank You notes to the people I met at the BEA, regardless if they will help to advance my career. Everyone, from who I received a business card, was very forthcoming with information and seemed genuinely willing to help or at least speak to me.

For example, I met a woman named Monique Duncan. She created a book about fruits “D is for Dragon Fruit” and as the name implies there’s a different fruit for each letter of the alphabet. What was wonderful about this book is that the fruit weren’t the everyday fruits that we are used to seeing here in America. The title caught my eye because I recently discovered Dragon Fruit for myself. And instead of going into my 30-second introduction, I started to share some of my experiences from Vietnam with many of the fruits she described in her book. Eventually we got onto the topic of publication and she told me that she started her own publishing business. Right now, they are very small, only she and one other I believe. But I was very impressed. So, while going through my thank you emails I very much included her. Wishing her all the best in her future endeavors and hoping that we have an opportunity to speak again.

And that’s how they are pretty much going. I’ve heard back from a few offering unpaid internship opportunities, which I would absolutely love to be able to do. The experience would be worth it, if I had the money. I know that an internship would very nearly solidify my foot in the door. But at this moment in time, I am sorry to say, it would leave me destitute.

(The picture: Homeless - sometimes you get to watch it happen)

Step Three - Day Three

I had done most of my hand kissing on day two so I wasn’t particularly concerned with obtaining more business cards on day three; however, contacts were made nonetheless. I was also able to restrain myself from collecting another 25 pounds of books, although I did collected enough for one more medium size flat rate box which my very good friend Deb will be sending on its way shortly.

The plan was to research all the smaller companies that I may not have visited the day before who worked on children’s books and introduce myself. There weren’t many. So I made another round throughout the convention and stopped to talk to anyone with children books.

One company simply looked like a ton of fun. I had noticed them the day before but the booth was so busy I passed by, not wanting to interrupt money making with networking. Both days they had a character from their books there (i.e. a man in costume). On the first day, Vordak the Incomprehensible was there. I totally should have gotten his picture and autograph. His book has been extremely entertaining as well as informative. Not many “How to Grow Up and Rule the World” books can boast that powerful combination.

The other set of contacts I made were actually by accident. I was in a line for… well – it didn’t matter. In general, if there was a line there, you got into it. Which is exactly how we started talking.

“What’s this line for?”

“No idea. I think it’s an author signing? Two books are scheduled to be released in 20 minutes.”

“Sounds like the perfect reason to get in line. Hey did you know that if you stared up at the ceiling people would stop and stare with you?”

Okay. So that last part might have come in later on in the conversation but we did discuss it. And I was very tempted to do it too.

So we started talking about all kinds of things. We had a big group of people chatting about what we did for a living, sightseeing adventures, past BEA conferences. Apparently, the more of these you go to, the less you take home… yeah right.

It turns out two of the girls I was talking with are not only bloggers (who, I found out, could get in FREE to the event! Where was the promotion code for that one?? Thanks a lot customer service!) but they also worked at a digital romance novel publishing house that just happened to be opening a young adult division soon. We ended up waiting there for much longer than 20 minutes so I was able to make friends. It was cool.

On the author side; I met Rick Riordan, author of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. He signed an audio book copy of his new book that delves into the Egyptian gods and goddesses. I wanted to be the first one there; partially because I intended to leave afterwards. Well, I was the first, and the people working at the booth made sure he knew it too. I was so embarrassed… when they started calling people up, I nearly lost my voice. I wasn’t particularly star struck, even though I am a fan of his works. I just couldn’t believe they told him that I was there at least 15 minutes before the line had begun to form. I was able to get out my name, but as soon as I had that CD I turned tail and nearly ran out of there.

The funny thing is, if given the chance, I would have told him myself. But there’s something embarrassing about it when someone else does the talking. :/

Step Three - Day Two

Kissing Hands and Shaking Babies.

I’m kidding! There were no babies.

The exhibition area opened up on the second day. I had no idea what I was in for. I immediately went in towards the Harper Collins booth which was full past the brim with people. I was looking for the one person who contacted me from my inquiries through the BEA website. I didn’t find her until later that day, in the middle of a small crisis, but I made it a point to thank her directly for her help. I think it’s important to do that with anyone who is willing to do any little thing to help you.

So other than that I simply went around to every major booth and told my little 30 second bio. I’m a recent graduate student from Florida looking to get into the publishing business because I know this is where I want to be. So I’m just up here trying to network and get to know a little more about it. Would it be alright if I left you my card?

This would generally be followed up with some questions from the person like, what area are you looking to get into? Or advice such as, we have lots of internship possibilities available on our website and that may be the best option for you right now.

I plan to look into those, but as I need a way to sustain my life, I will only be able to take the paid ones.

I spoke to several companies, both big and small. Do I think my business cards will make it to the right people? No idea. But I know I got many thumbs up from people who truly thought this was the best strategy for me to go with at this stage as well as a few who wanted me to keep them updated on my search. The next strategy will consist of me contacting them all and establishing a real network. One company did ask me to send my resume their way as soon as I could so that they could send it to their HR department. So, I must have impressed someone.

Meanwhile, as I’m smoozing, I also have the great pleasure of collecting free swag along the way. I increased my library 2 fold, no exaggeration. At the end of day one, I had 25 pounds of books. I know this because I had to ship them back. I used three of those medium sized flat rate boxes. At one point in the middle of the day I was forced to check two of the bags, which were also being giving out, full of books because I simply couldn’t carry them anymore. I had no idea they gave these books out. I will next year, and I will be prepared.

After 16 months of graduate school with very few breaks between classes and very little money to buy the books I’m interested in, this was a dream come true. I was like a kid in a candy store; picking up any book that caught my eye. What made it even better though were the authors. There were authors of all different genres there ready to sign and give out their books to whoever wanted them. I soon found out that many of the people there were bloggers, so I suspect since many of these books were not released to the public yet, this is also how books get reviewed.

The best moment of day was Adam Gidwitz, a second grade teacher from NY who wants to teach the kids of today that fairy tales, the original ones, are not for sissies. I was in the Penguin booth waiting for the second book of a series that I have been dying to read and Adam was there taking books from a box. I assumed that he worked there and started chatting it up. Low and behold, he was the author of the book he was distributing, “A Tale Dark and Grimm”. It’s about Hansel and Gretel making their way through the original Grimm fairy tales. I was surprised and a bit embarrassed that I had mistaken him. Not that I knew him from anything, this is his first novel, but I had been getting good at reading people’s nametags throughout the day; but I was tired when I met Adam.

So I said to him, “Since you’re here… would you mind?” and I held out the book I had already swiped from the box when he wasn’t looking. He said sure. I had him sign it to my nephew, who may be a little young for the material, but he will grow.

Monkey see, monkey do.

All it took was one person to see him signing the book for me and a line formed. So he sat at the table where we were chatting and signed every one of the books in that box. In fact, he eventually grabbed some personal copies from his bag so that he could finish the line. I don’t feel guilty. He said that before today he hadn’t signed any of his books before so it was an interesting experience. He said he was honored. I would be too.

He spent a few more moments discussing my book with me before getting up and leaving and I waited for my final book before heading off to the post office. It was a good way to end the day I thought.

7X20X21

There was one big idea that I neglected to mention from the first day. This was the 7X20X21. The purpose of the numbers: 7 speakers, 20 slides maximum, with only 21 seconds per slide. I’ve separated this one because it actually had some pretty new ideas in regards to the publishing industry.

The first speaker was Jennifer Egan. She showed us a chapter of her book using PowerPoint. It was an interesting concept, and I must admit that the dialogue and the different ways she chose to show us this dialogue, worked well. It was the other elements of her story that didn’t work well. Without the speech, the PowerPoint meant nothing. Now, there are many ways to set up a Power Point presentation, as learned in Grad School. But in this case, since the point of the presentation was to show a chapter of a book, one shouldn’t have needed to hear the speech along with it. So in all, it was a very interesting concept, but not one that worked perfectly. Still, there was promise there.

The second was Ed Nawatka who talked about teaching literature backwards. Currently, schools teach works like Shakespeare to students before teaching the works that are more fun and interesting to our time. Ed suggested that first we get students interested in reading, teach them to love the written word first, and then move up to Shakespeare where you can teach students to analyze his work, showing the tools and similar storylines along the way. I thought this would be a great exercise in teaching. I know that for me the analyzing and understanding of Shakespeare took a long time. Had I understood then how many stories are based on works from the past great authors, I think I would have understood those classics better. It’s difficult to analyze a story when you’re not sure what it’s about. Start simple, start with what you know.

The third speaker was Jacob Lewis who is the creator of figment.com. His speech told of a phenomenon in Japan called cell phone novels. These novels are quite literately written on cell phones by young girls who send piece by piece to their friends until they have a full and complete story. These stories then become viral with a website such as Figment.com where these girls can publish, share, or work on their stories. It challenges the intimacy of publishers in the US compared to those in Japan. It reminds me very much of when I was in high school. We didn’t have the technology of today so my friends still received page and after page of my story on paper. My friend Diana still recalls the assembly line formation we used to sit in. I was at the head writing and as soon as I completed a page I’d send it down the line and as each friend finished reading it, they would pass it along to the next. Even now I wonder, am I too old to try this cell phone novel thing out now? Maybe.

The fourth speaker was Nick Bilton who spoke primarily of technochondrea – the fear of technology. He discussed the next generation and how they simply won’t have the same fear as the older generations about privacy and e-books. As I said in the previous post, there was a noticeable gap between generational comfort levels with social media, so I thought this speech was very enlightening towards the old-fashioned publishers in the crowd. However, he brought up one topic that I have to wonder, is it really a good thing? He said we are becoming an acronym society. Nick states that the new generation who write things such as the following are simply developing a new form of narrative…

DEEZ YUNG FOLKS PUT THEY EVERY MOOD, EVERY THOUGHT,JUST..EVERYTHING ON (FB).... LMBO LUV U... ITT...I SAY...LOL

((Taken from a friend’s FaceBook page and abbreviated. I have no idea what this is saying at the end.))

Apparently, this type of narrative development has been around for generations and its how languages change and develop. He showed us a slide with some formal, proper names of things compared to what we call them now. None of which I thought to write down at the time. So, I can see his point in how the language has developed. But has no one thought this is going too far? I mean, we don’t even teach proper grammar in schools anymore. The FCAT is only concerned with reading comprehension and vocabulary. Does anyone in middle or high school know how to point out the subject of a sentence anymore? Is it still important to know? Was it ever?

Justin Taylor and Eva Talmadge were the fifth and sixth speakers. They were partners in a new book that called for pictures of literary tattoos. So, naturally their slides were of pictures. They called it physical literature and they showed some very interesting quotes or pictures etched forever into people’s bodies. However, beyond that there wasn’t much to say. They were the worst pair of speakers at the conference. It was as if they just said, let’s just go up there and wing it. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s exactly what they did too.

Clay Shirkey finished the seven speakers with a very interesting history lesson. Apparently the printing press was created by the Catholic church in order to create more “indulgences” which where basically “get out of hell free cards” for sinners. With one of these indulgences, you could commit any sin and it wouldn’t count against your immortal soul. They created it in order to command a better hold on the people. However, after indulgences, bibles were the next thing to be printed. And with the wide spread knowledge that brought, (you know… literacy) people began to think for themselves rather than rely on the church to do their thinking for them. This allowed for the Protestant revolution, blah, blah, etc. His point was that “abundance breaks more things than managing scarcity.” Basic supply and demand issues; Low supply = high demand; High supply = low demand.

He was cautioning the creation of e-books through publishers. Questioning how long these companies will have a future if everything is too readily available online; but at the same time, trying to get them to understand that people will find a way to upload the copies themselves. So, publishers need to come up with a way to manage things quickly.

He was also trying to sell his “reading is sexy” t-shirts. I want one.

Overall, this was one of the most informative and creative lectures I’ve been too in a long time. It presented ideas to think about while showing the audience new trends in the industry.